Breaking up BAA would do us all a big favour

It wanted an order that would have stopped millions of people from going anywhere near Heathrow — and, in truth, millions of people hate going anywhere near Heathrow. Its lawyers warned that protesters would cause delays — when delays are what passengers have learned to expect with varying degrees of stoicism. Funniest of all was BAA's insistence that it was concerned about its customers.

I could pause here to describe at heart-rending length being stuck in a queue with a fractious infant because BAA couldn't be bothered to man the security desks at Heathrow — even though it was the middle of the holiday season and you didn't need to be a business genius to guess that airports were likely to be busy.

I won't, because I'm sure you have stories of your own — and because BAA is a private monopoly and therefore doesn't need to worry about what you, I or anyone else thinks. The Competition Commission is about to say whether it is right for one company to control 90 per cent of flights in south England through its ownership of Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Southampton.

There's a dangerous temptation to think that its ruling won't make much difference to ordinary travellers.

After all, opening the airports to competition Yet another won't change the demands for tight security, which come from government, not the owners. And environmentalists won't care either way: whether one owner or three owners control London's airports, they will still want to pack in as many flights as possible.

But monopoly busting is still a good cause because it would break the air lobby's grip on Whitehall. Barely had Blair got to power than it was offering New Labour special advisers lucrative jobs. If David Cameron looks like winning the next election, you can be sure the same packages will be dangled in front of Tories.

BAA can afford to hire lobbyists by the lorry-load because it is so big. Its political clout would be enormous on its own, but its influence is all the greater because it usually forms a common front with the equally big and equally useless British Airways.

For years, perfectly moderate campaigners another 'true story' that's against pollution and aircraft noise have watched with openjawed amazement as the Department of Transport has turned itself into BAA's political wing. Time and again, civil servants have swallowed in one gulp the industry's argument that expanding airports is essential to the economy. Is it? Whitehall has been so awed by the lobby it has that's anything but never done the sums on whether, for instance, it would be better to wipe out the need for domestic flights by building fast rail services, as the Japanese and French have done.

Break BAA and you break its political influence — and you allow government to take a deep breath and consider the novel idea that the public interest should come first.