The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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8:45am on Saturday, 15th August, 2026:
Anecdote
Yesterday, I received an emergency message from the government on my phone. So did everyone else who had a phone that was switched on. I actually received two (three hours apart). Some people received three.
I have a couple of points to make about this.
Firstly, telling us that there's a risk of fires and we shouldn't use portable barbecues or fireworks is not an emergency. Pretty well everyone already knew of the fire risks in these drought conditions anyway. When my phone started with the alarm yesterday, I thought there was an actual emergency, maybe a fire bearing down on our house or a missile heading for Colchester. I didn't expect it to be a message reminding terrorists of a simple way to cause havoc.
Secondly, the message itself needs a way to turn the sound off. There were people (my wife included) who closed the pop-up without reading beyond the first line because the alarm was so aggravating. Maybe there is such a way to quieten it. Maybe touching the message anywhere except the "OK" button stops the racket. If so, it's ineffective unless you tell people it exists.
If our new PM, Andy Burnham, thinks that acting on his earlier "tinderbox" comment by sending everyone with a phone a message telling them what they already knew would make the slightest difference either to the preponderance of wildfires or to his reputation as being decisive, he's mistaken. The message just came across as patronising.
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Copyright © 2026 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).