The growing fear of WORLD WAR III

More people are worried about the conflict in Ukraine than global warming or new Covid-19 variants

THE ongoing war in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis dominate people's fears. According to a regular Government poll that tracks public opinions and social trends in the UK, 78% of adults were worried about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and 74% about the rising cost of living.

That has outstripped people's immediate fears about the environment (55%), new coronavirus variants (47%), and the impact of the pandemic on their lives at present (36%).

The Ukraine war - as well as contributing to the cost of living crisis by driving up fuel and energy costs - has raised the chilling prospect of World War III, and pushed relations with Russia back to the days of the Cold War.

The terrifying vision of all-out nuclear war has even been raised by threats emanating from the Kremlin. Dmitry Kiselov - the Russian TV presenter sometimes referred to as President Vladimir Putin's “mouthpiece” - warned an underwater missile hitting the UK would produce a 500m-high tsunami and leave the nation as a “radioactive desert”.

At the same time, horrific images of death and destruction in Ukraine continue to be broadcast into people's homes on the TV news.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) survey, 31% of respondents are “very worried” and 47% are “somewhat worried” about the war in Ukraine. Only 4% said they were “not at all worried”.

And it seems most people are preparing themselves for a long conflict - 42% of respondents believe the war will last for more than a year, while only 9% believe it will be over in between one and six months.

Meanwhile, 28% of respondents said they were very worried about the rising cost of living and 46% said they were somewhat worried.

Of all those who said they had concerns about rising costs (including those who said they were “neither worried nor unworried”), 21% said they felt anxious about money troubles every day.

And those fears are clearly justified. Around nine in 10 adults (88%) reported in June that their daily costs had risen over the past month - which was the same proportion as respondents to the same survey in May.

The most common reasons given by adults who reported increases in their weekly and daily bills were price rises when food shopping (94%), gas or electricity (85%), and fuel (77%).

Almost half of adults who responded to the survey (46%) said they had reduced the amount of food they bought over the past two weeks - and the proportion of people making cuts to their shopping has increased over time. In May 44% said they had cut back on their food spending, while at the beginning of the year only 18% said they had started buying less.