Forget land reform or the timing of the next independence referendum. The real battle at the SNP conference was between Heathrow and Gatwick airports. Both had their paid advocates circling the aircraft hangar that is the Aberdeen conference centre trying to win over SNP MPs and anyone else who'd listen.
Heathrow put the most cash up front. You could have been forgiven for thinking you'd entered the airport's frequent flyers club, so lavish was their lobbying suite at SNP15. MPs could have spent the entire conference in a state of acute refreshment.
But Gatwick was in there too, in stealth mode. It had been advised by its lobbyists to do a referendum and pitch itself as couthy underdogs to the “Better Together” elitists of Heathrow. Mind you, I doubt if Bella Caledonia and Wings over Scotland will be leaping in on behalf of a London airport.
Civil servants, past and present, already have. Sir Jeremy Heywood, the UK Cabinet Secretary, we learn, has told Tory ministers to shut up (Boris Johnson, the London Mayor who opposes the third runway at Heathrow, too) so he can sneak the decision under the radar before Christmas.
But his former opposite number in Scotland, Sir John Elvidge, (he now bats for Gatwick, which owns Edinburgh Airport of which he is chairman) has been warning that a third runway at Heathrow will stifle competition and exclude Scottish interests.
Now, you might wonder why the location of a third runway in London should have become such a live issue in Scotland. Indeed, some Tories are suggesting that Scottish MPs should be excluded from the decision under English Votes for English Laws.
But Heathrow wants to secure the support of those 55 SNP MPs while they still have a vote. Gatwick is equally eager to get the members for Jockistan on their side against Heathrow’s “monopoly of the skies”.
Who said voting never changed anything? Clearly, you get a better class of lobbyists when you vote SNP. Its next election broadcast should feature fat cats parachuting into Scotland bearing gifts for Nicola Sturgeon.
In the bad old days of Labour dominance, commercial lobbyists like the airports didn’t have to bother wining and dining Scottish MPs; all they needed to do with hold a few posh dinners for senior Labour MPs and civil servants in Westminster.
But make no mistake, the decision will be taken in London for London. Scotland will be forgotten about as soon as David Cameron makes up his mind. The Heathrow expansion lobby war is a metaphor for perverse over-centralisation of decision making in the UK.
It would make more sense – if we have to have air travel – for there to be a “hub” airport further north; in the North of England or lowland Scotland. That would also spread the economic benefits more widely than the hyper-congested south east of England.
Better still, have decent rail services. The train – which goes direct to city centres – should be both cheaper and faster than air travel for domestic routes as well as being the most environmentally friendly.
Heathrow is already an environmental disaster area with just two runways. It is a pollution black spot, not because of the planes, surprisingly, but because of diesel fumes from the countless cars, taxis and buses stuck in congestion around Heathrow.
Yet the Government's Airports Commission set aside the environmental issues when it reported in favour of Heathrow in July. It also dismissed the nuisance of thousands of extra planes flying over residential areas in London. I used to live under the flight path and it’s already like sleeping beneath an aerial motorway.
The only reason anyone is thinking about another runway at Heathrow or Gatwick is because there has never been a coherent transport policy that includes the rest of the UK. Decision makers see no further than the short-term interests of the London-based lobby groups who've been wining and dining Westminster politicians for the past two decades.
The fact that this lobbying gravy train has made a stopover at the SNP conference does not mean that Scotland – or the north of England, which is in the same dismal boat – is being included in the decision-making process. It is an exercise in buying short-term support from the 55.
So, bottoms up. SNP MPs should enjoy the hospitality war while they can. As soon as the decision is made for Heathrow expansion, the glasses will be swiped away as fast as you can say “doors to manual”.
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