A couple of weeks ago, the Danish government acted quickly to deal with a received risk of a new strain of the coronavirus that had been identified in mink. Denmark is the world’s biggest producer of furs from the animal and orders were issued to wipe out the entire stock of mink in the country. That's more than 15 million animals. Now that move has spectacularly backfired. Whilst the mink industry may not, with all due respect to those involved in it, be a major global economic consideration, the wider issues that the mink cull has exposed are a salutary reminder of the dangers that governments face when they take quick decisions, particularly ones that in effect shut down an entire industry.
Firstly there is the governance issue. From my time working in the UK government, and indeed from a number of other administrations elsewhere, I have become painfully aware of how long it takes to craft new legislation. Sometimes a whole day can be spent tortuously going over one word. At first this seems like some meaningless tug of war between competing bureaucrats; but not getting the language right can have all sorts of unintended consequences. Laws are tricky things where the devil is in the detail. I remember a famous case involving tax law in the UK quite a while back now involving the famous delicacy known as the Jaffa Cake. The debate centred on whether a Jaffa Cake was indeed, as its name suggests, a cake or whether it was a chocolate-covered biscuit. This seemingly pointless debate was actually quite important as a cake (which a Jaffa Cake indeed finally was according to an independent tribunal) was zero-rated for VAT purposes whereas a chocolate-covered biscuit was not.
This simple if slightly historical example (which gives my age away to some extent) came into my mind when I considered the problems that Denmark has experienced with its mink cull, a painful reminder of how serious it can be when legislation is either poorly phrased or alternatively misinterpreted. It turns out that the Danish government had no legal authority to order the actions that it did and that literally millions of animals may have been slaughtered illegally. One of the first casualties of the decision, apart that is from the many mink farmers who culled their mink stock, was the Agriculture Minister Mogens Jensen. However, pressure is also being put on the Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, to follow suit. To compound the threat of the situation to the Social Democrat government, it is a minority administration which relies on the support of others to stay in power. Ms Frederiksen won widespread support for her handling of the crisis earlier on but her popularity has declined by 20 points on the back of the mishandling of the mink situation.
The cull itself descended into tragic farce when halfway through the government admitted that it only had the power to order the destruction of infected mink or those within five miles of them rather than the entire population. Some culls were halted halfway through but for many animals it was too late. To make matters worse scientists now suggest that the mutation was not as dangerous as first feared and has probably died out anyway. In the meantime, the government is likely to be facing heavy bills for compensation as well as suffering great political damage as a result. It is a sobering reminder that whilst the pandemic demands rapid and decisive action, however well-intentioned such moves are they are fraught with risk. It also damages the credibility of the government and perhaps in these extraordinary times where following their advice is so important, such a loss of confidence in their guidance is possibly one of the most serious repercussions of all. It is a timely reminder to all of us that however pedantic some rules might seem to be they are usually there for a reason; and that bypassing them, even when extraordinary circumstances exist, should only be done for very good reasons. In addition, exceptional circumstances do not justify completely ignoring the retention of some checks and balances before going ahead. Most of us would accept the need for rapid action in the current situation but, however well-meaning such steps might be, bypassing normal rules can be a perilous operation as the Danish government is painfully finding out.
Wayne Bartlett is an author for accountingcpd. To see his courses, click here.
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