Interesting comments about the future of the Thames Valley. Suspect that shifting the majority of the jobs out of there AND having the residents put up with plunging house prices (thus preventing them being able to move to an area of rising house prices should they wish to) would have a much greater effect on marginal constituencies then any amount of LHR expansion, and this will concentrate the minds of politicians.
Any suggestions that LHR would close is a bigger fantasy than the "white elephant" island. "Silicon valley" expanding into a vacated LHR site is also nonsense: like all high tech industries, "silicon valley" needs an airport nearby. BA, BD (or BA-BD) and VS aren't moving their hubs, the other airlines, many of which have already paid millions for slot pairs (and need to recoup their investment) aren't going either. Charter and no frills are staying at LGW, LTN and STN, and business short haul won't leave LCY.
We are a sovereign country up to a point, increasingly less so because of the EU of course. We could pass a law to close LHR, but MPs in the often-mentioned marginal seats would doubtless have something to say about that, as would other MPs because of the precedent it could set. Even if the law passed, would it not be challenged in the courts? Like all large companies, Ferrovial, and other companies have access to top lawyers, litigation could go on for years!
Is all this a sensible use of public money? Clearly not. Whether we waste millions on Boris's vanity project or not LHR stays open. So that raises the possibility of a twin-hub arrangement. Can only think of one example of this working: at Idlewild JFK/Newark EWR in New York, and that only works because of the vast amount of domestic traffic at each airport.
Let's face it, LHR expansion is the only game in town, we need a third runway yesterday and a fourth one today and they do not have to be as long as the existing ones. Cameron stated at PM questions a couple of weeks ago that Miliband is incapable of doing a U-turn properly. It's time for him to show that he can!
PS love the photographs of Shanghai.