Expanding Heathrow

The protest about Heathrow airport rumbles on with typical tedium. This time, those scampish protestors have come up with a very different idea to highlight their concerns. Yes, in this recession* and at a time of crashing property prices, they've only gone and bought a ruddy piece of land:

Greenpeace director John Sauven said: "We've thrown a massive spanner in the engine driving Heathrow expansion."

Yep. In fairness, this may well piss of those expansion types no end. But no doubt they will find a way. Even given the reach of this, *ahem*, eclectic group of protestors and now land barons:

The campaigners - including actress Emma Thompson, Tory front bench spokeswoman Justine Greening, Lib Dem MP Susan Kramer and impressionist Alistair McGowan - bought the land for an undisclosed fee.

One of the most intriguing things for me is that two of the group named above are MPs. It really comes to something when MPs feel their best way to influence policy is to indulge in Greenpeace led campaigns. And I also find it it intriguing, and mildly irritating, that they have the money to (part) finance the purchase in West London.

I have a limited amount of sympathy for these protestors. Unsurprisingly, I am not that bought into their arguments about climate change - the problem of noise pollution would be more concerning for me (and, I suspect, a lot of the people who this campaign will need to win over in order to be successful). But there's something else that is worth highlighting, since most of the media coverage we see is about the protests and is effectively airing the views, opinions and theories of the protestors.

See, there is a reason why Heathrow airport needs to expand. It isn't coping with the volumes of air traffic it is expected to deal with, and something needs to be done. And this isn't purely about airlines and BAA making money, although they all will do so from any expansion to the airport. There will be a net gain to the whole of London by expanding the number of passengers that will come into Heathrow. It will create wealth and jobs in London. And given the economy is getting more and more horrific by the day, wealth and jobs coming into this nation's Capital City can only be a good thing.

Libertarian bloggers are often accused - sometimes with merit - with being long on complaints but short on actual solutions. Yet we could say exactly the same thing about these protestors. They are certainly vocal with their complaints, and they are taking direct action to stop Heathrow expansion. Yet they are not offering any alternative to the expansion of that airport - given the current economic climate and the implications of not expanding that airport, doing nothing is not an option.

Whilst the group quoted above are probably not typical of Greenpeace members, I find their professions quite telling: two are MPs, who can quite happily live off the public purse, and the other two are celebrities working in media. None of them are really going to be affected by the recession in any real way. And none of them are directly exposed to what, if I were to be scathing, might be called "the real world." Their protest is certainly eye-catching, but in reality is nothing more than a gimmick. And if they really want to win people over to their campaign, they need to offer an alternative, as well as headline grabbing stunts.

*Well, we will officially be in recession in a few days, but you have to be pretty fucking naive - or Chancellor of the Exchequer - to deny that right now regardless of whether the nation has hit certain criteria or not.