On Thursday afternoon, the Cabinet Office finally published new advice for all households on how to be ready for emergencies.

This long-awaited push was supposed to send a strong signal to the country about the importance of readiness, marking the launch of a three-year campaign to shift the whole of UK society to a footing that is more resilient to any kind of shock.

But - unusually for a major government announcement - no minister had been scheduled to speak to unveil this piece of work.

It was just going to be a website update and a written ministerial statement to parliament.

Fortunately, by chance, Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, was due to appear in front of the cameras on Thursday morning at the opening of a new gun hall in the West Midlands.

He made no mention of the imminent resilience push in a short speech that he gave, even though the website was due to go live a couple of hours later.

But he then opened up the floor to questions from various journalists, which gave Sky News the chance to ask him when ministers were going to start talking frankly about the need to prepare citizens for the possibility of war.

It was this question - not some carefully choreographed government announcement - that prompted Mr Streeting to reveal the resilience campaign was about to launch and to say that the UK needs to prepare for food shortages and cyber attacks.

Without our exchange, the whole national resilience big reveal would have unfolded in silence.

Delays to fire the starting gun

Still, the fact that the advice has been published at all will doubtless be a relief to those involved in drafting it because even the timing of the launch had been less than certain.

At first, it was expected in September. Then it was anticipated to be last week, or the start of this week.

I finally emailed the Cabinet Office on Tuesday to say I was planning to publish a piece about the repeated delays to even fire the starting gun on the readiness campaign. But then it emerged that the advice would eventually be coming out on Thursday.

Whether or not that date was firmed up in the wake of awkward questions about the delay is unclear.

One thing is certain, however: The lack of fanfare around readiness contrasts starkly with the approach taken by like-minded NATO allies.

The Baltic states and Nordic countries speak frankly with their citizens about what each household needs to do to have the best chance of survival in a conflict.

In the UK, a huge amount of work has gone on behind the scenes to plan for the "Be Ready" rollout, which was first trailed in July during the dying days of Sir Keir Starmer's government.

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Andy Burnham inherited the project as well as the leadership of the much-promised but minimally-delivered national conversation on defence.

Yet he appears to have chosen not to speak out on the launch of the new readiness campaign despite its national significance.

Even Dan Jarvis, the security minister, who is leading on resilience, stayed away from journalists on Thursday, instead just publishing his ministerial statement and sending out a written post on social media.

This lacklustre approach was met privately with disappointment among members of the resilience community.

The concern - rightly or wrongly - is that it creates the impression that preparing the country for the possibility of any crisis, up to and including war, is not a top priority for the government.

They say just 6% of those eligible will get - or currently receive - the drug in its first three years on the NHS, with millions buying it privately instead.

The warning comes from the Commons' health committee, which wants obesity treated as a long-term and managed condition like diabetes.

Mounjaro (tirzepatide) is one of the best known GLP-1 drugs, along with Wegovy and Ozempic, and is taken as a weekly injection.

It works by suppressing appetite and making a person feel fuller for longer.

MPs say its rollout needs to be ramped up dramatically as a "two-tier system" has formed between those who can afford to pay privately and those who can't.

"The government must urgently reassess the pace of rollout of Mounjaro," the committee urged.

"This should include making better use of the capacity of digital providers.

"As a first step, the department should hold a summit on GLP-1 access with a range of providers and healthcare professionals to open a dialogue on how best to improve the rollout."

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) recommended Mounjaro to treat obesity in June 2024.

Wegovy (semaglutide) has also been approved by the NHS.

The NHS estimated 2.8 million people would be eligible for Mounjaro, at a cost of £15.2bn over five years, if all signed on for the drug in its first year of availability.

Nice agreed to NHS England's request to introduce it gradually instead, and it's only being rolled out to 220,000 over three years.

The MPs' report calls for a new framework to "include ambitious targets for the proportion of a local population that should be able to access GLP-1s".

It says around 2.4 million packs of GLP-1 drugs are prescribed each month in the UK but the vast majority are being bought privately.

Prices for a month's supply of Mounjaro range from about £150 for the smallest dose to about £350 for the highest.

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"Access to GLP-1 medication appears increasingly to be determined by ability to pay rather than clinical need," the MPs warn.

"Given that obesity already follows stark lines of deprivation and inequality, failing to provide equitable access will entrench and widen those disparities, letting down the patients who need support most."

An NHS spokesperson said it was "testing new ways to accelerate access, including new routes for starting these medicine".

It said "a wide range of other support" for obesity was also available, "which has already helped tens of thousands of people achieve a healthier weight".

Spreading the cost over a multi-year contract may be tempting, but doing so with a major provider could cost you £1,000 more.

In research shared exclusively with the Money blog, consumer champion Which? found:

• Buying the new iPhone Duo with EE, O2 or Vodafone on a four-year contract means paying £37 a month for their basic unlimited data SIM
• Over four years, this amounts to paying at least £1,146 more compared to using a cheap SIM from a virtual network. For example, Which? has seen unlimited data offered for as little as £15 a month on a one-month contract with iD Mobile
• Plus, as all three networks use annual price increases, the SIM bill won't stay at £37 for long. After 31 March 2027, it will jump to £39.50 a month, then £42 a month after 31 March 2028.

Find more consumer news and tips in our Money blog

Looking just at the handset, you could end up paying £170 more with major networks, Which? found.

• With EE or O2, the total repayment for an iPhone Duo costs £2,169.36, while with Three or Vodafone it's £2,167.84
• However, you can buy an iPhone Duo directly from Apple for £1,999 or £66.63 a month for 30 months

Lisa Barber, Which? tech editor, told the Money blog: "For those still looking to get their hands on the latest Apple launch, buying on contract will likely be a popular option, but our research has found this can come with a painful sting in the tail.

"Not only do consumers pay more for the handset, but they also end up paying hefty monthly sums for data. Shockingly, we found you could pay over £1,000 more this way over a four-year period compared to a SIM-only deal."

Here are Which?'s current recommendations for best-value high or unlimited data SIMs...

You can still spread the cost

Which? advises that it's always cheaper to buy the phone outright from a retailer than on a contract with a network.

You'll end up saving money with the initial purchase and having control of the SIM portion of the contract.

If you still want to spread the cost, the best thing to do is to look out for interest-free options.

Of course, another way to save money is by either not going for the very latest model or by shopping in the refurbished market.

The buffer between projected demand and supply will be similar to recent years and better than during the 2022 energy crisis, the electricity grid operator, the National Energy System Operator (NESO), said.

But like all winters, the NESO said, there may be "tighter" periods.

The annual winter outlook report comes after scrutiny of the grid operator, which was subject to alleged whistleblower concerns.

A series of once-rare summer pleas for more power were issued as the country faced numerous heatwaves.

The independent investigation into the whistleblowing allegations heard from interviewees who said the energy system on 23 June was "consistently in breach of operational limits for a number of hours" despite the NESO press release saying the system was "not at risk".

A NESO statement on Monday said the investigation concluded there "was no evidence of inappropriate influence over operational decisions or that control room records were altered or inappropriately managed in any way, including to avoid public scrutiny".

How the lights are going to be kept on

This coming winter, during times of peak demand for electricity, like particularly cold and still days when solar and wind power generation is lower, gas plants will be fired up.

This kind of gas demand - to make up for a shortfall in renewables - is forecast to increase in winter by the British gas grid operator, National Gas, despite overall demand expected to fall.

Greater use of imports is facilitating this, according to the National Gas winter outlook report, which said global supplies have a "growing importance" as liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports are forecast to rise about 6%.

The influence of 'geopolitical events' on Britain's gas

But connectedness to European and global gas markets means "external events" could influence Britain's gas market, the operator said.

"International disruptions, including geopolitical events, may affect market conditions", it added.

Supply for winter is "sufficient", however, with National Gas analysis indicating only a "rare and very unlikely" combination of events, like extreme weather coinciding with major supply disruption, would create challenges for security of supply.

Britain enters the cold months with low levels of gas stored and relying on Europe, whose own storage levels are at record lows.

Prices were unseasonably high during the typically cheaper summer months as gas generation was needed to plug power demands as Europeans turned to air conditioning and electric fans, and extreme heat made some electricity generation less effective.

Supply had already been tight due to the US and Israel's war in Iran disrupting LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz shipping lane.

Most of Britain's imports will come from the North Sea, though domestic production declines, and from Norway.

The winter assessment was made before the government announced its approval for exploitation of the Jackdaw gas field.

If Jackdaw production begins this winter, it could "provide a modest upside to the forecast", the gas grid operator said.

It follows Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh announcing she had approved drilling in the Jackdaw gas field on Wednesday, claiming it will boost energy security and reduce the need to import gas from abroad.

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But she has yet to approve extraction from Rosebank, and previously told Sky's Paul Kelso a decision on it "would take a little longer".

Speaking on Sky's Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Baroness Harman said: "Well, my guess is they will approve it [Rosebank]. I think they should approve it, and I think they should strongly make the green argument for doing it of investing the proceeds into turbocharging our homegrown renewable energy."

She noted that ministers are making green arguments around the decision to approve Jackdaw: "They're saying... If it's gonna be done, and we know we're gonna have to have gas as part of our energy mix, it's better that we do it near at hand because we can impose conditions which have less carbon emissions during this extraction."

She also pointed to the announcement of an energy wealth fund, which will use tax revenues from North Sea oil and gas to help fund the green transition.

Baroness Harman said that, if ministers make the same arguments as they did for Jackdaw, "that then is a very green argument for doing Rosebank".

Both Jackdaw and Rosebank were originally given the green light by the last Conservative government. But those approvals were struck down by the court in January 2025, who said the environmental impact of burning the oil and gas extracted hadn't been considered.

Rosebank is considerably bigger than Jackdaw and is mainly composed of oil, meaning the climate impacts would be much larger than those of Jackdaw. Most of the oil would also be exported onto the global market, with opponents arguing it wouldn't do anything to increase energy security.

Labour committed to not grant any new North Sea oil and gas licences in their 2024 election manifesto. Ministers have argued that as the process was already underway for Jackdaw and Rosebank they do not count as new licences.

Our political reporter Faye Brown has reported that many Labour MPs are unhappy about Jackdaw and would be even more angered if Fahnbulleh approves Rosebank.

One unhappy MP said that while the energy secretary "might get away" with Jackdaw, "Rosebank is a different story". "Her position won't be tenable no matter what carbon offsets and other cross subsidies she proposes."