The debate about the third runway at Heathrow Airport is naturally receiving a great deal of attention from the London-based media. Its wider ramifications, however, should be followed by those of us outside the M25.
Wednesday's vote in the Commons saw the government's majority slashed to just 19 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/28/labour-survives-heathrow-expansion-vote ).
Most of the Labour rebels, listed by the Guardian report, represent constituencies already under Heathrow's flightpath. However, there were also some Labour MPs representing seats in the Midlands & northern England who voted against this latest act of environmental terrorism (for that's what it is). Credit to them, whose ranks included Walton's Peter Kilfoyle. This blog hasn't always been favourably inclined to the Honourable Member for Liverpool Walton, but it's nice to see that, at least on this issue, he has sided with the unarguable contention that adding to London's air traffic is tantamount to state-sanctioned insanity.
The other local MPs seem to have been either conspicuous by their absence from the Chamber, or happy to act as New Labour's lobby fodder.
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