Skipness One Echo:
Stansted as London's #1 is fantasy.
I know, it's just that it's only 30 minutes' drive from here, compared to Heathrow's 90+M25effect. It would make more sense than Heathrow for anyone who wasn't in London or the SE, but no one else matters. I used to work in Bishops Stortford so I'm well aware of the opinion of the locals. I have some sympathy, although the airport was there before they were.
That's the problem with a brand new site - it suddenly affects a load of people who might have chosen to live there because there were no main roads or low-flying aircraft nearby. The same goes for other things such as football stadia - if you move next to one then you've got very few grounds for complaint about matchday noise, but if they suddenly come along and build one in the big field next to your quiet house, you've got a lot more reason to be aggrieved.
EGLD:
The Tories will be elected and scrap this along with ID cards.
No, they'll manage to do nothing so that by default it happens and they get to blame it on the present Labour government, especially if they don't have to pay towards it. Hopefully not as true with ID cards.
Ultimately the greens will lose until they persuade enough people to stop flying (or the price goes up and people can't afford to fly). Only then will there be enough opinion on their side to influence politicians to the required degree.