Tories Trash Third Runway
The news that the Tories are opposing a third runway brought about the response of “about time” from me. As Her Majesty’s Opposition it’s the sort of thing that they should have been up to a long time ago. It’s also a sound piece of populism: protests in opposition of Heathrow Expansion have been well attended and I met a pair of rank & file protestors returning from one recently who were strikingly articulate. They were also the sort of “Swing voter” that politics is largely fought around. Opposition in my area of London (West) is by no means difficult to find. The campaign is well organised and well supported, with propoganda peering from numerous windows and posters over various trees.
This intersection of local and national politics is inevitably going to benefit whichever party promotes the policy popular amongst locals: as they are the ones most affected they are the ones who have the matter as a priority. For the most part the expansion is an immensely minor issue for voters, if indeed it registers at all. It thus makes good sense for the Conservative’s to oppose this policy: it will lose them roughly no votes and gain them ones from those who do not wish the noise and disruption they fear from a Third Runway inflicted upon them.
The difficulty for Labour is considerable: they can either fall in line and seem to become a Party in reaction rather than in power, or continue to enrage a set of voters with a party to turn to. This is by no means the typical Triangulation (when the alientated have no alternative) that New Labour covets. It shall be enlightening to observe their reaction.
And the tories reap the benefits of a pinched Lib Dem policy again…
Like when someone passes your writings off as their own: it’s very flattering, but credit would be nice.