From the Archives – Disraeli – ‘Clearances gave us a headstart on rewilding’

Waggish Maverick British PM Ben Disraeli has made some controverisal off-the-cuff comments whilst visiting her Majesty, Queen Victoria at Balmoral, when visiting a deer forest that was cleared first for sheep and then deer forty years previously.

Pressed by a reporter from the local courier about this state of affairs, Benny said:

“Thanks to Patrick Sellar and his ilk, who cleared so many townships and clachans across the country, we had a big early start and we’re now moving rapidly away from people altogether. These ‘clearances’ gave us a real headstart on rewilding, restoring the land to a wild idyll in which only a man’s gun and the Lord make the law.”

“Since then, the population, it’s gone right down to 1 per cent, or sometimes less,” he said. “We’ve transitioned away from a Gaelic speaking Highlands in my lifetime and we have vibrant colonies coloured pink across the Globe on which the sun truly does not set.”

“I recognise the huge impact and pain that leaving one’s glen might have for a humblecottar, but it really gives us the chance to and I hope that in 150 years time, I hope that urban intellectuals will be right up for putting wolves back in here just to finish of any chance of sustainable communities.”

God save the Queen.

“Mac Cumhaill”