Friday, January 16, 2009

David Boyle on the government's Heathrow decision

Read him at The Real Blog:

This is a No Pasaran moment for the green movement, shared by an extraordinary cross-section of society who believe there has to be a limit to what we sacrifice on the altar of wrong-headed progress. That there has to be a limit to the appeasement of those corporate interests that believe with so little evidence that the decision will benefit London, the economy, the jobless or anything else. The destruction of whole villages, twelfth century churches, the peace of great swathes of London, the sight of elderly ladies bundled into police vans: it will change the way people think.

In short, they will not let it happen, and the resulting clash is going to be painful for both sides. But there comes a point in history where the powerful so misread the signs that they lose their power, and so it will prove.

2 comments:

dheigham said...

'No pasaran' - 'They shall not pass' - is a bad precedent. Franco did get through into Madrid.

Nich Starling said...

And all those millions, like me, who want a foreign holiday will ask why it is that these people chose to live so near to Heathrow Airport in the first place.

I am not trying to be difficult, but we have people here in NOrwich who move to within 800 yards of Norwich Airport then complain about Aircraft noise, and as for Stansted, I have known about plans to extend Stansted since I was little (it is alwways on the local news), so for people there to be shcoked by news of further expansion is a joke.

Seriously, the is an issue for environmentalists and for local people around Heathrow, but for many, the majority, they just wont care.