As an earlier contributor said, when the Thames stopped freezing over for the annual ice fair, no one thought it was anything to do with their coal fires. Yet winters turned so mild in the early 1900's, that convalescing soldiers from the Western Front were sunbathing on the beaches at Eastbourne and Brighton.
The airline industry in the UK has outgrown its infrastructure. How stupid in the past to build new 'international' airports with just one runway. The decision 30 years ago not to build a new airport in the Thames estuary will be an epitath to spineless indecision by politicians. They are very quick at ruthless opportunism to jack up taxes on the back of alleged environmental concerns, but decisions which keep the golden goose laying the eggs are put off.
Actually I hope the travelling public do boycott the 'budget' airlines. They alone are responsible for this 'backlash' and giving aviation a bad name. Pay and conditions, except for pilots of course, are rubbish.
If the amount of money over the years given to private railway companies for the sake of political dogma, had been given to a single integrated British Rail network, we would have the world's best railway system. Again it is the fault of politicians who did not see the need for a fast train network, unlike France and the rest of Europe.
How ridiculous as well to sell off your prime airports to one organisation for the sake of profit. What a staggering ideologically conceived mistake by the Tories.
One moment you have ex Environment Minister David Miliband slagging off Prince Charles over flying to New York with his entourage to collect an environment award, yet before the ink is dry in the newspapers, Miliband sits in a Club seat with his entourage on a BA 747-400 for an environment conference in Delhi!
The low cost airlines saw an opportunity and now this Labour government is reigning them in. The same will happen in Germany too where the Green lobby is very strong. But at least the Germans are getting on with some sort of replacement via a TGV style high speed rail service between all its major cities. Nothing like this going on in the UK. Just the usual home grown bashing of successful businesses and industry's.
Last edited by Poof in Boots; 2nd Sep 2007 at 20:57.