Top executives lead revolt on Heathrow third runway

I'm sure Future Heathrow would like to believe that if you're against the Third Runway, you're just an irrational tree hugger or an ignorant Luddite, completely blind to the economic environment and business demands of the next 30 years or so.

Or maybe you're one of those people, happy to sit back and watch the UK slide down the international competitiveness league (although the finance sectors and woeful government have already done a pretty good job at facilitating this). To this end, they have published a list of 100 leading businesses and organisations which say "yes" to a third runway. You can find out who they are here (1.5MB PDF) - encouraging to see that Future Heathrow is included there.

Now apparently, not all companies are as short-sighted as these organisations and a number of high profile chief execs have spoken out about the proposed development:

• Justin King of J Sainsbury
• Charles Dunstone of Carphone Warehouse
• Ian Cheshire of Kingfisher
• Sir Roy Gardner, chairman of Compass

It's encouraging to see rationality coming from our business leaders. Read the full article here:

• Top executives lead revolt on Heathrow third runway (The Times)

Geoff Hoon's property empire built on taxpayers' money

In their ongoing exposure of politician's expenses, The Telegraph reports that Geoff Hoon managed to build himself a nice little property empire worth £1.7 million, after claiming taxpayer-funded expenses for at least two properties.....

British Airways records worst ever loss

BA's pre-tax losses were £401m for the year to 31 March, nearly double some analysts' estimate. Combine this with BAA's recent loss of £316.2m and you have two companies which look in a desperately sorry state.

I wonder how they can afford to go ahead with their destructive plans? Unless of course, the expectation is for the taxpayer to fund them? I'm sure that's in there somewhere...