It\u2019s not that the advice offered by Prepare \u2013 a government campaign designed to promote readiness for emergencies \u2013 is irrational. But when the state is absent or working against us, households and communities cannot fill the gap. The campaign tells us<\/a>, for example, to conserve water during droughts by turning off the tap while brushing teeth, or taking a shower instead of a bath. For sure. Every citizen should do their duty. But the government has at the same time declared datacentres \u201cnationally significant infrastructure projects\u201d that can be forced through the planning system, despite two startling facts. The first is that even Water UK \u2013 the body representing water companies, those paragons of environmental responsibility \u2013 has said<\/a> there isn\u2019t enough water to support the new datacentres. The second is that, as a freedom of information response reveals, the government has no idea<\/a> what they are being used for. You could be turning off your taps so the water can be used to nudify celebrities.<\/p>\n Talking of droughts, the government\u2019s National Risk Register<\/a> seems seriously out of whack. It estimates the risk of a drought with a moderate impact occurring in the next five years at just 0.2-1%. What?? It also estimates the risk of heatwaves with a \u201csignificant\u201d impact \u2013 by which it means between 200 and 1,000 deaths \u2013 at only 1-5% over the next five years. The government estimates<\/a> there were 2,877 heat-associated excess deaths in England during this year\u2019s hot weather in May and June. There were a similar number<\/a> of deaths in the heatwave of 2022.<\/p>\n But never mind: the Prepare campaign advises<\/a> that \u201cif you live in a home that is more likely to overheat \u2026 contact your local council, your letting agency or Citizens Advice to find out what help and support they can provide\u201d. Good luck with that. In the meantime, the \u201cfuture homes standard\u201d is at last due to come into force<\/a> in March 2028, but thanks to lobbying by the building sector, according to some practitioners<\/a> it still won\u2019t deliver new homes matched to the climate challenges we face. And local authorities have been blocked<\/a> from demanding anything better, thanks to the same corporate pressure.<\/p>\n Survive floods, the Prepare campaign tells us<\/a>, by \u201cpacking a \u2018grab bag\u2019 of essentials in advance\u201d, moving \u201cvaluable items upstairs\u201d and making \u201cchanges to your property to reduce the damage flooding can do\u201d. But one in nine new homes are being built<\/a> in areas at risk of flooding according to data from Aviva, and a recent high court judgment reveals that the law prevents<\/a> local authorities from blocking such developments, even if they fail a crucial safety test.<\/p>\n These are not the starkest examples of public exhortation colliding with government failure. The Prepare campaign tells us to help stop the spread of avian flu<\/a> by washing hands \u201cwith soap and water\u201d after feeding wild birds. Fine. But at the same time, at the behest of lobbyists<\/a>, the government is pushing a \u201cpoultry sector growth plan<\/a>\u201d. This will multiply the number of super-incubators of avian flu: namely the factory farms rearing chickens. As the Scientific Task Force on Avian Influenza and Wild Birds points out<\/a>, poultry farms are where highly pathogenic bird flu first arose. Through their growth and intensification, the spreading of their manure on fields and its runoff into rivers, we could scarcely devise a better formula for generating new variants of the virus and the attendant ecological disasters. Oh hang on, we could: the shooting industry is still allowed to breed tens of millions of pheasants and partridges in similar conditions each year, then release them into the countryside to mingle with wild birds. But do wash your hands.<\/p>\n You\u2019re also advised to \u201creduce your exposure to air pollution<\/a>\u201d. How? The government is allowing new homes to be equipped with wood-burning stoves<\/a>, building huge and arguably pointless new roads<\/a> and consulting on radically delaying<\/a> the transition to all-electric vehicles. All, once again, in response to lobbying.<\/p>\n As for food resilience, the Prepare campaign scarcely mentions it, except to say we should stock some \u201cnon-perishable food that doesn\u2019t need cooking\u201d in our homes. Last week, a group of anonymous senior food executives warned that<\/a>, in the face of \u201cmaterial reductions in yield, quality and reliability of supply\u201d, their industry was \u201cdefaulting to quick-fix crisis management\u201d rather than taking a strategic, long-term approach. \u201cAt present, we are seeing companies either consistently lobby against necessary regulations or stay silent,\u201d they said. The result is a likely failure to address an existential threat<\/a>.<\/p>\n There was much in Burnham\u2019s speech that delighted me, especially his listing of deregulation as one of the five great evils putting Britain on \u201cthe wrong path\u201d. That\u2019s a break with 47 years of policy, in which all governments have dismissed essential public protections as \u201cred tape\u201d that must be cut. The Tories were still at it<\/a> in their own conference this week \u2013 telling us, in effect, they are here to burn it all down. But, like Keir Starmer, Burnham has tied his own hands by pledging to \u201cstick to our fiscal rules\u201d. These rules did not come from government. They were developed by Westminster junktanks<\/a> and pushed into being by the media. As Larry Elliott has argued persuasively<\/a>, they are unnecessary and self-defeating.<\/p>\n
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