Heathrow protests

Air travel is too cheap.

It is not an inalienable human right to travel to a sunny destination overseas for half the cost of a train ticket to the other end of this country.

And Easyjet and RyanAir are not philanthropic organisations set up with a charter to bring low cost transport to the masses thereby broadening our minds and making us a more civilised society.

In fact they are money grabbing bastards who treat their passengers like cattle and don’t give a flying fuck about the environmental impact of their operations.

And all this is facilitated by the government who, by not taxing aviation fuel allow an absurdly low price of 26p per litre. Lobbying by the aviation industry internationally has ensured that this is protected by Chicago Treaty, which we are told makes it sacrosanct. Strange how the same logic doesn't extend to the Kyoto Agreement isn't it ?

Having myself grown up in the shadow of Heathrow I can clearly remember how lessons in school would be constantly interrupted whilst we waited for planes to pass over and how my mum couldn’t put out washing in the garden without it being blackened by pollution. And that was thirty years ago – I pity the poor sods who have to live at the end of the runaway nowadays.

Which is why I fully support the protesters at Heathrow.

And yes - I do use air travel; in fact I will do so this week. But I expect to pay a reasonable price for it, and for it to be punitively taxed both as a deterrent and to help repair some of the damage it will cause.