There are badgers in the roads near our street. This did not used to happen within the South Circular, so perhaps it is a tribute to Sadiq Khan’s low emission zones. You see them occasionally waddling along the pavement at night after closing time, probably bevvied up on the cheap cider and worms deal at the local Wetherspoons. I wonder if they are looking for Brian May’s house.
Some people have suggested they are coming down the railway lines, though I’ve never noticed any on South Western trains. Then again, they may be wearing face masks. Also, there’s been a lot of disruption recently — signal failures, rail strikes and trespassers on the line — so they probably had to make alternative arrangements. Badgers are notoriously uncomfortable with replacement bus services.
A more sinister possibility is that they are being brought in by unscrupulous weasel smugglers, although if that were true, surely we’d have seen Nigel Farage out on Putney High street trying to raise public awareness. I am surprised, however, not to have seen some dingbat GB News pundit citing their arrival as evidence of a great replacement conspiracy designed to overrun traditional communities with striped, woke mammals.
At this point I should acknowledge an anxiety. As a member of a people historically subjected to industrial levels of dehumanisation, I worry about appearing, even in whimsy, to offer some simile between immigrants and animals. There are people who might get the wrong idea, and the world is already running a Katie Hopkins surplus. Though, ironically, we tend to be far less tolerant of cruelty to animals.
Were these migrants human, the Home Office would be dreaming up madcap schemes to halve the influx. You know the kind of thing, diverting the tide, or vicious deterrents like sending them to Rwanda or offering them a job in the Treasury press office. (Actually, I’m not sure the Rwanda thing would work as a deterrent, since badgers are very bad at geography, so we might have to try Berkshire instead.) But maybe the lack of agitation is because these are still British badgers.
Anyway, this is a case of the badgers going where they are wanted. While those in the countryside treat them as pests, townies like me are dangerously soft on badgers. Until now, our only interaction with them was watching night-cam footage narrated by a whispering naturalist or the days we spent reading The Wind in the Willows, from which we learnt that badgers are salt-of-the-earth types who do things like wipe their honest brow and liberate stately homes from squatting mustelids.
We lack the more authentic countryside experience of hating them, so we inevitably react with excitement at the sight of one and maybe leave out a bit of dog food or some fruit. We delight in their presence. We also sympathise with them, since we too house an innate suspicion of country types, apart from those in bits of the country within easy travelling distance of London, with good bistros and a Jack Wills.
Our WhatsApp group has, naturally, discussed how to turn the badgers into productive members of the community. Given labour shortages, one option is a fast-track scheme for skilled badgers or those prepared to take on key-worker roles. This has not been wholly successful, though there was a lot of badger interest in fruit picking.
However, I do worry that, as with foxes, there will be limits to the urban welcome. While one badger is a rare delight, once you get used to them you begin to notice the downsides. Furthermore, they are not terribly neighbourly. None of them came to the platinum jubilee street party, though we suspect they might have rocked up later to see if any scraps were left out.
It is a bit like someone opening a crystal shop on your high street. The first one adds character, but you wouldn’t want so many that you can’t move for people looking for ley lines.
For now though we are welcoming our new neighbours. The city sett (see what I did there) is opening its arms, hearts and recycling bins to the striped invaders.
Follow Robert on Twitter @robertshrimsley and email him at [email protected]
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