Carrie Symonds wants animals to run free. So why is she working for a zoo? | Catherine Bennett

The prime minister’s fiancee should also have taken a closer look at the Aspinall familyBuilding on her success promoting the Conservative party, and then in ocean conservation PR, Carrie Symonds, who is also the prime minister’s fiancee, recently became communications director for the Aspinall Foundation, “an internationally renowned conservation charity”. It may be better known as the organisation running two zoos, Howletts and Port Lympne, founded by the late gambling magnate and society figure, John Aspinall. The charity is now run by his son, Damian.Already, the hire seems to be paying off on both sides. Symonds’s tweets now feature cheetahs which have gone from romping with Mr and Mrs Aspinall in Kent to joining the attractions in a private South African game reserve. Also included in the cheetahs’ preparations for life in the wild were encounters with Symonds and Boris Johnson, after which both humans recorded their feelings on social media, and in Johnson’s case, his Telegraph column. The animals had got the father of five or so (this was before Wilfred) brooding, as they did Aspinall senior, on “unsustainable human fertility rates”. Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/21/carrie-symonds-wants-animals-to-run-free-so-why-is-she-working-for-a-zoo #carrie_symonds #animal_welfare #animals #zoos #boris_johnson #zac_goldsmith