Today’s announcement that a decision on a 3rd runway at Heathrow has been postponed should leave anti Hs2 campaigners with their heads in their hands. Why? Because it highlights just how inconsequential they are and how ineffective they’ve been.

The Heathrow postponement is widely seen as a political maneuver to avoid the Tories being embarrassed during the London mayoral elections in May as their candidate, Zac Goldsmith, is an implacable opponent of Heathrow expansion.

In contrast, the Tories (and all the other parties for that matter) have shown no real concern that Hs2 would have politically adverse affects. This is a huge blow for the the anti Hs2 mob as for years they’ve  pretended the high speed line is a political hot potato. What’s interesting is that Heathrow is essentially a local London/South-East issue whilst Hs2 affects much more of the UK and far more constituencies.

As Hs2 isn’t seen as a negative political issue one can only wonder how much longer the anti Hs2 campaign can stagger on for. They’ve been on the back-foot ever since the Hybrid Bill passed with such a stonking majority, the general election result compounded their woes and they’ve had no good news for years. There’s none in the offing.

I wonder how much longer their remaining groups (StopHs2 and Hs2aa)  will last into 2016? Joe Rukin’s laughable claim that there were ‘reasons to be cheerful‘ looks increasingly likely to be his epithet.