BA might be closer to the Long Haul only concept than you think.
Substantial rumour that WW has been in contact with Ryanair management about offloading Short haul to that airline.Maybe BA Connect was just the start.
I can hear all the replies now but with all thats going on in the airline industry at the moment stranger things have happened.
I can imagine the flight crews responce but whatever you may think of Ryanair they have got the low cost model right and are now the equivalent of Southwest in Europe.