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The UK wants us to prepare. Is it prepared itself?
The UK Government is urging households, via the ‘Prepare’ campaign, to get ready for emergencies ranging from cyber-attacks and power cuts to conflict and climate-related disasters. Recommendations from the campaign include measures such as stockpiling long-life food and bottled water, as well as other household essentials such as power banks, first aid kits and battery-powered radios. On the surface, this is sensible precautionary advice. But it raises a more pressing question: how much responsibility for preparing for a crisis should fall on the public, particularly when many households are already struggling with the cost of living? The government cannot prevent every possible emergency, but it can invest in the infrastructure, security and contingency plans needed to mitigate their potential effects. Asking people to prepare for the worst is one thing; leaving them to bear the consequences of inadequate preparation is another.
The need for greater national preparedness is particularly evident across Europe’s deteriorating security environment. Russia’s war against Ukraine has been accompanied by a growing number of suspected acts of sabotage, incursions into European airspace and other forms of hostile activity. Russia has reportedly damaged undersea cables in the Baltics and has been linked to a highly disruptive drone campaign across the EU, with drones shot down in Latvia and Lithuania. Recently, a Danish military helicopter was also fired at with flares by a Russian warship. For Britain, the question is whether successive governments have done enough to prepare for this increasingly uncertain security environment and, crucially, how prepared the government would be if such an event were to occur in Britain. It has been eight years since the Salisbury poisonings proved the Kremlin’s willingness to conduct dangerous actions on British soil was not a hypothetical concern. And yet, the UK Government still appears slow in its response to this threat. Britain’s defence infrastructure’s dire condition has been widely covered on news programmes in recent years, with many suggesting the country is not prepared for a potential conflict with Russia. The Prepare campaign is a welcome reminder that households should be ready for disruptions in an increasingly unstable geopolitical environment. But individual preparedness cannot replace an effective government-developed national defence strategy.
In addition to the potential for conflict, the government also highlighted the increasing frequency of natural disasters as one of the main inspirations for the Prepare campaign. Prepare warns the public to anticipate increasingly intense heatwaves following the summer of 2026, which broke temperature and drought records. Advice given on preparing for droughts involves taking short showers instead of baths, turning off taps whilst brushing your teeth, installing water-saving devices and refraining from watering your garden with a hosepipe. Many of these are reasonable measures, especially during a drought, however, it becomes increasingly difficult to shift the water-saving behaviour of British citizens when the government is repeatedly pursuing rapid expansion of AI data centres. Construction of data centres has vastly outpaced our ability to meet their extremely high water demands, and with AI a seemingly important aspect of the government’s plan for growth, there is no indication of construction slowing down. So how can the government ask a public harrowed by a cost-of-living crisis to shoulder these responsibilities, whilst actively pursuing actions that will worsen the situations—such as water scarcity—it claims to be preparing for?
Along with saving water, Prepare warns the public to start stockpiling food. Fears that persistent drought and heat could lead to soil degradation and subsequently poorer harvest yields have contributed to government recommendations to stockpile long-life food. Earlier this October, 150 experts urged Andy Burnham to develop a system of food storage sites which could feed struggling families in the event of an emergency. In fact, these experts, mainly academics and business leaders, cited the panic buying during the Covid-19 pandemic as a warning sign that Britain is not adequately equipped to handle food shortages. Their concerns extend beyond the immediate risk of shortages. Disruption to food supplies could drive up prices, placing an even greater burden on low-income households. If the public is being asked to prepare for emergencies, the government must explain how it intends to ensure that people who cannot afford to stockpile essentials will still be fed. A national system of strategic food reserves would be one way to begin. One such example of a successful food reserve system exists in Switzerland, which stockpiles upwards of four months’ worth of food. Switzerland, like the UK, relies heavily on food imports—as such, in the event of a global emergency, food security would be at risk in case of disruptions in global supply chains. With around 40% of Britain’s food coming from abroad, it is clear why experts believe a food reserve is crucial.
Ultimately, whilst the Prepare campaign is just precautionary, and its recommendations might be wise, it is a hard pill to swallow for a public expecting their government to lead by example. The UK Government must learn that whilst it does not hurt to be prepared for the worst, the best course of action is to avoid the worst case happening in the first place. The government should strengthen the UK's defences against drone and cyber-attacks, ensure that new data centres do not undermine already strained water supplies, and invest in adapting communities to a changing climate. To ask the public to prepare for the worst is reasonable. But to ensure that the country itself is prepared, and that foreseeable risks are not made worse by government policy, is a far greater responsibility.
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