Incidentally although as one poster pointed out there were six runways , on this map 23R/05L is labelled Runway number 7 ??
As far as I can tell, the one that is missing is number 3. Isn't that what they're trying to build now?
The game isn't over yet, there's at least one election and a load of other stuff before anyone starts demolishing or digging. Apart from the fact that the people around Stansted will be a trifle annoyed, I still reckon that adding the second runway there and putting in a good, high-speed rail link between there and Heathrow would be better. If they can keep the transit time around an hour, that's often no worse than a practical connection through Heathrow anyway, although there's always someone who's miss the last train. Once that was established, Stansted could be slowly improved to take over as the main airport over the course of a couple of decades.