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So my country has gone from madness to political madness and now people are seriously talking about the need to stockpile food in the event we bomb out of the EU onto WTO only rules. The UK produces just 60% of its own food. It is curiously unprepared for obligatory self-sufficiency, or even the kind of delays that a sudden change in customs might require for a just-in-time supply chain for supermarkets.

Living in relatively wealthy London will either be a decisive advantage or disadvantage. We have a lot of people living in close proximity to each other, which means more people fighting over the final few tomatoes in the shop, but it also means that the first place people will bring their goods to sell will be well-to-do London, where people can afford the higher prices and the stuff can be sold quickly and easily.

What sort of stockpile of food might we put together?

Sweden’s government delivered leaflets to 4.8m Swedish households, inviting them to consider how they could best cope in a situation of “major strain … in which society’s normal services are not working as they usually do”. The government had in mind all kinds of crises – natural disasters, terrorism, cyber attacks, all-out war – but the basic survival strategy for all of them was the food hoard.

The leaflet recommended that every home lay down a stock of non-perishables:

• specifically breadstuffs with a long shelf-life (the leaflet mentioned tortillas and crackers),
• dried lentils and beans,
• tinned hummus and sardines,
• ravioli,
• rice,
• instant mashed potato,
• energy bars

Switzerland has long had a similar sense of foreboding: legislation passed in the cold war still demands that every citizen has access to a nuclear shelter. But the list of recommended foods to be kept in the larder (or bunker) in case the worst happens is, as one would expect of Switzerland, more thorough. “Tick the items you need on the following list … and ensure that you always have them in stock” is the advice of the Swiss civil defence authorities. The list begins with

• nine litres of water per person (for an emergency lasting three or four days)
• pepper and salt,
• dry sausage,
• dried fruit and pulses,
• tinned meat and fish,
• hard cheese,
• pet food and
• condensed milk, chocolate, sugar, jam, honey and crispbread.

And I don’t seriously believe that the water supply would be threatened so I’ll not be building up a stock of water bottles, but I am considering some of the rest. I’m also considering stockpiling some alcohol to get us through the first few months of readjustment to this brave new world. My list looks something like this:

• wine, beer, cider
• breadstuffs with a long life, crackers, crispbread and pastry snacks
• lentils and beans, whether dried, tinned or packaged ready-to-eat
• dried pasta
• olive oil
• rice, especially carnaroli/arborio
• spices, ketchup, long life bottled/canned chilli sauce, garlic puree, ginger puree, tomato puree,
• dark chocolate
• dried pet food

And all of this fades into total insignificance compared to the risks to the medical supply chain into the UK.

No insulin is made in the UK: it can’t be by March.  So a no deal Brexit threatens our insulin supply according to medicines regulator Sir Michael Rawlings.

What are the government going to do to prevent type-1 diabetics dying ?

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My daughters are English. I am not. We all live in England, but in London so does that really count? What does it mean to feel yourself to be first and foremost English and only British as an afterthought?

A lot has been written since 2016 about whether the Brexit vote marked an eruption of English nationalism.  Explicit English nationalism remains nonexistent or dormant, not active, unlike other nationalisms in these islands. That the Brexit vote was, in part, an immense expression of English identity is, on the other hand, beyond dispute.

Recently the BBC has been reporting on English identity. Most of it is based on a large survey by YouGov that explores the language, contours and contexts of that identity. Its findings should be a real wake-up call for anybody who is serious about modern British politics, especially on the left.

The fundamental finding in the BBC’s English Question surveys is that 80% of people in England strongly self-identify as English.

On one level this is hardly surprising. England is where they live. It’s where most of them were born. But let the idea and its implications sink in. And note also that there are almost no exceptions at all. This isn’t just coastal towns or leafy lanes. In every region, every class, every age group and almost every other demographic subset, a majority strongly  self-identifies as English. The only subset exceptions, though they are important ones, are black and minority-ethnic adults (but only by a whisker), people who self-identify as British not English, and people of other nationalities altogether.

Almost as important a finding, however, is that a strong sense of English identity actively coexists with other identities. Again, this is hardly surprising. Which of us self-identifies as one thing alone?

The most common of these other identities, not surprisingly, is a British one, with 82% strong identification. On this, with the sole exception of other nationalities, every subset in the survey (this time including black and minority-ethnic adults) strongly identifies with Britishness . Additionally, half of the survey strongly feel an English regional identity – up to 74% in the north-east. Around a quarter strongly feel European too.

There is much else in the BBC/YouGov survey, most notably it shows that whilst the Scottish and Welsh are optimistic about where they and their region are heading, the English are pessimistic and look to recreate their past.

The greatest contributors to English identity, the survey suggests, are the natural landscape and the nation’s history. The strongest image of England is a pre-industrial bucolic nation populated by well-mannered and virtuous citizens. People generally see England as conservative and traditional rather than liberal and outward-looking.

There is more than a hint of nostalgia about people’s sense of Englishness. Almost three times as many of its residents think England was ‘better in the past’ than believe its best years lie in the future.

In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, by contrast, significantly more people think their country’s best years lie ahead rather than behind them.

So while the rest of the UK feels pretty optimistic about their prospects, England seems particularly glum. The more English people feel, the more retrospective they are, and English wistfulness is particularly strong among those who voted to leave in the Brexit referendum.

England’s Christian tradition is important for almost half of Leave voters, but only 29% of remain voters. Leave voters are significantly more likely to talk of Englishness in terms of history, fair play, tolerance, plain-speaking and friendliness than those who wanted to remain

Many on the left prefer the silence. Some find England embarrassing – a “not in my name” country. Many prefer to navigate the multiple identities of Britishness while leaving the self-identifying English alone. As a result the left of centre is not much represented in the English conversation.  Nationalism and Englishness is often conflated by those on the political left where as those on the right of politics seem determined to present a pastiche.

Labour embodies this unease. Few Labour policy documents mention England at all, even when they concern policy areas such as the health service or education, which are devolved and on which, therefore, “national” policy actually means English policy.

Faced with English identity, Jeremy Corbyn is little different from Tony Blair or Gordon Brown. This week Brown made a fine speech about bringing the country together with a programme of reforms. Yet the word England appeared just once in his speech, and only in the context of English regionalism, not English identity. It is hard to think of any senior Labour politician since Tony Benn or Michael Foot who talked about England with any degree of comfort. Their view of England may have been unduly romantic and radical, but at least it existed.

This isn’t intended as a bash-Labour point. For the most part, Labour is no better and no worse than anybody else on the liberal left in this regard. There are honourable exceptions, notably the former minister John Denham, no longer in parliament but actively pushing his English Labour Network. A recent Institute for Public Policy Research speech by the maverick shadow cabinet member Jon Trickett was another important recognition of the need for a political conversation to develop on the left that includes, not ignores, England.

England is not going to go away. And the current English mood is a challenge to every aspect of the progressive tradition. As the BBC/YouGov survey shows, England is not just a place with a real sense of identity. It is also a pessimistic place. Most people in the survey think England was better in the past. The pessimism is widely shared across all parts of England. Only one in six people in England think the country’s best years lie ahead of it.

But this pessimism is not something that need embarrass the progressive traditions in politics. There isn’t much sign of a harking back to whiteness or for the empire. It’s about feeling that the country is incredibly beautiful, has a rich history, and is witty and polite. But the country also used to make things, used to matter more, used to be more caring and connected.

The England that cries out from this survey is not at ease, is disempowered, is disconnected from Westminster and insufficiently able to shape its own future at local, never mind national, level.

English identity is a cultural issue that requires more than just a constitutional answer. Nevertheless, England is the largest nation in Europe without its own parliament and it has become difficult to argue against one, with powers similar to those in the rest of the UK. An English parliament would force the progressive wing of politics to engage seriously with England’s mood and England’s needs. Compared with an English parliament, combined or regional authorities just don’t cut it.

And what is the alternative? If the progressive tradition in British politics cannot find ways of listening to, connecting with and speaking for England, its sense of itself and its sense of place, it risks not just electoral failure but the loss of a much larger argument. To cede the politics of England to the right is to ensure that it is the right that speaks for England. That seems to be what is happening.