Defence Secretary Wes Streeting tells us we must be ready for war in 1,000 days. He’s thinking of a Russian attack. Scary stuff.

His warning comes days after he launched a ‘national resilience conversation,’ when he asked us to prepare for disruption caused by natural disasters or cyber attacks by hostile states. He said we should all have three days of emergency supplies.

The Government is trying to make the hairs stand up on the back of our necks. War with Russia in less than three years! That isn’t just serious. It is apocalyptic.

Why, then, doesn’t the Government prepare for the life-or-death struggles it claims lie ahead? Why does it concentrate on the trivial or the ridiculous – or both – instead of rearming our depleted Armed Forces so that we can defend ourselves?

Ministers’ reactions to Streeting’s alarums make my point. When asked a few weeks ago how she would react to the Government’s ‘Be Ready’ campaign, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said her disaster box would include mascara, concealer, baked beans and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

I very much doubt that a single bottle of white wine would last Ms Rayner three whole days. She also forgot to mention an adequate supply of vapes.

Andy Burnham’s response to a similar question last week was even more absurd. He said he would stock up on baked beans, as well as soup. He then recommended Twiglets, without which he wasn’t sure he could survive for long.

I happen to share the Prime Minister’s fondness for Twiglets, but they are hardly vital for survival. No one asked Wes Streeting to invoke societal breakdown but, given that he has done so in such a heavy-handed manner, Burnham’s answer was inexcusably frivolous.

Since the ‘King of the North’ came down from Manchester to run the Government, it has seemed to me that his approach is similar to a guest at the tail end of a long dinner party who has drunk too much.

He loves to muse aloud. Wouldn’t it be nice if we did this? Or that? His latest thought is that it might be a good idea to have open borders again, though he isn’t categoric. Let’s have a conversation about it. Another glass, Andy? Oh, all right, just the one.

We have the highest taxes in peacetime history and a welfare budget spiralling out of control, with 1,000 new people signing on for disability benefits every day. And, as I’ve said, we have tragically weakened Armed Forces, even though Wes Streeting thinks we could be at war in 1,000 days.

These are huge problems, which would be challenging for the most determined and coherent of governments. But Andy Burnham and his crew have no intention of tackling them.

Instead, the PM immerses himself in gimmicks. In the past week or so, he has pledged to clamp down on ‘headphone dodgers’ who make a racket on public transport, bear down on private car park fines, and fill in potholes on 7,000 miles of roads.

Of course it would be wonderful if Andy dealt with these irritations. But we all know that louts won’t stop playing loud music on trains. Rogues will still slap tickets on our windscreens in car parks. Councils will probably go on spending money on things other than filling potholes.

The Prime Minister may realise deep down that he won’t deal with these issues. He’s trying to convey that he cares about the daily frustrations that drive us mad. He wants us to think he is on our wavelength. That he’s one of us – which is why he appeared last week on Channel 4’s Celebrity Gogglebox.

This is a dangerous policy. People will soon see that he has failed to solve the nuisances he identified. As prime minister, John Major introduced the ‘cones hotline’ in 1992. Thousands of calls were made but little or nothing was done, and unsightly traffic cones continued to litter our roads.

There’s an even more apposite comparison. In 1974, Labour prime minister Harold Wilson faced problems comparable in seriousness with those confronting Andy Burnham. Inflation was running at 26 per cent and the trade unions were doing their utmost to destroy British industry.

Wilson – who had just become prime minister for the second time, and was to last only until April 1976 – devoted much energy to a programme he described as ‘Little Things Mean a Lot’.

He had innumerable bees in his bonnet, which were doubtless shared by many people. He wanted to preserve local breweries. He disliked empty office blocks and juggernauts (which have grown much larger since 1974). He championed protection for caravan owners.

Not all of his causes were hopeless or cranky. Despite metrification, he defended the British pint of beer. We should thank him for that.

But most of what he did was fiddling while Rome burnt. He couldn’t solve the big problems that were literally ruining Britain, so he turned his attention to smaller matters, which occupied a great deal of his time and that of ministers.

So it is with Andy Burnham who, unlike Wilson in 1974, may – I stress ‘may’ – be at the beginning of his prime ministership rather than towards the end. He shirks the big challenges.

On Wednesday John Healey will deliver his first Budget. Since its contents have been widely leaked, it’s a reasonable bet that it will be a ‘steady as you go’ Budget that won’t tackle the terrifying problems threatening to bring the country down.

Despite largely sharing Wes Streeting’s fear of war when he was himself Defence Secretary, Healey is unlikely to increase front-line defence spending on Wednesday.

According to yesterday’s Sunday Times, the Chancellor will announce new investment in producing armaments such as drones. That is welcome, but it won’t address the critical shortage of Royal Navy ships, the smallest British Army for 200 years, and a much reduced RAF.

Both Burnham and Healey have already said there won’t be a decision to increase defence expenditure to 3 per cent of GDP until the completion of yet another spending review, which probably won’t happen until next autumn. By that time, a third of Streeting’s 1,000 days will have passed.

Difficult decisions are also being kicked into the long grass over welfare reform. This awaits the outcome of a report, in this case from former Labour Cabinet minister Alan Milburn, into young people not in education, employment or training. Will Burnham ever dare to cut welfare?

Nor is there any prospect of public spending – which stands at 45 per cent of GDP, compared with 39 per cent just before the pandemic – being reduced in the Budget. Our gargantuan debt will go on rising, whatever assurances Healey may give.

The big decisions are being ducked while Andy Burnham talks about Twiglets and appears on Gogglebox. I suppose he’s planning an early election, and hopes that being seen to care about everyday things will endear him to a cynical electorate.

God help us if this ploy works. Our essentially trivial Prime Minister may understand what irritates ordinary people, but he has no idea how to save a country heading for bankruptcy, or any plan to defend it from the Russian threat.