Stanley Johnson tells us he hopes to reintroduce beavers to London after his son, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and his siblings helped him apply for a beaver licence as part of his 80th birthday present.
Johnson says he wants to exercise his power as vice president of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and reintroduce the animals to the London Wetland Centre.
But he anticipates not everyone will be on board with his plan to bring them back, saying: “Ian Botham will probably say, ‘All these bloody environmentalists, what are they doing now?’, he’s beefy.”
Johnson is still in the process of procuring the beavers for his Exmoor estate but says he was “delighted” when his children gave him the “most original present”. “This is the year of the beaver.” Well, it beats the year of the bat.