Canberra, Wednesday. The plague is biblical. A tide of mice, washing over New South Wales farms like a furry brown tsunami. Grain stores, barns, even homes. They gnaw through wiring, contaminate feed, spread disease. One farmer told me he swept up 50,000 corpses in a night. It's not a pest problem. It's a crisis of state.
Westminster is watching. And moving. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has quietly seconded a team of British agronomists to advise the Australian government. Insiders say it's a soft power play, a chance to showcase UK expertise post-Brexit. The message: Britain can still project agricultural influence.
But behind the scenes, there's more at stake. UK grain exports to Australia have been climbing since the trade deal. A plague down under could disrupt supply chains. Ministers are nervous. They don't want mouse-driven inflation hitting British bread prices.
The agronomists are veterans of the 2014 UK mouse outbreak in Cambridgeshire. They bring 'advisory capacity' only. But Whitehall sources whisper of a more active role: emergency bait contracts, maybe even deployment of UK-made rodenticides. The Australians are grateful but proud. One official said: 'We don't need the Poms to fix our mice. We need their data.'
Meanwhile, the National Farmers' Union is lobbying for a taskforce. They want UK farmers protected from any knock-on grain shortages. The Treasury is resisting, fearing a precedent. Expect a Cabinet scrap next week.
On the ground, it's raw. Farmers are burning crops, plowing under fields. The mice keep coming. One British adviser told me: 'It's like nothing I've seen. This isn't a plague. It's a population explosion. And it's not over.'
Vote share for the government in affected seats has slumped, according to leaked internal polling. No surprise, but a worry for a party already trailing. The opposition is sniffing blood. Expect questions at PMQs.
For now, the agronomists are there. Britain is offering help. But in Whitehall, the real game is about reputation, trade, and electoral calculus. The mice are just a backdrop.
