The great Heathrow debate goes round.. and round. Boris declares it toxic.

London's Mayor, Boris Johnson, whose job it is to do the best for the capital rather than the country or even neighbouring boroughs, addressed the Confederation of British industry today. Once again his theme was the impossibilty of expanding although his primary reason that  expansion of Heathrow could never happen because it is "politically toxic" was the worst possible reason anyone could give for not proceeding. Many things are in one way or another politically toxic but simply have to be done in the national interest. expanding Heathrow is one, building HS 2 is another as are more motorways. The UK is in serious danger of none of these,-or their alternatives such as a new Thames Estuary airport,- ever being built , and so maintaining the sclerotic status quo with UK Plc losing business while its transport arteries clog up further by the day. Don't tell anyone that the end game after that is total failure.

Yet again Mr Johnson, fresh back from his clearly mind boggling trip to China, claims that Heathrow having less flights to that country than does Helsinki is a major problem. This gets repeatedly trotted out by many people. The fact is that it isn't a problem. BA could be flying to several more Chinese cities right now if it wanted to but it doesn't. The airline has a good stock of slot sitting routes,-eg Leeds, Rotterdam,- which with no disresepect to the cities concerned are hardly strategic or big money makers and could easily be switched to long haul destinations. There are no plans to do so. Why? Passenger volumes and yields are likely to be low so they won't make much, if any money. For British businessmen the prospect of an easy change of flight at Helsinki, Dubai or anywhere else should not prove too daunting or even much of an inconvenience. If it does they are probably unlikely to have the strength and resolve needed to do business with China or anywhere beyond the M25 London orbital motorway anyway.

For all David Cameron's talk, also at today's CBI jamboree, of fortune favouring the brave, the need for action etc, this one is set to run for a while yet. He has no intention of being brave enough to get the report on London airport capacity and what to do about it published before the May 2015 General Election. It is indeed too politically toxic, particularly for the Conservative Party with its string of west London constituencies under the Heathrow flight path. Meanwhile airlines serving and wishing to serve the airport increasingly gasp for air,- and concrete.