Are these Spanish builders really fit to run Heathrow?

After the chaotic scenes of the past few weeks, with probably more than a million travellers caught up at Heathrow alone, it is surely time to rebrand BAA. In the fashionable corporate way, those three initials no longer actually stand for anything, but everyone thinks they still signify the British Airports Authority. This unloved operator is, however, no longer either British or an authority. In fact, it is a private company controlled by a secretive family of Spanish builders.

A consortium led by Grupo Ferrovial, a Spanish construction giant still controlled by its 85-year-old founder, wheelchair-bound Rafael del Pino, launched a hostile bid in February for BAA and finally completed its £10 billion takeover in mid-August, when BAA’s shares were delisted from the London Stock Exchange.

My instinctive position on foreign takeovers is to regard them as a good thing, a manifestation of global capitalism at work. Without foreign buyers, the Footsie would be in the doldrums.