Many thanks for the update Suzeman, i'm glad you came to "broadly" same conclusions. Always value your comments !
That civil servant chappy looked as though he had just got off a bus to attend the meeting, my God talk about all a bit last minute. It really was Yes Minister stuff at times.
I also felt that Mr Davies who is normally quite calm and well collected looked very flustered almost alarmed when Manchester was mentioned !
But why, had George had a word ?
"come now Howard have a sherry, now we don't need to mention anything in the report about that airport at the end of my garden do we now"
To me it was very evident that in the light of being possibly wrong footed he tried to make light of it by seemingly trying to deviate in a comedic sense before that same MP lambasted him suggesting he get back on track sharpish.
Maybe I'm taking conspiracy theories too far BUT it all just seemed very odd !
Maybe politics were at play re the questioning but Mr Yorkshire did mention Manchester no less than 3 times and did seem to have a few detailed facts at his finger tips that he could throw in that in my view left Mr Davies somewhat wrong footed.
He gave me the impression he knew his stuff rather than it being stage managed AND he was a Tory don't forget ,so wasn't necessarily saying it just to be obtuse, I felt he believed what he was stating ?
You could feel his exasperation when they discussed Birmingham.
"so you have been to Birmingham but not Manchester...
don't you think you should have been,
that strikes me as rather odd ,
do you not intend visiting Manchester Airport ?
Instead of dismissing Manchester as a complete irrelevance as per the report he seemed very rattled that somebody should even have had the temerity to mention it !
Mr Yorkshire also suggested what I have been saying surely part of the remit of the commission was to come up with some creative thinking ....
whilst I do not disagree with RW3 quite frankly a monkey could have come up with same conclusion inside 10 minutes !
"OK lets just build a another runway in 5 years then" !
One other point, he dismissed Manchester pretty much on the basis that people in London fly twice as many times as them thar Northern folk.
How is that calculated ... just curious?
Last edited by Bagso; 21st Jan 2014 at 23:14.