What’s next for the clean and lean movement
Last Tuesday, as dawn broke over Japan, millions of people in the country’s northernmost prefecture, Hokkaido, were roused from sleep by a beeping alert on their mobile phones at 6.02am. “Missile launch. Missile launch,” the text message read. “A missile was fired from North Korea. Please evacuate to a sturdy building or basement.”
Four minutes earlier, a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile had indeed been fired from somewhere near Sunan Air Base in North Korea. It flew right over Hokkaido, then buried itself 500 nautical miles off the coast. By that time, Japan’s public broadcaster had managed to cut its morning news to a black screen displaying a similar portent to the SMS alert; emergency sirens in Sapporo, Hokkaido’s capital, had started to wail. In all, the flight time of that missile was 14 minutes, which is about the same notice period Homeland Security reckon residents of Guam have, should North Korea make good on last month’s threats.
Analysts insist that full-blown nuclear Armageddon is far from likely, no matter how much President Trump and Kim Jong-un tussle. Many will still remember the sense of imminence during the Cold War: the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, Ronald Reagan’s “Strategic Defence Initiative” (better known as the Star Wars Programme) in the 1980s, and our own “Protect and Survive” campaign in this country. When the Berlin Wall fell, that threat simmered down, but almost 28 years later, the question of what would happen if a missile was heading our way has come into focus once again.
If a missile fitted with nuclear warheads set off from Moscow or central Asia it would take around 20 minutes to hit London. En route, it would pass through the airspace of half a dozen Nato allies, but once spotted and the message passed on, you could optimistically have 10 minutes to do something about it at home.
In many other countries, the given alert system for impending doom is common knowledge. In the Netherlands, for instance, the deafening wails of nuclear alarms are tested at noon on the first Monday of the month. The same happens in America and Japan, with different tones for different warnings. Here, the only similar systems we have now are found near flood areas, chemical plants, oil refineries and around Broadmoor Hospital, where they warn of an escapee. Some air raid sirens were kept from the Second World War and adapted for the infamous “four-minute warning” during the Cold War, but this was almost entirely dismantled by 1990. As well as the ebbing aerial threat, to some derision, the government cited the rise of double-glazing as a reason to cease sound warnings.
With a missile coming, TV and radio would instantly switch to the news. During the Cold War, the Wartime Broadcasting Service, run by the BBC and broadcast from the its nuclear bunker in Wood Norton Hall, Worcs, was ready to replace all transmissions. At that time, Peter Donaldson, the late Radio 4 continuity announcer, recorded a script to be broadcast.
“This is the Wartime Broadcasting Service. This country has been attacked with nuclear weapons. Communications have been severely disrupted, and the number of casualties and the extent of the damage are not yet known,” his address began. “Stay tuned to this wavelength, stay calm and stay in your own homes. Remember, there is nothing to be gained by trying to get away.”
The Wartime Broadcasting Service was stood down in the 90s (that said, the BBC is rumoured to have a modern system ready in the same bunker). In that decade, suggestions for the reader of a new message – for all home telephones – included Joanna Lumley, Jill Dando and Carol Vorderman.
A text message is more likely now, especially since the government can easily contact every registered mobile phone in the UK. It also has the ability to restrict access to base transceiver stations (BTS), meaning mobile signal would only be available for the emergency services and energy companies. In that case, your phone would become a one-way device: you could receive instructions, but not be able to contact anyone.
Where tsunamis, tornadoes and cyclones – other cataclysmic events with the good grace to call ahead – occur, warning texts from the government are an accepted part of life.
That system was trialled by the Home Office in 2014, for “flooding, air quality incidents, severe weather, explosions, large scale plumes, ‘major incidents’ or situations requiring evacuation,” and deemed a success, but the report stated that the public would be made aware of the messages’ wording and layout through a nationwide trust campaign first. Three years on, we remain unaware.
“We are woefully under-prepared in that sense,” says John Preston, professor of education at Bath Spa University, who specialises in public preparedness for disasters. “How would we know an SMS wasn’t fake? Leaving the public in the dark on this is very strange.”
The time a missile strikes is crucial too. According to a model by Nick Jones and James King of Imperial College, if a missile was identified at midnight, it would take the government eight hours to broadcast a message to half the population (on TV, social media, radio, phones, word of mouth). At 8pm, when more people are awake and together, it would take just half an hour.
It’s likely those messages would tell us to go to the most central room of the house or get underground. In Protect and Survive, the 1980 government pamphlet with advice for saving your family under nuclear attack, householders were told to make a fallout room and within that, an inner refuge, such as a cupboard. These days it may be that Nikita Khrushchev’s warning – “the living will envy the dead” – proves correct, but it holds true that the more dense the material between you and the outside world, the better chance you’d have.
Even if you were a long way from wherever the bomb lands, outside would be risky. Radioactive particles can be carried for hundreds of miles on the wind, and fallout would be at its most severe in the first two weeks. After that, it will have declined to about one per cent of its initial level, so the advice would be to get supplies that could see you through that amount of time and stay as clean as possible. Advice on ready. gov, the US government website for disaster planning, suggests removing contaminated clothing and placing it in a sealed bag as far away as possible. Wash your hair with shampoo, too, but “do not use conditioner because it will bind radioactive material to your hair”.
Few nuclear bunkers from the Cold War have been maintained, but the Prime Minister, cabinet ministers, military personnel and senior civil servants would slip into the air-locked Defence Crisis Management Centre, or “Pindar”, a bunker complex under the Ministry of Defence on Whitehall.
According to a source shown the facility during the Kosovo conflict, Pindar, which comes with meeting rooms, hundreds of beds, supplies and advanced telecoms, is connected to a vast tunnel network linking landmarks including the BT Tower and Downing Street. Accessed by small, unmarked doors all over the city, bicycles can be found for use along its route.
Those tunnels reportedly include Buckingham Palace, but it’s unlikely the Queen would go to Pindar. Only she can appoint a Prime Minister, should anything happen to the incumbent, so protocol would dictate that she would need to find safety elsewhere. During the Cold War, the plan was for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh to have a floating bunker, that would move at night between the sea lochs of west Scotland. Sheltered from enemy radar by the mountains, they were to be joined by the Queen’s Private Secretary and the Home Secretary, so that a Privy Councillite could be formed and a new Government appointed.
Somewhere in the North Atlantic, one of Britain’s nuclear, Vanguardclass submarines is always patrolling, and this would be its moment. From Pindar, a code would be sent by the PM via the Northwood headquarters under the Chiltern Hills, through which all communications with the Vanguard-class submarines pass, and out to sea. At every stage, the message would be confirmed by two people, as a precaution against miscommunication or foul play. The submarine’s commander then would open two safes, one inside the other, and pull the trigger.
The same commander would go through a series of checks to assess the state of the nation. One of these includes listening for Radio 4’s Today programme for three days. Safe in the Worcestershire bunker, Radio 4 would be the only broadcaster, utilising Wood Norton’s super high-frequency satellite; if they don’t hear the broadcast, it is safe to assume Britain has fallen. If so, the submarine’s commander will read what’s known as “The Letter of Last Resort”, containing the Prime Minister’s final instructions. Whenever a new PM is elected, the Cabinet Secretary immediately has them write four letters, one for each sub, with their recommendation for this moment, if the chain of command has collapsed. Retaliate, don’t retaliate, place the boat under the control of the Australian or US Navy, or leave the decision up to the commander – those are the options.
Nobody knows what previous leaders have recommended; the letters are destroyed at the end of each premiership and none has ever been opened. Let’s hope it stays that way.
‘The submarine’s commander will read what’s known as the letter of last resort’