To think we are being lined up for something?

And the privileged few will wiggle out of it somehow

@Teddybear23, You seemed to be making a serious accusation. I hope you are not forgetting to clarify what you meant?

I had mumps when I was 4 and German measles as young adult but yes, no lasting harm thanks as far as I know 🙂

I think he called the election as interest rates came down the day before and are expected to come down further.

Kinda proving the point I guess! Hope you made it through unscathed.

I agree something is afoot, but hopefully more about general resilience than something more sinister.

Huge parts of society seem incapable of planning for or mitigating risks these days and expect the gov/someone else to be on hand to sort it immediately if something in the supply chain or environment goes wrong. So not necessarily a bad thing if it encourages a few more to have a few days supplies, or a torch, candles etc if possible.

Plus Brexit which arguably Russian disinfo got it over the line as it was so close. £150 billion lost that we could have spent on .....the armed forces amongst other stuff !

Hilarious.

And why shouldn’t people, of all ages, do something to improve this country and help get it out of the sorry state it’s in?

Agree. People almost gleefully envisioning a virus with a higher mortality rate than Covid, just so everyone would be scared into complying with any rules… I wouldn’t want to live like that tbh 🤷‍♀️

You aren’t wrong in your feeling, but you also haven’t spotted a secret. Russia is unfriendly to NATO and has become much more aggressive in the past two years, and defence leaders have said we need to be more prepared, as previous generations were, should the UK become involved in a more frontline kind of war or should the war affect our supply chains(and being unprepared prevents attack).

There have also been shortages of certain foods, medicines and products in recent years due to weather, the war in Ukraine, and attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.

None of this is a conspiracy and it’s all in the public news, alongside leaders explicitly saying we’re in more dangerous times and the public should be aware. It’s a set of circumstances that means it would be irresponsible for any government not to act to boost our food security (and other measures, like putting money into defence and societal resilience)

Russia is making moves, maybe we are preparing for a war, makes me cry to think about it though.

…and you thought you’d find the answers on MumsNet?!

I don’t think it’s a bad idea to encourage people to have a supply of food to hand.

whether that’s because ‘they’ know something we don’t, I don’t really know. I’m not in the uk either, but we have testing of emergency alerts for mobiles. I don’t intend to leave home either way.

You sat in a cafe before Covid hit the UK, and then the next day everywhere was closed? And yet people say UK locked down too late?
Plus, as PP said, hardly anyone actually ended up needing six months worth of beans.

I think we can drop the "near" ! The hope is Sir Keir can create a unified nation with hope for everyone, and a country that works for all in terms of jobs, housing, healthcare and security. In that sort of environment many more folks would be up for societal initiatives that require sacrifice and commitment. A huge ask and particlualy diffcult if there's no money left. The problem with the Tories is they have effectively destroyed most of what we like to regard as society and public institutions. So even if they said it was Sunday we wouldn't believe them.

Well indeed. We can but dream.

In fairness though many countries do mandatory national service and it largely works well (thinking Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Israel - current circumstances aside clearly on the last one). I think a level of preparedness and resilience in our younger population would be no bad thing.

What I can say with near certainty is that the Tories would absolutely fuck up the delivery of a policy like this.

Ha ha - too true

I would prefer for the emergency services to be appropriately funded than teenagers mucking in at the weekend

Quite!

I thought that might be the case - utterly sh*t for you guys as locals. I don’t know how anyone can drive down the M20 and not see Brexit for the farce it is!

It's always shit when it's a busy holiday. They closed the tunnel on the M20/A20 just as it comes out of Folkestone because queues in tunnels are dangerous so everywhere around here was broken. DD missed ballet because it took us an hour to get there instead of the usual 20 minutes.

It's happened before and will happen again. That's the fault of the that's who voted for Brexit. It isn't more sinister.

Why don’t you and your family all take a year out to pick up litter? Also why should only teens do it? If rubbish is a roadside verge, it’s because adults have thrown it out of their care. Stop volunteering other people’s children.

I haven’t RTFT but driving past M20 in Kent yesterday the lorry stack is back to bad levels again even though they’ve built other reception centres since the worst days a few years ago, so I do wonder about borders/Brexit rules. Could also be bank holiday of course! I’m only an occasional visitor to Kent though so don’t know if any locals can shed any more light.

Yes, yes, yes