The great crested newt, the largest and rarest of Britain's newts, is a beautiful black-backed, miniature dragon with an orange belly and a jagged crest that runs its full six-inch length. Ironically, the survival of this endangered amphibian is now linked to the survival of John Major: the largest colony ever recorded in Europe has been discovered in the Prime Minister's own constituency of Huntingdon.
You might think Mr Major would want to be photographed protecting the colony. I imagine he would have, too, had it not been for the fact that Lord Hanson, second largest contributor to Conservative party funds, stands to lose 30m pounds if he is not allowed to proceed with plans to build 5,000 new homes on top of the newts' habitat. Moreover, half of the site overlaps into the constituency of Brian Mawhinney, the Conservative party chairman. Dr Mawhinney recently paid a visit to English Nature, but the meeting was private, so we can only speculate on how strongly he lobbied in favour of the great crested newt - and against the financial interests of Lord Hanson. Whatever Dr Mawhinney discussed, a "deal" has now been struck whereby the newts will be moved to a neighbouring site.
But the sad truth is that their homing instinct will guide them back to their original site, where they will be crushed to death in their thousands under Lord Hanson's bulldozers.
One can only speculate as to why English Nature was not prepared to stand up to Lord Hanson. Perhaps Trevor Beebee of the British Herpetological Society was right when he said: "If English Nature digs its heels in on this site, one can imagine the comeback for them if the Tories were re-elected."
What is really surprising is that English Nature took so long to act. In 1990, it was informed of the need to protect the site and, in normal circumstances, the habitat would have been protected three or four years ago. "The main thing is to protect the newts, not the habitat," says Ian Dair of English Nature. But I can imagine what English Nature's council would say if there were ever a proposal to remove golden eagles from their habitat.
Ken Livingstone is Labour MP for Brent East and has been rearing newts since childhood. |
