Taxpayers could end up paying for third runway

The airlines are collapsing. Air traffic is down 11%. BA can't afford to pay its staff. Airports are looking more and more like ghost towns. It's bad news all round - and UK tax payers could be asked to bail out the third runway should (or rather, when) BAA and Ferrovial bite the financial dust.

The Government has been planning a belt-and-braces plan to take over BAA's airports should it go into administration. MP John McDonnell - wielder of maces, defender of Hayes and Harlington - discovered that we'd end up spending tax revenue on the expansion itself.

"We know the Government is going to have to pay for the collateral damage in terms of the impact on the local communities, the shift of populations, the new schools, the creation of new communities elsewhere for these people to live," he told the House of Commons.

"We now believe there will be direct subsidy as a result of BAA's precarious financial position and the precarious financial position of Grupo Ferrovial globally (BAA's parent company) and that we will have to actually subsidise the development itself, the construction of the runway and the terminal."

No, said Transport Minister and runner up in the 2004 Medway bullfrog lookalike competition Paul Clark. Heathrow was so awesome we just had to have more of it. He did make one concession though: Heathrow expansion should not come "at any price".

Given that the price is already the communities of Sipson and Harmonsworth, the undermining of our carbon reduction targets, the breaching of EU NOx levels, the health and wellbeing of most of London and more bloody flights to nowhere, just what price does the amphibious Minister think is too high to pay?