After rubbishing for months Boris Johnson's idea of building a new London airport in the Thames estuary The Times has this morning suddenly come out in favour of its being given serious consideration - a U-turn so dramatic as to make all those of David Cameron's that it has made so much hay with in recent days seem insignificant by comparison.
Their reason for this dramatic change of tune? Well BA's Willie Walsh said at The Times CEO Summit that now there is never going to be a third runway at Heathrow he will take his bat and ball to Madrid instead.
Doesn't seem to have occurred to The Times that Walsh might just have been bluffing in a last-minute desperate effort to frighten Cameron into changing his mind about Heathrow. And I bet Walsh never bargained for the possibility that his threat might result in the advancement of Boris's idea which he too has always rubbished (unsurprisingly, given that the Heathrow on whose landing slots he has such a cast-iron grip would be reduced to a shadow of its former self or destroyed altogether if it went ahead).
Hang on though; maybe it did occur to The Times that Walsh might be bluffing. Maybe they aren't trying to punish him for threatening to bugger off to Spain; maybe they are trying to help him frighten Cameron into changing his mind on Heathrow? In short, maybe it's The Times that's bluffing?
Either way, it's probably another sign among many that The Times has ceased to be our 'newspaper of record' and become just another campaigning rag and PR man's dream, albeit with less vulgar font and graphics than the others.
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