The ‘worst drought in decades’ is how Novara headlined an article attacking data centres at the beginning of this month. ‘This summer isn’t as bad as the drought of 1976’ ran the Telegraph’s headline. ‘The UK is reeling from its worst dry spell since 1976’ was the subheading of an article in the Australian Daily Telegraph, inviting readers to ‘see the pictures’ for a bit of schadenfreude.

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Andy Burnham’s government has also started telling the press that further restrictions on our water consumption are around the corner. Water companies may apply for non-essential use bans covering car washes, window cleaning and refilling commercial swimming pools. Sources told the the Times that this will be necessary because of the ‘exceptionally low volumes’ being recorded in reservoirs across the country. The press has also been focusing on reservoirs, and how they are ‘running dry’. The i paper names and shames the ‘12 reservoirs at risk of running out of water’, saying elsewhere that there are ‘UK towns at risk of running out of water within six weeks’.

The summer of 2026 will be remembered for many things – the fall of Keir Starmer, the Clacton by-election, perhaps the Arsenal winning the Premier League – but 2026 is unlikely to claim the crown for the worst drought in living memory. Nor is the........

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