The Evening Standard splashed today on a story claiming that “thousands of green campigners are planning to cause massive disruption at Heathrow airport”. I don’t wish to begrudge London’s local paper its “exclusive”, but the New Statesman had this story in the issue before last. In fact, the Standard should really have attributed its scoop to the failed Labour leadership candidate John McDonnell.
As I wrote last week: “If, as McDonnell predicts, opposition to Heathrow expansion becomes the focus of the biggest environmental campaign in 21st-century Europe, Brown could find himself ambushed by some very crude politics of opposition. An encampment of green campaigners outside the world’s busiest international airport would certainly draw attention.”