Until now Boris Johnson has been beating the solitary drum for a £40bn airport in the Thames estuary to tackle the lack of aviation capacity in the South-east. This week, in an interview for LBC, he quietly changed tack.

In  a couple of comments he rowed back from his once-cherished plan, suggesting he was now “not wedded to any particular solution”. “It may be that there are alternative ideas that people provide,” he said. “High-speed links between this or that airport … creating a dual hub or whatever.” Read more