A couple of the Sundays got very excited about "Boris Island" yesterday, this being Mayor Johnson's notion of planting a whole new airport on a whole new land mass next to the dear old Isle of Sheppey. This is where Heathrow really ought to be, you see.
It all lends itself easily to Boris parody: "Cripes, chaps, I've had the most wizard wheeze!" But don't laugh too hard. He's serious, and so is Kit Malthouse, one of his deputies, who's been looking at the idea for a while.
He floated it in a piece for the Times last year, pointing out that Paris, Hong Kong, Washington and New York among others have moved their airports in recent decades. Then Johnson advocated it during the election campaign as an alternative to his party's line on a third runway at Heathrow, prompting the leader of Kent county council to say it would "never be viable or popular".
The leader of Dartford council, the aptly named Councillor Kite, added in June that "if Boris thinks an airport in the area would work then he is an idiot".
Is he? Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise doesn't go that far, but is distinctly unenthused. Richard Branson, for different reasons, feels the same. Labour alleges it's a stunt to shift attention from Tory divisions over Heathrow expansion.
In the blogosphere, the Spine is visually inspired, but the Tory Troll is scathing, excavating Malthouse's unsuccessful attempt to launch a budget airline in 2004.
Boris Watch is more receptive, saying "the airport part looks perfectly feasible", but then bursts the balloon with a costed critique of all the surface access and infrastructure implications.
Malthouse and Johnson will take a lot of deterring. A detailed feasibility study will take place. "If we can build St Paul's, the Gherkin, the Channel tunnel and all the rest, we can do this, "Malthouse said. "We just need a bit of courage."
Vanity project or bold vision of the kind that made Britain great? Reader, you decide.
