London foxes have long behaved as though the city belongs to them. They sleep on garden furniture, stroll through traffic, inspect the contents of bins with forensic concentration and occasionally sit in the middle of a road at 2am looking mildly disappointed in you. Now one has apparently decided to enter politics.
On Monday morning, staff working for Conservative MP George Freeman discovered a fox hiding inside a stationery cupboard in his fourth-floor office at Portcullis House, the large parliamentary office building opposite the Palace of Westminster.
Quite how it got there remains a mystery.
Portcullis House is not, generally speaking, somewhere you wander into accidentally. Opened in 2001, it contains offices for MPs and parliamentary staff and sits within the heavily secured Parliamentary Estate. Visitors normally have to negotiate security checks before getting anywhere near the offices.
The fox appears to have found another route.
Freeman’s parliamentary assistant had been in the office for around 45 minutes when he began to suspect he was not alone. Hearing noises and experiencing the slightly unnerving sensation that something was watching him, he investigated.
Inside the stationery cupboard was a fox.
According to Freeman, the animal had somehow made it to the fourth floor, navigating what he described as a maze of rooms and corridors before choosing a cupboard as its temporary Westminster residence. The assistant gave the animal some water before the Houses of Parliament pest-control team arrived and removed it. It was later released in nearby Victoria Tower Gardens.
Freeman, the MP for Mid Norfolk, admitted he had no idea how his unexpected constituent had managed the feat. “London is full of foxes and you occasionally see them on the parliamentary estate but on the fourth floor of an MP’s office in the stationery cupboard is a first,” he said. His theory is that the fox may have entered the building over the weekend, perhaps following cleaners, and then found itself trapped inside.
There is an additional twist to the story. Freeman has previously criticised the fox-hunting ban. In 2011 he argued that Parliament should examine the legislation before deciding whether to repeal it, complaining about what he called “political bigotry and class war against the countryside”. His grandfather was also reportedly a huntsman.
The fox, Freeman said, probably wasn’t making a political point.
Probably.
London’s Other Residents
There are thought to be around 10,000 foxes living in London, although the London Wildlife Trust notes that no detailed survey has established an exact number. The capital is particularly well suited to them. Urban foxes have access to gardens, railway embankments, parks, abandoned corners, food waste and the thousands of small forgotten spaces that exist between London’s buildings.
Foxes began establishing themselves in British cities during the 20th century as expanding suburbs provided an almost perfect habitat. Generations born in London have since moved steadily towards its centre. They are now seen virtually everywhere.
London Wildlife Trust records foxes turning up in Parliament Square, outside 10 Downing Street and, rather wonderfully, among the choir stalls of St Paul’s Cathedral.
A Westminster stationery cupboard may therefore represent less of an invasion than the logical next stage of London fox expansion. They have conquered the suburbs. They have mastered the railway lines. They know when the bins go out. Now they have access to Parliament.