At a packed meeting yesterday afternoon the combined forces of the anti-Heathrow expansion movement heard something they'd always suspected. The consultation, due out today, will be a sham. The Government has made its mind up; like it or not, Heathow expansion is going ahead.

We had gathered to meet with Aviation Minister Jim Fitzpatrick, in a final face-to-face before the launch of the latest consultation on the third runway. Plane Stupid, of course, was not invited, but I snuck in to hear just what Fitzpatrick (coincidentally also Environment Minister for the Department for Transport) had to say.

Whoops! The shiny new Climate Change Bill received its first scintillating reading in the House of Lords this week.

For all the fanfare which greeted the first national binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions, a few things seem to have slipped through the cracks – most notably that the Government seems to have forgotten to include aviation emissions in their reduction targets. Whilst this handy omission will probably make it easier to balance the books come 2050, it’ll make for a truly toothless piece of legislation in its current form, not to mention a fairly nonsensical one.