So who won then?

It will take a while, perhaps years, to work out whether yesterday's announcement on Heathrow is a disaster for the environment or so hedged around with conditions that the new runway may never be viable.

Certainly, in the short term, the proposed increase in flights though mixed mode has been put off, although, bizarrely, Geoff Hoon seems to have used this as an excuse to push through the runway, as the Guardian's Dan Milmo points out:

He said his refusal to allow more arrivals and departures on the existing site in west London made the need for a new runway all the more urgent.

Meanwhile, "Climate Change" secretary Ed Miliband has been telling the Indy's Andrew Grice that he won the last ditch negotiations with Hoon.

He spent Wednesday with the Transport Secretary, refusing to budge over his concerns that the expansion would scupper his forthcoming "carbon budget" designed to put Britain on track to meet its target of an 80 per cent carbon emission reduction by 2050. In the end, sources close to Mr Miliband say he won concessions. He negotiated for the third runway to initially run at half-capacity, limited to an extra 120,000 flights, and he secured a guarantee that carbon emissions from aviation would fall to 2005 levels by 2050.

"Ed is satisfied. The business lobby will effectively get half a runway," said a source familiar with the talks. "BAA won't be happy but we couldn't make an announcement that would blow our carbon budget straight away."

Labour MP and ministerial aide Andy Slaughter is now officially thinking about resigning, having met Gordon Brown yesterday, according to Grice.

On whose authority?

BAA is the private (foreign owned) monopoly owner of most of the country's major airports. It may be colluding with the government to secure a third runway at Heathrow but it is very definitely not a public authority. It was privatised in 1986.

But according to the BBC:

The British Airports Authority (BAA) is calling for a high-speed rail link to Heathrow to complement a third runway at the west London airport.

Who's spinning?

The tories are continuing to row with British Airways, perhaps happy to show that, unlike Labour, they are not in the pocket of big business. Today Theresa Villiers is accusing BA chief executive Willie Walsh of spinning the figures over the impact of a high speed rail link. Walsh had said the tories were all over the place on aviation policy. Villiers says:

“We are not all over the place on aviation policy,” she said. “We have made a firm decision on the third runway at Heathrow. It is not a decision Willie Walsh wants but it is decisive.

Fair enough, but it looks like it's the tories' figures that don't add up:

"Willie Walsh is challenging our figures on the basis that only Leeds and Manchester flights are included.”

Ms Villiers said that, based on the Government’s own figures, there were 63,200 flights last year between Heathrow and the six destinations – 13,200 to Leeds and Manchester and 50,000 to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

“If roughly 63,200 flights were substituted by high-speed rail, that would free up slots at Heathrow equivalent to 28pc of the total 222,000 capacity the Government say would be generated by a third runway,” Ms Villiers said.

Are the tories really saying that a high(er) speed rail link between London and Leeds and Manchester would mean no-one flying between Heathrow and those four destinations? And even if they did, according to the tories that would be only 28% of the capacity of a third runway.

One grumble about the frequent absence of the word "that" from news stories. Sub editors don't like the word and don't understand how it provides clarity and how its absence causes confusion. In this piece:

She denied scrapping the runway would infuriate big business and believes she can convince firms of the greater merits of high-speed rail.

Five words into the sentence, I'm wondering which runway Theresa Villiers is denying having scrapped. But no, what the Telegraph means is that she denied that scrapping the runway would infuriate big business....

Great prediction

Looking further into Labour's position on the third runway, I read this in last Tuesday's Times:

The Times understands that Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, strongly supports the proposal and is likely to make the announcement in its favour as early as November.

From Wednesday's Times:

Ruth Kelly has confirmed she will step down as Transport Secretary to spend more time with her family.

Milking the drama

This morning Iain Dale said that David Cameron should call for a recall of parliament to deal with the latest financial crisis. Cameron didn't quite go that far, but showed how desperate he is to pretend that he can do something about it. It looks a bit sad really.

Meanwhile, Labour's John Hutton has tried to outflank the Tories on the pro-business front:

"By opposing Heathrow expansion and now casting fresh doubt on their support for new nuclear power, the Conservatives have today shown they are too weak to take the major decisions so businesses and the economy can succeed."

Pros and Cons

On Comment is Free, Christian Wolmar has mixed feelings about the tory proposal for a high speed rail line and isn't sure that either the policy or the numbers make sense.

By supporting high speed rail wholeheartedly, the Tories have thrown the gauntlet down to Labour which has dithered over this issue, refusing even to sanction a detailed study of the possible costs and benefits despite a manifesto commitment to that effect. Moreover, in cementing their opposition to a third runway at Heathrow, the Tories have made it even less likely that this outrageous scheme would ever be built.

But does new rail infrastructure, like new airports, encourage travel?

There is an interesting example already on the existing high speed line. In order to increase usage of the line, the government decided to pay for the purchase of high speed trains that will bring in thousands of commuters from Kent. Indeed, housing is now being built in the Ashford area to accommodate them and therefore the overall effect is to encourage people to travel longer distances. The environmental case for high speed lines, therefore, is far from proven.

Vote Tory, save the planet

Have the Tories exposed Labour's inability to take action on the environment? Today's proposal to build a high speed rail network instead of a third Heathrow runway gets my vote.

There are some dodgy (obviously made-up) figures in the proposal:

Villiers will announce that a Tory government would spend £15.6bn between 2015 and 2027 (£1.3bn a year for 12 years) to build the new high speed rail link from London St Pancras to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. A further £4.4bn would be paid by the private sector.

These have obviously been plucked from the air. Then there are the train times:

Journey times on the 180mph line would be slashed: London to Birmingham would take 45 minutes instead of 80; London to Manchester 80 minutes instead of 125, London to Leeds 97 minutes instead of 125 and Manchester to Leeds 17 minutes instead of the current 55.

You can actually get from Kings Cross to Leeds in under two hours. But it does indeed take the best part of an hour to travel the 36 miles from Manchester to Leeds, which should be a cause of national embarrassment.

BA on BAA

The Guardian quotes British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh as saying that Breaking up BAA, the monopoly airport owner privatised by the Tories, will not help passengers. His main argument is that the issue of concern for the Competition Commission is already being addressed. BAA, like BA, is already:

enthusiastically backing a third runway at Heathrow

That's OK then. The Guardian says that the extended consultation over the third runway:

has alarmed airline executives, who fear campaigning by local residents and environmental groups is swaying ministers.

God forbid that the government would listen to public opinion rather than vested business interests.

In BAA's pocket

The Sunday Times story about Department for Transport officials colluding with BAA to fix the results of the consultation on a third Heathrow is a real scandal. Sadly, it doesn't look as if it will be picked up as such.

It's another example of how civil servants in the Labour government see themselves as there to do the bidding of big business. The Times also revealed last October that civil servants had conspired with mobile phone companies to stop the EU cutting charges for international calls.