This momentous task bestowed upon any new Prime Minister is to write four identical letters of instruction. Known as the Letters of Last Resort, each detail what the UK should do in the face of ...

The previous set of orders, written by outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, will then be destroyed, unopened. These top-secret papers are called the “letters of last resort.” Since 1969 ...

HMS Vigilant, one of Britain’s four nuclear-armed submarines which each carry a ‘letter of last resort’ from the Prime Minister (Danny Lawson/PA) Once written and sealed in their envelopes ...