Quote: "Fantasy Island cannot be built without shutting down its competitors, therefore it cannot be built. End of discussion."
Nicely put, jabird, succint and to the point.
Quote: "Have you never heard of a compulsory purchase order?"
Indeed, but do you have any idea of the cost (in compensation)?
Quote: "Which is exactly why it WILL be built. What developer could not resist getting their hands on the most valuable piece of real-estate in Britain."
A site of special scientific interest and wildlife haven in the Thames estuary "the most valuable piece of real-estate in Britain"?
You're losing it big time, silverstrata!
Quote: "You are rather forgetting that one of the MAIN attractions of Silver-Boris, is that it is NOT on dry land. The UK is, thanks to the efforts of New Labour to bury the UK under 500 million people, the most densely populated nation in Europe."
No, the most densly populated countries in Europe are Belgium and the Netherlands, and probably Germany. The UK is densly populated in parts, but equally, huge swathes are empty.
Quote: "We NEED landspace, and the relocation of LHR will not only give us extra landspace, it will place much of the noise nuisance of Europe's biggest airport out in the estuary. That is not a drawback, it is a selling-point."
Obviously it isn't a selling-point, the idea of an estuary airport has been around since the 1950s. Rightly, it has never been taken seriously.
Quote: "JER, IOM, GCI - benefit the regions? Aren't these just commuter routes for bankers??"
Look on the bright side: bankers could provide decent yields for carriers on those routes. There is other traffic as well, for example, tourism and businesses other than offshore banking/financial services.