Charles may not be king, but he is the reigning monarch of nostalgia. The Prince of Wales is the champion of a time that never was, and which passed before he was born. Signing a "squirrel accord" after meetings at one of his stately homes, the prince reaffirmed his desire to drive grey squirrels out of the UK in order to save our "much loved" native red squirrels. If the term "squirrel accord" has you thinking of a bunch of woodland creatures walking around wearing stovepipe hats and discussing what to do about this autumn's chestnut shortage, then banish the thought and replace it with a vision of members of the royal family and government officials talking about how many cages they would need in order to undertake "targeted and sustained action" against grey squirrels.
While there are a couple of environmental reasons for wishing to enact this animal massacre – grey squirrels strip bark from trees and carry a poxvirus that is deadly to red squirrels – the motivations are more personal and political. In 1876, the British banker Thomas Brocklehurst brought back a pair of grey squirrels from America and released them on to his land. Brocklehurst was obviously quite the hip cat, because in no time grey squirrels became the must-have garden accessory of late-Victorian England and now there are close to 5 million of them in the UK. The most important point of this story is that it has happened and it cannot be undone. Just like Pandora, Brocklehurst opened his box; it's just that instead of it containing all the evils of the world, it contained two grey squirrels.
The BBC presenter Chris Packham has described the anti-grey squirrel brigade as "a small band of lunatics who are insidiously bogged down and blinded by sentimental racism", and it certainly seems as if they believe all the evils of the world are contained in the form of the grey squirrel. It often feels as though Prince Charles and his ilk are battling furiously against a rising tide of change, much of it entirely imagined. Enemies are everywhere, from modernist architects to grey squirrels. They're camped outside Poundbury, Charles's "traditional" village (built in 1993), and the only way they will be vanquished is if Charles takes his blunderbuss and heads into the forest to execute some of them. Or, more realistically, if – as the squirrel accord puts it – a partnership of "the governmental, private and voluntary sectors" (finally, the "big society" is here) stocks up on cages and squirrel bait.
Those defending grey squirrels have pointed out that it is too late to exterminate them and that the best way to help red squirrels – which are still classified as being of "least concern" according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature – is to work on developing a vaccine that will make them immune to the poxvirus. It's important to remember that grey squirrels don't actually physically attack red ones. Greys aren't digging their teeth into Squirrel Nutkin and leaving his bloodied corpse on the forest floor. The people and institutions behind the squirrel accord should focus more on the protection of red squirrels and less on the "control" (ie killing) of grey squirrels.
The old cliche applies here: two wrongs don't make a right. The red squirrel, with its aesthetically pleasing features and associations with a green and pleasant land, makes for an emotive symbol. But we will never return to an imagined time in which English fields were green and pleasant, the postman always had a letter for you and the local bobby had a smile on his face. Paradise wasn't lost; it never existed. The anti-grey squirrel campaign is deeply rooted conservatism masquerading as environmentalism, in which cruelty to animals is justified on the basis that it will provide some sort of as yet unseen benefit to another, smaller group of animals.
America (home of the grey), not Britain (home of the red) is now the world power.Prince Charles, a man who has done nothing to merit the influence he wields, longs still for a time when men like him wielded even more influence. If he feels he has to mastermind the mass killing of innocent animals in order to feel a sense of control or purpose, so be it. Just don't pretend it's the only obvious environmental solution.
When it comes to squirrels, things aren't black and white, they're grey.
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