As the crisis builds, a narrator reads passages from the official Civil Defence procedures and Watkins camera pushes through mobs of refugees evacuated from London. The island begins to make half-hearted and unorganized efforts to prepare for nuclear attack. No one can say. Such asides give the uneasy feeling that excuses are being made for the destruction of civilization before it even happens . Sirens begin to wail.
Public opinion supports retaliation in case of attack and, as if summoned, the missiles strike.
Watkins shows his mettle brilliantly in these sequences, suggesting the unimaginable with deft strokes and a low-budget brio that puts such celebrated Hollywood artists as Roger Corman and Sam Fuller in deep shade. Watkins spends the rest of film demolishing several national myths and offending sensibilities wherever found. The celebrated pluck and resolve that saw Britons through the Blitz is simply no good against thermonuclear warheads. Morale, indeed the entire social order, disintegrates rapidly. Food riots create an armed population.