WITH the Labour leadership indicating scepticism for further Heathrow expansion, the aviation lobby is looking further afield for the Commons votes to push through a third runway.

And who better to woo than the SNP’s 35 Westminster MPs? In 2016 the Scottish government signed a memorandum of understanding with Heathrow, agreeing to support its expansion. In exchange it got commitments on Scottish jobs and an investigating into using Prestwick airport as a logistics hub for runway construction. Also on the table was a £10 per passenger discount on Heathrow to Scotland landing charges.

It was no surprise, then, to see Heathrow hosting an invitation-only “parliamentary reception” at the SNP conference last night.

This kind of shameless corporate lobbying is nothing new, as Star readers will know well from reading Solomon Hughes’s columns.

Heathrow has repeatedly laid on “conference lounges” at party conferences. The airport’s lobbying website, YourHeathrow, says these offer “all-day coffee, drinks and cakes” to delegates, so long as you provide “your very own boarding pass to join us.”

Gatwick has joined in the fun in the past as well. A reception at the Labour conference in 2016 saw “people … crowding into a stuffy room to hear somebody mumbling quietly about airports,” according to Vice magazine.

Catching two buses and a train to head home from Glasgow airport this week, I wondered if some of the inexhaustible funds could be redirected to better link-ups on the ground. Perhaps it should be made illegal to build new airports without a direct rail link?

Then again, perhaps it should be made illegal to build new airports entirely.