Do you feel like we’re at war? Defence chiefs and senior politicians want us to think this way, urging us to start stockpiling food, water and torches in case of an emergency caused by a hostile state – or another crisis such as severe weather or cyber meltdown.
This week, Wes Streeting launched what he snappily termed a “national resilience conversation” – not one to set the pulses racing with fear – about needing to prepare for the threat of “state-sponsored terrorism”. In a speech on Thursday, Streeting said: “It’s really important that we ask households and businesses, are they prepared? Are they ready? Do they know how they would respond in the event of everyday challenges that might manifest themselves?”
This national conversation is being branded “Be Ready”. Households are being encouraged to keep a supply of blankets, cash, torches (not candles) at home, along with storing three litres of water per person per day, and enough food to keep them going for three days. This isn’t eccentric Unabomber-style prepping: it’s much more normal in Nordic countries where there is a greater popular appreciation of the security threats nearby. It’s just that Brits haven’t yet appreciated how close those threats are.
Last week, the chief of the general staff told soldiers that “very soon, the political leaders of this country will start to have a frank conversation with the citizens of this country about just what is going on and where the risk lies. They are going to try and explain to our citizens that our citizens have got to consent to sacrifices to prioritise defence and security.”
There is a sense that those citizens still aren’t listening, hence this campaign, and hence attempts by Andy Burnham and Angela Rayner to get more attention for it with their own take on what prepping might look like. Rayner suggested jokingly that she would keep a bottle of sauvignon blanc and mascara ready for a crisis, while the Prime Minister said he wasn’t sure that wine was “the top of the list in terms of the advice that we’re giving to the public. You need to have a clear head when it comes to a challenging situation. So yeah, some tins of food, some bottled water. But I’m sure people are allowed a glass or two as well to get them through a difficult situation.”
This kind of joking double act makes “Be Ready” even more of a talking point: something Burnham is really good at. It means every radio station and news site is asking its audience what they would keep in an emergency, inviting joking responses, but all the while bringing the central message right into those households that weren’t listening until now.
Some of Burnham’s critics think that if the Prime Minister is really worried about the nation’s readiness, he should stop going on about music on buses or rip-off parking charges. But there is a difficult balance for him here. He knows from having watched Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer talk non-stop about how difficult things were going to be for the economy that this doesn’t help either the country or the Government. For him to be constantly forecasting doom like Frazer in Dad’s Army would be to both fail to make the case and to damage the economy.
It’s difficult, though, to take all this urgent talk about being ready seriously when the Government itself is far from ready to have its own national resilience conversation. So unready, in fact, that ministers have been happy to kick into next year’s spending review the question on how to reach three per cent of GDP spent on defence by 2030. You might have your wind-up torch and a cupboard full of water ready, but the MoD’s coffers remain distinctly unready.
Of course, part of urging Brits to be ready is also pitch-rolling for the trade-offs that will come when the defence spending plan is agreed: if you’ve stocked up your own house with tins just in case of a Russian attack, you’re more likely to understand why the Government is cutting spending from welfare, for instance, in order to fund the Armed Forces. But until those details are available, it seems perfectly reasonable to turn around to ministers who are asking the public if they’re ready, and reply: “And are you?”