Formerly Confidential Government Documents Recently Made Public

Among a tranche of formerly confidential government documents released earlier this week by the U.K. National Archives was a series of communications between then-Prime Minister John Major and businessman Harvey Spack that discussed the possibility of renaming Heathrow Airport for Winston Churchill.

The U.K. newspaper The Sun reports that the initial suggestion was made to Major in 1996. He said the move would be "superb PR", adding that the name "Heathrow" was "stupid" when compared to Kennedy Airport in New York or De Gaulle airport in Paris. “It should be renamed with the name of the greatest man of the century, who has no truly great memorial in our country, The Winston Churchill Airport or Churchill Airport,” Spack wrote to Major.

Major asked private secretary Alex Allan to contact the Transport Department the next day. “The Prime Minister would be grateful for your Secretary of State’s initial and person views on the idea — both on the merits and the practicalities and how this might be floated if it seemed worth pursuing,” Allan wrote in a letter released with the other documents.

It's not known why the idea never gained any traction. Lord Young, who was Transport Secretary during Major's time as PM, said he had "no recollection of this," according to The Sun.

(Image from file)

FMI: Source report