It's beginning to look a lot like..a by-election in Richmond Park In February

So, if press reports are to be believed, it seems likely that when the Davies report delivers its interim findings next week, all of the options will include a third  - and even a fourth - runway for Heathrow.

If this is true - then far from kicking the issue into the long grass, Heathrow expansion could become government policy overnight. Bad news for both the Tories and of course ourselves.

But Zac Goldsmith, MP for Richmond Park (including Ham Common) has been pretty clear what his response to that will be. As he said in April 2010..

"I said there will be no Heathrow expansion under our Government, there will be no charges for parking in Richmond Park and Kingston Hospital will be safe.

"If any of those promises are broken I will trigger a byelection and allow people to penalise my party."

And so, it seems clear if the Davies Commission makes Heathrow expansion inevitable, then we will be delivering a lot of leaflets round my way for the first 6 weeks of 2014.

It will also be interesting to see who the Tory candidate will be. Will Zac restand? - or will another avowed opponent of Heathrow expansion step into the frame? (as predicted by this blog over a year ago). (and 3 days before the Mail on Sunday stood it up). 

Could it be Boris time?

UPDATE

Zac is now actively promoting a petition aimed at Cameron...

Update

To be fair again to Zac, he made his position very clear on Newsnight (Friday). This from the Telegraph

Mr Goldsmith, told BBC’s Newsnight: “If the Government changes its position on Heathrow expansion I will trigger a by-election, and if it happens in the manifesto of the next election then I certainly wouldn’t stand as a Conservative.”

Mr Goldsmith said that a u-turn could be “catastrophic” for the Prime Minister, who personally visited constituencies before the 2010 election and promised no expansion.