The hypocrisy of these actor luvvies complaining about the Heathrow expansion was covered admirably yesterday by the Institute of Economic Affairs and rather more robustly by The Daily Mash.
From today's Evening Standard:
CELEBRITY critics of the third runway at Heathrow were accused of "hypocritical behaviour" by a government minister today. Transport minister Lord Adonis suggested that vocal opponents such as Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson should explain why they regularly flew all over the world themselves. In an interview with the Evening Standard, he said: "People who are frequent flyers have to square that with wanting to deny others the opportunity to fly by constraining airport expansion... therefore rationing flights and making them more expensive."
I hate this government so much that it causes me great pain to admit that they've done something right for once.
Old News and Bones
2 hours ago
4 comments:
Mark,
Taking his 'principle' to its logical conclusion - t'would seem hypocritical to me.
"People who are frequent flyers have to square that with wanting to deny the opportunity to fly to others"
'Those' who wish to impose disclosure of all perks have to square that with wanting to deny people to know what perks 'those' get.
Sure, he's as bad as the rest of them on the corruption and waste front, but on this one issue, the government, for whatever reason, have got it right. The same as the VAT cut - they inadvertently did the right thing for completely the wrong reasons.
I'm saying nothing.
They don't get everything wrong.
But I'm not sure third runway was exactly right, either. If they'd allow a proper 24hr airport to be built on the Thames Estuary, with a much bigger capacity than Heathrow's and flightpaths over water, then Heathrow would have no need to expand.
As for VAT - same thing I think. Not exactly wrong, but the same size tax cut would have been much more beneficial 'spent' on raising the personal allowance.
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