By Liz S
The BBC published an article on their website on 21 January 2025.
In this article they stated that “Airports across the UK could be expanded, including the controversial third runway at Heathrow under government growth plans”
However “across the UK” was an exaggeration as within the article the only airports that the BBC specified were all in London, with only Heathrow, Luton and Gatwick noted.
So much for “Scotland at the heart of the UK government” with Labour.
As it seems the only money available for “infrastructure” and “growth” is for projects in England and not in Scotland .
It seems a Labour UK government is neglecting Scotland in the same way that we were also neglected by the previous Tory UK government, where their UK Tory government projects, like HS2 , as a UK government project was also one that only was within and for the benefit of England alone.
Grangemouth to be closed as no money said Rachel Reeves.
However the same Rachel Reeves confirmed that “there was £600 million available for Ineos , who owned Grangemouth, to build a plant in Belgium”.
Ratcliffe, chairman of Ineos, argued that the chemical industry is coming to an end , due to high energy costs and carbon taxes.
“Ratcliffe, a petrochemicals magnate with an estimated £17.5bn fortune, officially changed his tax domicile from Hampshire to Monaco, the sovereign city-state that is already home to many of the UK’s richest people. It has been estimated that the move will save him £4bn in tax payments “
Labour, like the Tories, helping out the rich while making the poor pay in them, as a UK government, removing benefits from the poor to further enrich the wealthy.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
But if London has more runways then it helps Scotland , don’t you know ?
I wanted to visit Iceland ( the country not the supermarket ) and was offered several flights from Glasgow – all flying an hour south to London , then waiting for several hours before flying back north (waving to my home town in Scotland as I passed over ) and on to Iceland .
However , I decided to fly Icelandair direct from Glasgow to Iceland . I know this was unpatriotic of me and may damage the viability of the important London airports by NOT using their fabulous facilities and connections , but I thought …F8ck it !
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George Younger proposed that Prestwick should be the UK cargo hub, but his fellow Tories in Cabinet did not want Heathrow to lose a highly profitable enterprise.
Can you think of ANY Labour or Tory Scottish Secretary in recent years proposing putting the Scottish Interest first before an English interest? A trick question? No, they always put Scotland at the back of the queue–its why there are so many Jocko sycophants with ermine neck warmers, and big expenses claims. From drunken blellums to drunken fire raisers.
Ironically, one of the biggest UK exports from Heathrow are Scottish salmon, both by weight and profit.
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Many of the people whose businesses have made them among the richest people in the country are leaving to live in tax havens to avoid paying their share of all taxes in the UK.
As they, and all the other foreign investors, are taking more and more of the profits from their UK investments out of the country, the day is not far off when those left behind will not be able to keep many of these foreign investments viable.
The privatised essential energy and water services, still without any real competition are prime examples of the dire state of the UK.
Energy and water consumers are already being forced to pay Government controlled prices to satisfy the demands for dividends from their foreign owners.
in addition customers are having to pay the cost of future investment in both industries that will see a risk free increase in the value of these foreign owners shareholdings.
Particularly galling as these assets originally belonged to the people of the UK until sold of by the UK Government and gradually falling into the folios of foreign investors as our financial wizards in The City earn huge commission by raising capital from all over the globe to milk the cash cows that our own government forces us to feed, water, house, clear up their muck and buy new stock for the herd as and when needed.
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A few social/labor uprisings or revolutions notwithstanding, it seems the superfluously rich and powerful have always had the police and military ready to foremost protect their big-money/-power interests, even over the basic needs of the masses, to the very end.
Even today, the police and military can, and probably would, claim [using euphemistic or political terminology, of course] they had to bust heads to maintain law and order as a priority during major demonstrations, especially those against economic injustices.
Indirectly supported by a complacent, if not compliant, corporate news-media, which is virtually all mainstream news-media, the absurdly unjust inequities/inequalities can persist.
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To provide some context, London airports are working at their limits, BUT, and it’s a very BIG BUT, that is how London arranged flight corridors to the UK such that London remained the hub – This may ring a bell for those of a certain age who remember Twiggy promoting ‘Luton Airport’.
James above perfectly illustrates the point on his Iceland visit, but it holds true for many non “UK” airlines these days.
When I first flew to Romania on a project in 2006 it was via KLM (Keep Luggage Missing – no joke, it actually happened) to Schipol from Dublin onto Bucharest, later from Edinburgh – They all ran seamlessly even if the 4 hour train journey’s progress north afterward was at best glacial – However, had I gone via London it was almost ‘deliberately’ designed to necessitate an overnight stay, which was expensive.
I do accept your point over Scotland being ignored in Reeves’ frankly desperate attempt to enlarge Heathrow etc., but if you look beyond the bullshit, the short term investment in construction might appear as ‘growth’ for say 5-10 years, but so did HS2, then it all went pear-shaped, a habit HMG are particularly noted for.
But in 5 to 10 year’s time demand on London’s air corridors will have plummeted as London’s dominance diminishes, so where’s the return in investment LONG TERM ???
As purported economists the UK government has serially screwed us all over by selling all our assets off to the highest bidder including the airports currently on the agenda, least said about who owns Peel Ports the better.
All this to avoid the supremely rich finally having to pay their fair share, rather sticks in the craw for those who remember what Labour ONCE stood for.
End rant.
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let them extend their english airports , leave Scotland alone , we do not need bigger airports we simply need more choice of destinations once independent we can do this way better than the likes of westminster
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Heathrow is subsidied by the UK Gov. Paying British Airways slots. Subsided by Scottish taxpayers. Like London transport. If the railways in the North and Scotland were improved there would be less need for flights and over night stays.
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Way too many people, perhaps an all-time-high percentage, have to choose between which necessities of life they can afford.
A very large and growing populace are increasingly too overworked, tired, worried and even rightfully angry about food and housing unaffordability thus insecurity for themselves or their family — largely due to insufficient income — to criticize or boycott Big Business/Industry for the societal damage it needlessly causes/allows, particularly when not immediately observable. And I doubt that this effect is totally accidental, as it greatly benefits the monetary interests of insatiable human/corporate greed.
The more that such interests make, all the more they want — nay, need — to make next quarterly. It’s never enough, yet the news-media will implicitly celebrate their successful greed, a.k.a. ‘stock market gains’.
At the same time, corporate officers will shrug their shoulders and defensively say their job is to protect shareholders’ bottom-line interests. And, of course, the shareholders also will shrug their shoulders and state they just collect the dividends and that the big bosses are the ones who make the decisions involving ethics or lack thereof.
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