I'm writing this on a train. I got on at Bournemouth and will get off at Waterloo. I’ll then complete my journey by taxi.

I’ve chosen to do this because it is cheaper, quicker and more comfortable than driving. Or, for that matter, flying. If, however, I were returning to London from Scotland, I would fly: that would be the cheapest, quickest and most comfortable option.

Not, however, if we have a Conservative government. The Shadow Transport Secretary has decided that he is better placed than I am to take such decisions about how I travel, and that I am wrong, wrong, wrong to fly. So he wants to increase taxes to make it uneconomic and unprofitable for airlines to offer cheap flights. As he put it yesterday: “If I was in office on May 6 I would want to straight away talk to my colleagues in Europe about how we could make progress towards a fuel tax.”

To be specific, Tim Yeo proposes — although he hasn’t been open enough to spell it out — that the cost of a flight from Glasgow to London should increase by between 12 and 25 per cent. The current cost on easyJet is £27.99, and the proposed EU fuel duty which is now on the table in Brussels is for £3.50 to £7 per flight.

I am confused. I had been under the impression that, as Michael Howard put it, “Britain needs a responsible government — a government that will put a stop to Mr Blair’s next round of stealth taxes, and cut taxes”. Mr Howard clearly forgot the next sentence: “Apart from on successful businesses which my would-be transport secretary doesn’t like.”

Just as Mr Howard must also have left out a line when he said that we need “a government that trusts free enterprise, promotes individual responsibility, rewards hard work; encourages ambition, admires excellence.” He surely meant to add: “Apart, that is, from airlines which have introduced an entirely new market, offer increased choice to the consumer and boost the economy. We’re going to tax them more. Ha!” A party claiming to champion business and to favour limited government and low taxes proposes to clobber one of the most innovative and successful sectors of the economy because its transport spokesman believes that the would-be man in Whitehall knows best.

If Mr Yeo’s neo-Heathite approach to business success is what lies in store under the Conservatives, roll on that third defeat.