If the drought gets political, will Andy Burnham do a rain dance for TikTok?

Half of England and all of Wales is now officially in drought. It’s not just weather; the economic and political repercussions of extreme weather around the world are gradually making themselves felt.

Not quite – and we’ve had droughts before, notably the long summer of 1976: little rain fell between May 1975 and August 1976. But rarely have there been so many droughts quite so close together, let alone combined with soggy winters; there have been three droughts in the past five years – 2022, 2025, and now 2026.

They’re on the front line and are finding it difficult to cope. For some years in succession, record hot summers have been recorded, and a combination of those and wetter winters is making it harder for farmers to grow traditional crops and rear livestock. At best, it means earlier and smaller yields and harvests; at worst, it means money spent on irrigation and storage is wasted as crops fail entirely.

Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East has also driven energy and fertiliser bills higher, while policy decisions on taxes and wages have made life more difficult for some in agriculture. A crisis is underway.

More food will have to be imported, putting pressure on the trade deficit, and there will be higher inflation than would otherwise be the case. Parts of agriculture that have lost subsidies since Brexit will fall into crisis and demand financial help from the government – an early and painful challenge for Andy Burnham.

It would be no bad thing if there were an increasing realisation on the right of politics that climate change is real and that local and international action is needed to counter it and save life on Earth (northwest Europe being especially badly affected by the long-term trends).

There are some signs of this happening, although Kemi Badenoch is still demanding that Conservative parliamentary candidates renounce the net zero targets previously enshrined in law by Theresa May. The mounting evidence of a climate emergency will harm those parties, notably Reform UK, that stay in denial, and help the Greens (but perhaps not that much once the drought has passed).

Besides rescuing farmers from bankruptcy, it could double down on net zero policies – rather than eroding existing commitments, as Burnham is doing – and get on with building more reservoirs, irrespective of what is happening to broken water companies.

Soon there will be calls for Burnham to “do something” more immediately, but his options are limited. In the summer of ’76, the prime minister James Callaghan appointed the sports minister, Denis Howell, as a coordinating “minister for drought”; he was quickly nicknamed “minister for rain” by the press, who begged this portly Brummie to do a public rain dance.

Howell urged calm, oversaw the standpipe rationing and gave out water-saving advice such as sharing a bath with your partner. Perhaps Burnham might set a similar example, maybe tastefully filmed for a TikTok?

If not, he could promote the existing minister for water, Emma Hardy, to “minister for lack of water” – she is already running something called the National Drought Group, which includes the Met Office, civil servants, regulators, water companies, farmers, the Canal & River Trust, anglers and conservation experts. Will she have to tell the prime minister, “No Andy, I’m not doing a rain dance for the socials”?

“Small steps, such as turning off the taps when brushing teeth or shaving, taking a shorter shower or fixing a leaking toilet can really add up,” says the government.

Yes. Shortly after Howell was appointed half a century ago, the long dry spell broke and rain poured down on a grateful, parched nation. Howell had performed a miracle, but neither he nor the Labour government got the credit.