Airport madness or a tactical ploy?

It seemed rather a strange intervention for Boris Johnson to make suggesting that a new airport may be required at the Thames Estuary.However there may have been a method in the madness.

Boris may have been instructed to divert atention away form the Tory party's squabbles over the plans for Heathrow.

It is the battle between the green diversions of David Cameron who would rather have a slimmed down version of the airport and the business lobby who are crying out for a new runway and want to turn Heathrow into the spendid gateway into Britain.

As Jim Pickard at the FT reports

The government has already considered the proposal for an airport off the Isle of Sheppey, but concluded that such a project would be hugely costly and problematic. Some estimates have put the cost as high as £40bn ($73bn), including associated transport links and facilities