The people who run Heathrow are doing their best. Their airport is bursting at the seams. They must deal with the fury of those who fly thousands of miles only to circle over London for half an hour and then miss their connecting flights. They must cope with the longest taxi-out times in Europe. They must be ready for the slightest disruption to cause chaos. Yes, the staff at Heathrow are doing exceptionally well in running a hub airport that is at 98.5 per cent capacity. They treat the suffering multitudes with great politeness and, in proposing a way forward, Heathrow’s bosses are treating the public like absolute idiots.

They say they want a third runway “now” and then maybe a fourth runway “later”. Of all the miserable, useless, cynical examples of corporate short-termism and greed, this takes some beating. It would need about 15 to 18 years — with a fair wind and favourable judges — to build a third runway in London’s western suburbs. The thing would not open until the late 2020s, at which point huge new sectors of London would find themselves under the roar of the flightpath. We would have recklessly exacerbated the Heathrow problem — which already causes a third of the aircraft noise pollution endured by the whole of Europe.

Then what? Does anyone seriously believe that Heathrow bosses would declare themselves satisfied with this disaster? How could they, with only three runways — when Madrid has four, Paris Charles de Gaulle six, Frankfurt four and Amsterdam’s Schiphol has space for a seventh — and when aviation demand will continue to climb and the winners in the global race will be those with the best connections to the growing cities of Asia and Latin America?

As soon as a third runway was completed, Heathrow would be clamouring to compete with its continental rivals (to say nothing of Dubai or Mumbai), and we would find ourselves having the same arguments over again, about the need for the fourth runway — but with the position a hundred times worse: with west London jammed with traffic and the skies of the greatest city on earth filled with planes.

It is time to end the madness, and back out of the intellectual cul-de-sac. We need to do what all our competitors are doing or have done. We need a 24-hour, four-runway hub airport, preferably to the east of London, so planes can land without causing misery to millions. We need room to expand, and we will never find enough at Heathrow.

It is utter nonsense to claim that a new airport would mean some kind of economic devastation in west London. On the contrary, Heathrow accounts for about three per cent of the jobs in what is one of the most dynamic and competitive parts of the UK. We face a crippling housing shortage in London — and here is a whole beautiful new borough waiting to be called into being. We are looking at an area the size of Kensington and Chelsea, with the potential for tens of thousands of homes, hi-tech industry, university campuses and, if need be, a vestigial airport.

In the east we would finally have the space to do what is needed: create a logistics hub that links road, rail, sea and air — in which the new DP World deep-water port would be linked to the airport by the forthcoming Lower Thames Crossing, on which the Government has begun consultation.

For an indication of how it would work, look at the 2020 Vision for London which the GLA published last week. This is the solution that matches the scale of this country’s needs and ambitions. With high-speed rail and road links, Transport for London officials are confident that it would be easily accessible to the whole of the UK.

Of all the options we have looked at in the past two years, this is the one that offers the most breathtaking scope for regeneration, job creation, and, above all, future expansion. There would be no more agony, no more fear that London would be endlessly blighted by planes, no more trying to pour a quart into a pint pot.

My officials think the combined logistics hub and aerotropolis would create up to 500,000 jobs, and would drive not just London — east and west — but the whole UK economy. It would help us recapture business we have lost over the past century — through failure to expand our transport infrastructure — to our continental rivals. London was overtaken as a port because we failed to follow the Dutch and make space for the big container ships. We are making the same mistake with aviation.

How many UK regional airports does Heathrow serve? Seven. How many UK regional airports are served by Schiphol? Twenty-seven. How on earth can we call Heathrow an adequate national hub airport? Other airports are eating our lunch, and we must fight back.

Yes, the new airport is a big project, and will involve some dislocation, and immense political drive and leadership. But it is infinitely better than desperately pretending we can go on with a third runway at Heathrow, or a second runway at Gatwick, or “Heathwick” or any other half-cock solution.

I don’t blame the Heathrow bosses for their short-termism, or for trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes about the real agenda. They have no fiduciary duty to their shareholders — most of whom are overseas — to take account of the quality of life of the people of London or the long-term needs of the UK economy. They are there, like all good business people, to make as much money as they can over a 15-year time horizon — which is as far ahead as businesses can think. We need to think long-term, and think big, about what is in the interests of this city and this country, and the first step to sanity is to reject the third runway at Heathrow.