Terminal failure

The dear old Grauniad has a splendid leading article this morning on the Heathrow fiasco:

Flights to Manchester, Paris, Brussels, Newcastle and Edinburgh were among those cancelled at Heathrow yesterday. It would be no bad thing if they never resumed. ... It would be better if [the government] ... instead backed at least one new high-speed rail line from London to the north, which could serve Heathrow too. This is what has happened in the rest of Europe, where fast rail links from Madrid to Barcelona or Paris to Lyon easily trump flying. Not many of the passengers struggling to board short-haul flights from Terminal 5 yesterday really wanted to travel to or from London by plane. They were doing so either because British Airways has abandoned direct flights from regional airports or because, absurdly, it is cheaper to travel by air than by train.

Why is this Labour government so bloody useless on these issues?