I doubt it is dead in the water. Watch what Cameron said very carefully. He said that building airports was not Boris’ job. It isn’t. It is the Government’s. He said that it was not current Tory policy. I am sure it isn’t. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be future Tory policy. Cameron does not appear to have said he opposes the scheme and will never support it.

Which is smart. Cameron is offering a “small target” strategy. He is keeping quiet to give everyone the chance to vote against Brown, even if that means few people are voting for Cameron. Supporting a new airport would annoy some voters and that is not smart.

Let’s wait to see what Cameron says once he is in power, has seen how much money he has to play with and is lobbied for and against.

No, mate, it’s dead – there’s no support for it at senior levels in the party and quite a large chunk of the lower levels hate Villiers for opposing Runway 3 at Heathrow (which is a play for west London votes, in the main). The support is only from west London Tories and Kit Malthouse, who don’t draw much water, really. Cameron’s job is to bury it as quietly as possible while the doctors are summoned to sit on Boris’s head until May. Face it, Dave isn’t going to announce in public that it’s an idiotic idea that only a fool would come up with. Be realistic.

Add in that it would have to be funded at the same time as official policy is to build high speed rail lines (competing for private finance, since they’re unlikely to fund either out of taxation) *and is barking mad and unworkable anyway* and it obviously won’t be appearing in the manifesto before 2015 by which time Boris will be gone or going.

All this does is make it more likely Cameron will U-turn on the third Heathrow runway.

But not before the election. You’d be a sucker to vote Tory in West London or anywhere else.

It’s also dead because it was an unbelievably bad idea, full stop.

“All this does is make it more likely Cameron will U-turn on the third Heathrow runway.”

I’ve long had this down as a good outside bet, it’s not like the lobbyists who got their tongues down the back of Labour’s trousers on the issue have gone away, after all, there’s also a good deal of support for it on the right of the party while the opposition is from the Villiers tendency + local west London NIMBY types. The latter would be absolutely outraged, however, since opposing the runway is Talking Point One on their campaign plan.

What actually needs to happen is for someone to press Boris (no laughing at the back) on why his London Plan says London needs new runways, but he won’t tell us where they’ll go in the absence of a viable Estuary Airport project.