# 2216
Actually, we've heard speculation on this in the past, but now apparently the official list of threats and risks facing Britain have been released, and an influenza pandemic sits at number one.
This from the Times Online.
August 8, 2008
Flu pandemic beats terrorism and flood in official table of reasons to be fearful
Michael Evans, Defence Editor
A pandemic flu bug would pose a greater threat to Britain than terrorism, according to a register of risks that has been kept secret until today. Deaths from global flu will be on a scale far beyond anything related to such an attack, the Government will say.
Until now, the official list of threats and risks facing Britain has been kept confidential, although MI5 has for some time published on its website the terrorist threat level, currently defined as severe.
Plans to publish a risk register were announced by the Prime Minister in March during a statement to the Commons on national security strategy. Top of the list is pandemic flu because of the conviction in Whitehall that it is “not a question of if but when” and that it could kill 750,000 people.
The Cabinet Office risk-register report does not include a top-ten list of threats as this was deemed unhelpful in trying to inform people of the kind of threats facing Britain.
Instead, the report has a graph with two lines highlighting the “relative impact” and “relative likelihood” of various threats. Pandenic flu is way ahead on potential impact but terrorism is highest in terms of a likely occurrence. The other main risks include climate change, flooding, severe weather and attacks on critical national infrastructure.
