The tricky Tory politics of Heathrow

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/17/tory-politics-heathrow-airport-expansion

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Boris Johnson may be coming down with a bad case of the malady an Indian writer recently identified in his own country, "authoritarian envy". Interviewed this morning about the interim report of Sir Howard Davies's Airports Commission, the London mayor sputtered with frustration at Britain's inability to get its act together and keep up with its international rivals: "You go to Hong Kong, they're flying every hour of the day and night," he said, forgetting to mention that in the Chinese territory decisions can be made without too much regard to the pesky demands of voters on the flightpath.

Oh to be "China for a day", the New York Times columnist Tom Friedman once wished, envying Beijing's ability to make radical decisions on infrastructure by diktat. That sentiment now finds its echo in the Heathrow debate. "China building 70 airports & expanding 100 by 2015. How woeful our #heathrow faffing appears to rest of the world," tweeted Christian Guy, director of Iain Duncan Smith's Centre for Social Justice.

Both Johnson and Guy are voicing a lament heard often these days, which is perfectly illustrated by rows like the one over airport expansion: that democracy means paralysis. Whatever your views on how – or whether – we should increase our aviation capacity, you can see the problem.

Expanding Heathrow is cheaper than building a brand new airport – as envisaged by the mayor's dream of a "Boris Island" hub on the Thames estuary, to be named after Margaret Thatcher – but is politically radioactive. Too many west London voters don't want a third runway at Heathrow and too many of those live in marginal seats the Tories desperately need to win.

So David Cameron is hemmed in. Facing him in his own party is a hard core of opponents, led by the ecologically minded Tory MP, Zac Goldsmith, who has now reissued his threat to force a by-election in Richmond Park, a seat he won from the Lib Dems by a whisker. Among Cameron's coalition partners stands Vince Cable, Lib Dem business secretary, MP for nearby Twickenham and another implacable foe of a bigger Heathrow. And, perhaps the toughest opponent of all: himself, circa 2010. Before the last election, Cameron vowed: "No ifs, no buts, no third runway," a read-my-lips commitment that, if broken, would leave a huge hole in the PM's credibility. As another ex-IDS luminary, ConservativeHome founder Tim Montgomerie, put it today: "A promise is a promise is a promise."

So the political cost of a third runway is high, but so is the price of inaction. The business lobby is strong within the Conservative tribe and, apparently with George Osborne as its spokesman, it demands new airport capacity, ideally at Heathrow. So Cameron is caught between two unpalatable options.

Which is why Davies's commission exists, to take a decision too hard for politicians to take by themselves. The "independent commission" is a favourite device, supplying that little dab of non-democracy – a smidgeon of China – needed to get things done. It allows a government torn in two to put power in the hands of those who will never have to face the voters – and to make sure they do nothing till after the next election, just to be on the safe side.

When Friedman made his "China for a day" wish, he was bemoaning the democratic world's inability to take the action necessary to save the planet. The Heathrow row surely prompts even greater pessimism on that score. If it's this hard to agree on a move that will only add to our carbon emissions, how much harder to do what's needed to bring them down?

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