A post-Brexit return to rationing will solve the obesity and food waste crises

“No,” Winston Churchill - this is a message from the Prime Minister after all - replies. “The government has made arrangements for food supplies.”

Could an intern be sent along to the National Archives to dig those out? Scrap that. Might we send Boris Johnston off to keep him gainfully occupied; how much harm can he do in a basement?

Mmm. Don’t answer that.

Given we seem to have wandered into a real world historical reenactment of the 1940s, we might as well look out the original blueprints and take what we can from them.

It's a struggle to keep calm during this carry on: the army on standby for no-deal Brexit emergency; Dominic Raab, Brexit secretary, assuring us there will be “adequate food”.

Our recent forebears were asked by the government for their courage, cheerfulness and resolution while the going was tough, but what three motivational nouns might help us now?

Jacob Rees-Mogg complains the government looks “fretful, weak and incompetent.” What cognitive dissonance this is, finding oneself agreeing with Mr Rees-Mogg.

As an aside, has anyone else noticed that Rees-Mogg’s jackets are uniformly too big, the excess cloth crumpling at his waist? One can’t get the tailors these days. Perhaps he’s storing his inheritance in gold bullion in the lining in event of an emergency Channel crossing for the purchase of store cupboard essentials such as foie gras? Portable property, Pip.

Churchill’s missive asked citizens to keep the roads clear for troop movements and essential public services. 

We've to move aside for columns of tanks delivering tinned beans to the elderly. One tin per geriatric though: the famous 57 varieties might be finished in a factory in Wigan but as the haricots are imported from America, come the new dawn a Trumped up import tax will make the humble bean-in-sauce a luxury item.

While the government havers over what to do next, local councils are pulling together their own Brexit-preparedness reports.

East Sussex County Council worries fewer EU nationals will mean fewer people entering the care sector to look after elderly residents.

The Shetland Islands Council report worries 86 per cent of sheep farms will be loss making after Brexit, as opposed to under half now.

But Pembrokeshire County Council has done the remarkable and uncovered one positive of Brexit - people might move away and so ease demand on council services.

Praise be we’re not actually at war when the new foreign secretary, Lambada king and Pineapple Dance Studios alumni Jeremy Hunt, doesn’t even know where his wife is from. China? Japan? Bomb them both, it’s all the same.

A SkyData poll this week showed 74 per cent of the public think Theresa May is doing a bad job. A poll of Conservative Party members showed BoJo as the top choice to replace her.

The words of Captain Mainwaring ring in the ears, “You stupid berks.”

In eight months we’re going to need Bear Grylls. Though, if Nadine Dorries was right, and for everything there is a first time, we could look to David Davis: “He’s trained to survive." Unless a peace accord is signed, we'll be voting for whoever's best qualified to lead an expedition to the New World in search of fertile lands.

The local councils, in their preparedness strategies, have overlooked the basics: Brexit’s reality will save us from ourselves.

With the push to ditch plastic bags and plastic straws for paper varieties, and swap plastic bottles for glass, it is, as my gran liked to say, “The old style back in.”

Food waste is at crisis levels. Obesity is at crisis levels. We need to eat less and move more before collective cardiac failure leaves Britain a desolate waste land.

Economic insecurity and too few job opportunities contributed to this mess.

The solution is simple: rationing. An instant calorie deficit and employment opportunities aplenty in manual labour.

I’ve said it before and here it’s again: A village chicken, a turn on the communal churn and a monthly peck of butter. How pleasant these green lands will look when we all have to farm them.