Bonking Boris bounces back

The old boy has bucked a trend in the recent council elections, and been re-elected as Mayor of London. As the Conservative party took a fair old pounding across the Country, the female pro-Boris vote held strong and he was able to fend off Ken 'the con' Livingstone and remain firmly entrenched in County Hall.

It's nothing out of the ordinary for the incumbent Government to get roasted in the mid-term elections, so I suspect Dave and his crew will be fairly relaxed about the wider political picture. He might, however, be looking over his shoulder from time to time to check that Boris is still maintaining that he has no presumptions about being PM. That could all change though.

In the last term we had the introduction of the Boris bikes into London, and he is now well placed to see through the Olympic Games in a few weeks time. I suspect his major focus, and legacy, though will be to try to force through the plans for an estuary airport  at the mouth of the Thames.
The four runway airport will reputedly cost between £40-£70 billion and would be built on to artificial islands near Whitstable. Bet the oysters aren't too happy! Norman Foster favours a land side airport on the Isle of Grain and there are alternative options for Gatwick and Stanstead, although Heathrow does now seem to be out of the running.  With Gatwick and Heathrow likely to be close to meltdown during the upcoming Olympics, there will certainly be a ground swell for a new facility near London. Link it somehow to the Eurostar and fast trains to the North of England and we could see the Boris Island Airport gather some momentum.

At the moment there are minimal UK flights to China, India and Brazil that the UK are missing out on very lucrative deals with these rising industrial giants. Guangzhou, the main industrial centre in China has no direct flights from Heathrow. Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt have 800 a year between them. So clearly something must be done. Will the finance be there, can the nature and ecology problems be overcome, and would it really take 20 years from conception to delivery. If that's the case Boris better get bonking!!!