Britain’s Ticking Time Bomb: The Food Security Crisis

  • The Rest Is Politics

  • 23 July 2026

  • Posted by Alastair Campbell

  • 1

Could the UK be facing empty supermarket shelves by 2030? Are food distribution centres sitting ducks for drone warfare? And how has Britain got to a place where is has just 3 days to 3 weeks worth of food supplies?


This week, Caroline Lucas sits down with food security expert, Professor Paul Behrens from the University of Oxford.


To hear the full episode and the whole series as it drops, sign up here or at therestispolitics.com


Please continue to send in your questions for Caroline, Alastair and Rory.


⁠⁠Read the redacted Joint Intelligence Committee Report here⁠⁠


⁠⁠Find out more about the National Emergency Briefing here.⁠⁠


⁠Find Paul Behrens book here ⁠


Producer: India Dunkley

Video Editor: Josh Smith

Social Producer: Celine Charles

General Manager: Tom Whiter


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One response to “Britain’s Ticking Time Bomb: The Food Security Crisis”

  1. Regarding the latest on Europe’s ticking time bomb presented by Caroline Lucas (big tick for that). A physicist is wholly unqualified to comment on food security. He won’t be well enough informed on nutrition, carbon capture or biodiverse farming. DEFRA also have a dreadful bias, being constantly lobbied by big agriculture. Yes meat production can ‘loose energy’, but your speaker neglects the importance of the carbon cycle and biodiverse farming. Yes a plant based diet is important, but much of the ‘plant based’ food the bation is eating is low nutrition, UPF, high adititive contributing to poor health and the pressure on the nhs. Be careful where promoting plant based where it is promoted by the food industry and links in to monoculture, GM, high pesticide use and therefore high energy use, with biodiversity destabilising results, carbon release, cancer and other health issues due to high pesticide use. Please bring into the equation at least one programme on biodiverse, diverse organic farming. Only this can promote carbon capture, and provide a diversity of crops to mitigate climate change. For example tree crops will be less susceptible to flood damage and provide shelter to others crops feom drought, flood, cold and other weather extremes. There is great scope for going small, diverse and local and for providing employment. Please speak to the Soil Association. Thank you for presenting this series x

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