Richard's blog

After a bruising 6 and a half hour debate, in which we learnt that Hoon has the manners of a drunken wife beater and Villiers would quite like some airport expansion in the South-East, MPs finally got off the benches and stumbled in to vote. Despite 57 Labour rebels signing an Early Day Motion opposing the third runway just 28 of them voted against it; Labour scraped through by just 19 votes.

Outside the Commons a band of suffragettes chained themselves to the railings; inside many Labour rebels found new ways to justify supporting the runway. It was a pathetic display of abstention and issue-ducking. I have little faith in politicians at the best of times, but watching people who'd promised their constituents that they'd fight expansion either avoid voting or siding with the bullying Hoon is surely a new low.

This just in: three female climate change activists carried out a nocturnal smash-and-paint on the Department for Transport. Draped in red sashes, they hurled bricks through the windows and chucked paint over the front of the building.

A spokeswoman said: "The government has opened the flood-gates for radical action. Yesterday they sacrificed all of our futures and spat in the face of democracy. The third runway is unwanted and is a global threat. When they make democracy meaningless what other reaction could they expect?"

"We have less than ten years to turn climate change around. Women cannot just stand by and let this government treat our futures as a joke. We fight for the safety of humanity, and if the government will only listen to the smash of windows, then so be it."

Gordon Brown may be feeling like the cat that got the cream, but you and I know that his runway won't get off the ground. Like thousands of people, I've signed up to be a beneficial owner of Greenpeace's scrap of land in Sipson. They emailed me today, asking if I'do tell Gordon that he's not getting his hands on our land.

It sounded like a good idea, so I popped over to their website and fired off a missive. Why not do the same yourself? You can sign up to own the land while you're at it. If you need some inspiration, here's what I sent our glorious leader.

Dear Prime Minister,

Like thousands of other people who care more for the environment than 'saving the world', I've got my hands on a bit of your runway. And like them, I'm not going to give it back.

So there we have it. A third runway sweetened with some token greenwash. It's pitiful that the Cabinet members who originally opposed the plan have been swung by Hoon's wishy-washy promises. At least John McDonnell had the strength of character to take a stand, getting banned from Parliament for a week after barracking the Transport Secretary.

The Civil Aviation Authority is a puppet regulator so letting them act as eco-watchdog is like putting the Kray twins in charge of the Met Police. As for 2050 targets: Hoon and his colleagues will be pushing up daisies long before anyone is brought to account for breaching them. As for high-speed rail: Hoon's uncosted, unqualified and unsubstantiated references are not worth the hot air they're printed on.

It's laughable that this Government thinks that building a runway in 2015 will halt a recession in 2009; unless, that is, they're thinking of jobs in prison construction. Half of middle England will be arrested stopping this monstrosity, so we'll need a lot more jail cells before this whole debacle is over.

Read our press release

The Heathrow decision hasn't been formally announced and still the rumour mill is working on overdrive. Our Westminster mole has just revealed that the fallout could include at least one member of the Cabinet. We're hearing that the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, might have handed in his resignation.

If this is true it's heartening to think that at least one member of the Brownite inner circle has the cojones to stand up to their party's determination to screw over the planet so their leader can look Churchillian. After all, anything but a resignation would make a mockery of his job description.

Hilary: how you handle the next twenty-four hours will directly impact on whether we hit our climate change targets. You know, as I do, that we can't build runways and reduce emissions by 80%. Millions of people around the world will suffer from climate change, and hundreds in the UK will lose their homes for this runway. Do you really want to stand by and let that happen?

After months of dithering, Geoff Hoon and Gordon Brown are a mere 18 hours away from making their decision on Heathrow. In a move bound to shock absolutely no one, they'll give the go ahead for expansion.

Top secret sources inside the Westminster bubble have exclusively revealed (probably through an embargoed press release) that the announcement will be made just after lunch. Expect lots of talk of strict environmental limits, watchdogs, high-speed rail, the emissions trading scheme and all sorts of other nonsense.

Sod it: let the aviation industry have its moment of glory. We all know that no one is going to be building any runways near London any time soon. Not at Stansted, not at Gatwick, not at Luton and certainly not at Heathrow. If you haven't signed up to own a few blades of grass under the runway, then visit the Greenpeace Artport! website quickly.

Psst... want to own a piece of West London? Pop over to Greenpeace and sign up to Airplot!: the latest ploy to monkeywrench the Government's plans for Heathrow expansion. They've purchased a couple of acres of land in the middle of the area designated for the third runway, and are doling it out to anyone who fancies becoming a member of the propertied classes.

I've signed up, as have most of Plane Stupid, tons of environmentalists, a few journalists and Tory, Labour and Lib Dem MPs. The plot has been turned into a giant banner visible from the air, with the words 'Our Climate, Our Land' written on it in chalk. By slicing and dicing this patch of earth Greenpeace plans to disrupt the compulsory purchase order process (where the State decides it's having your land, whether you want to sell it to them or not).

It's a tried-and-tested method, pioneered by an anti-roads group in the 1980s. Wheatley Friends of the Earth, fighting the construction of the M40 through Oxfordshire, sold off portions of Alice's Meadow - so-named because it inspired sections of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. What Greenpeace have planned is slightly different, but no doubt equally effective. I can't wait to head over to my new patch of dirt and start digging a tunnel - first one to Australia wins a free BAA t-shirt!

As MPs returned from their long winter breaks the Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon has been hard at work making sure that they don't get a say on Heathrow expansion. With 57 confirmed Labour rebels and strong opposition from the Lib Dems and Conservatives a vote on expansion would get defeated pretty heavily, so Hoon was planning to announce expansion this week: too quick for the Tories to schedule a vote.

It's a risky game. Hoon is gambling that Labour rebels - who might vote against expansion to influence an as-yet-unmade decision - won't want to side with the opposition if the decision has already been made. Unsurprisingly MPs with legitimate concerns about NOx levels, CO2 emissions, noise, increase traffic, the destruction of Sipson, etc, etc, are none best pleased by all this manipulation, and have launched a last-ditch attempt to make Hoon see sense. They've demanding reassurance that Heathrow won't be allowed to expand if it harms the environment.

The decision could be delayed until the end of the month. Hoon needs his Cabinet colleagues behind him, but what promises can he actually make? BAA won't limit capacity: it's already cramming planes into every nook and cranny. Expansion can't be done within the "strict, local, environmental limits" - as EU Environment chief Stavros Dimas warned last year. Does anyone really believe that this Government would lie to us over the consultation, turn Sipson into rubble and then turn around and ban any increase in flights because they're suddenly worried about the planet?