Today Parliament is expected to finally give plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport the green light. The vote will not be without its dramas. The Conservatives (along with their friends the DUP) are on a three-line whip to vote for it. This decision has seen Greg Hands resign as a trade minister and Boris Johnson mysteriously absent for the vote – thanks to Foreign Office business. Given that the Foreign Secretary once said that he would ‘lie down in front of those bulldozers’ were the expansion to happen it may be that his protest will come later.
As for Labour, Jeremy Corbyn’s party have been granted a free vote on the issue. Although the Leader’s Office is rather anti-Heathrow – and the shadow chancellor John McDonnell has a constituency in its path – Unite are pro the plans. One Labour official tells me that the money Len McCluskey’s Unite plugged into the ailing Labour Live festival may have helped to get to this point across.
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