White-tailed eagles, pine martens and beavers will be released across England before the May elections as the Labour government attempts to staunch the flow of nature-loving voters to the Green party.
Plans to reintroduce these lost species to the country have been mooted for years, but the previous Conservative government failed to get them over the line after opposition from landowners and its own MPs.
Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, is understood to have told the regulator Natural England to dust off these plans and expedite them so there is a flood of good nature news before the polls open.
I don't know which polls the writer has in mind, but if she's thinking of the Gorton and Denton by-election, Labour are cutting it rather fine.
Still, this is welcome news. It was only October that Steve Reed, the housing, communities and local government secretary, refused to support an amendment that would have mandated the installation of a swift brick in every new home. Apparently swifts are anti-growth. Yet Reed assured campaigners they were "pushing at an open door" when he was in opposition.
Whether the move will win back Labour voters from the Greens, however, remains to be seen. What has been notable about Zack Polanski since he became the Greens' leader is how rarely he mentions the environment. His talk is of taxing billionaires: pine martens and beavers hardly get a look in.
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