Squirrel Nutkin Must Die!

(Adopts 1940’s terribly proper BBC voice...)

People of Great Britain!

Your country is in peril!

Your country needs you to rally round, gird your loins and perform exemplary duties on behalf of your noble Prince, God save him.

Yes, the call has gone out by the glorious Prince of Wales to rid the land of the grey menace. Forget swine flu. Forget improper use of the expenses system by our doughty MPs. The grey squirrel is threatening the livelihoods of our most respectable landowners.

“The greys are doing immense and increasing damage to hardwoods all over the country and threaten to compromise all our efforts to restore native woodlands...” said the Prince in a beautifully crafted letter to the CLA (that’s Country Land and Business Association to lower class people of unprivileged education).

The Prince – ever mindful of ecological issues – also raised the point that “wiping them out” might be the only way to preserve the red squirrel – the native denizen of these shores who, if it could choose its own colour, would surely be true blue. God save the Queen!

A short advertisement for Izal toilet paper will now follow this broadcast...

*****

So there you have it. A call to arms by Prince Charles no less.

Now, having bought my own house which comes replete with its own humungous garden I am technically a landowner. I might be stretching the point slightly but I bet I could get it to stand up in a court of law.

So I’m taking it as read that by Royal Decree I have been granted license to kill. Admittedly license to kill only grey squirrels but there’s enough of them around that I could make it a full time job. I mean, let’s be clear. The Prince is not suggesting we merely pop one or two of them off. He’s suggesting we wipe out the lot of them. Genocide. Total eradication.

It’s rather a shocking clarion call from our fuddy-duddy Goon loving Prince.

But what I want to know it: is he going to put his money where his murderous mouth is?

Is he going to supply me with the arms to carry out this mission? Hand me an antique musket emblazoned with the Windsor family crest and a bag full of lead balls? Buy me an AK-47 from Ebay replete with newly minted Russian ammo? Or just park a lorry load of cyanide outside my front door where the kids can gain easy access to it?

‘Cos I’m really not fussy.

Hell, I’d even give it a go with a bow and arrow.

I mean this is Prince Charles asking after all. Future King of England and all that...

But I do have one small concern. Where does it all end?

I mean, we murder the grey squirrel today... fine. Do we butcher the mink tomorrow? Do we move onto flora after that – start napalming great swathes of Japanese knotweed and floating pennywort? Because they shouldn’t really be here in the UK either.

Where does it all end? Or, perhaps more pertinently, how far could it be taken?

Hmm.

Puritanism of any kind is never a good thing. It inevitably leads to bloodshed. Or am I just reading far too much into it?