Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,The British government is preparing to tell ordinary people a blunt message: the state is not coming to save you. Households will be urged to stockpile long-life food, bottled water, essential medicines and even wind-up radios as part of a new national resilience campaign launching later this year.At the same time, ministers have confirmed Operation Albiston Shadow - the largest home defence wargame exercise in decades - will take place in 2027, testing responses to 'hybrid' attacks alongside a major NATO drill.Officials frame it all around Russian cyber threats, sabotage risks and the need to update the old Government War Book. Yet the timing and language raise a sharper question about what Whitehall is actually preparing for.BREAKING: The UK will hold its largest home defence exercise in decades next year
Dubbed 'Operation Albiston Shadow' Sky's @haynesdeborah says it will play out over a number of days and will be testing the UK's responses to 'hybrid' threats under the threshold of conventional... pic.twitter.com/HZTqjNlVvl
— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 14, 2026Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones stated "The government will do all it can and we are well prepared - but we can all play our part to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. This campaign will help the public to take small but important steps to be prepared in case of emergencies and disruption - be that severe weather or a cyber-attack, which can impact access to power, water, or phone signal."Armed Forces minister Louise Sandher-Jones was more explicit about the external threat: "Russia is not only a threat to NATO's eastern flank. It is a direct threat to the UK homeland and these exercises, together with important measures like updating our 'War Books', will help prepare us to meet that threat, as well as showing the British public how seriously we are taking it."The Cabinet Office has updated the National Risk Register with new scenarios including cyber attacks on data, water and police systems, digital resilience failures modelled on the 2024 CrowdStrike outage, and foreign interference in democracy.BREAKING: The UK will hold its largest home defence exercise in decades next year to better prepare the country for the possibility of war.
