skyman it's not that difficult.
The men and women who pay the massive amounts of tax that susidise the Soviet style public sector in the North of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales pretty much live and work in the London area. MASSIVE amounts of tax from the likes of RBS alone went straight into Gordon Browns coffers to subsidise the massive growth in the public sector in the UK economy.
Now politicians of ALL parties were happy to watch the cash roll in during the good days. Now however, the City of London is suffering as are a lot of the businesses in the South East. This area was and remains the primary drivers of the UK economy.
Connectivity to the world through Heathrow has played a MASSIVE part in seeing so many foreign companies come to the UK. They are of course free to take their business elsewhere....Globalisation and the transfer of jobs and capital abroad is only now being seen in action.
As for Gatwick, this has never come close to doing the same job that Heathrow can, nor will Stansted. When Heathrow was opened up, the long haul growth at Manchester plateau-ed out. Today we have BA in a new Terminal that whilst not world leading is certainly remarkably impressive and beats CDG hands down. Heathrow East promises to be similar. So we now have BA in new facilities and STAR ALLIANCE promised the new East complex. Terminal 4 will complete a refurbishment this year which will see a much better experience for SkyTeam and others. Done properly, Heathrow has turned a major corner, and contrary to the doom merchants is starting to deliver big time.
London is a world city and needs a world class airport. Boris the Menace's fantasy island won't happen, the airlines don't want Stansted or Gatwick and Heathrow has been where it has been for long enough for anyone moving to the area to be aware of where they were moving to.
A strategic decision for the long term good of the economy has been taken. Like Sizewell B, the Newbury bypass or Runway 2 at Manchester. The Cassandra's predictions of the sky falling in on all of those projects have not come to pass.
I should also add that as I write this, global warming has seen the heaviest falling of snow in Central London in years. I'm not dismissing the truth of this, but the considered truth will only be known over centuries.
We are danger of allowing the lights to go out on civilisation due to a hysteria fuelled argument. There has been little considered debate on these matters, like recycling, it's is taken as fact and the public sector takes policy as gospel.
The best analogy is Crossrail, delayed due to a recession with disastrous results for transport in the London area. Let's NOT make the same mistake.