The real political battle starts now

Any hopes that the Davies Report would resolve the airports issue once and for all were dashed within minutes of it being published.

Boris Johnson led the attack - saying an extra runway at Heathrow is undeliverable, will never happen, and is the sort of scheme you'd have got in 1950s Communist China.

Would-be Mayor of London Zac Goldsmith says Davies had made up his mind on Heathrow before the process began. Davies has accused him of "lying".

How much easier, politically, it would have been for the Government if Davies had agreed with those adverts saying it obviously had to be Gatwick. Some MPs in Sussex, Surrey and Kent would have been outraged, but Mr Cameron could have lived with that.

The political opposition to Heathrow will be on a dramatically different scale. It could lead to a Tory revolt at Westminster, at least one parliamentary by-election and it could dominate next year's Mayoral election in London: some people want to turn that into a referendum on Heathrow.

The history of big infrastructure projects in the country is one of almost endless delays and indecision. It looks like this one will be no different.