Why have we been told to 'stockpile' and what for?

This was my thought! We had a very stormy and wet winter last year, with plenty of power outages. I suspect it’s more to ensure in the event of adverse weather, or electricity outages (however they’ve originated), people are prepared, so that emergency services can focus on the most vulnerable.

I can’t see it being for war, 3 days wouldn’t be close to being enough to serve any real purpose!

I do remember previously, maybe about 20 years ago, we all got a 'preparing for emergencies ' leaflet through the door. It was certainly this century as I was living in the house in still in now. It had pretty much the same information as we are being told now. I also recall a spoof version was also quickly shared online for 'preparing for the zombie apocalypse'. I liked that version better.

Back then I did make sure I had a few things in like bottled water, a few tins of stuff and things like breakfast cereal, as well as generally trying to have a reasonable supply of fruit etc at all times.And and emergency pack of biscuits.

I'll be honest, I've got a bit lax since Covid though, so all this talk is making me revisit it a bit, and I've got a small supply of some things in, but they are all stuff I eat anyway, so can just use and replace as needed They're things I would usually use in cooked meals, but which could be used without cooking as well.

And I looked up some recipes for things I could make cold using tinned food, so I don't have to just resort to eating cold tinned beans on their own.

I DO need to get a power bank though. I need one anyway but this will give me a push to actually get round to getting one

Just put some stuff to one side...food that doesn't need to be heated/cooked (tinned potatoes, corned beef, tuna, tinned beans, tinned fruit, anything else you can think of...nuts, dried fruit, crackers,)...definitely bottled water, juice, UHT milk, candles, torches where you can find them, enough pet food if you have one, ideally a battery operated radio..I have extra bbq fuel. Just think if ALL the electricity and gas goes off, and shops shut, what would I need..and no Internet. Ive put away quite a bit...probably enough for longer than the recommended 4 days. And good feeling to at least be a bit prepared. Honestly...? I think the govt knows something they're not telling us. But, I have confidence they'll handle it. But you need to be prepared...just in case. Yea, few threats going on.

But i dont drink still bottled water. And only sparkling once or twice a year when going out . Cant afford to be drinking it at home . Stupid to do so when nowt wrong with uk tap water. Not everyone believes marketting hype re sticking water in a bottle and charging 10 times the amount for it

so nope, id buy it and leave it in garage and only drink when about to go off and then spend another £70 plus of my pension on re stocking.

its bloody expensive to stock pile water …but wine i already have stock pile as buy at xmas etc for family and barely drink in between as live on my own, if im in an emergency may as well get lathered and crack open the stock pile !

if i now go and buy the amount of water they say i need for all purposes its a blinking fortune to spend at once ….and im barely going to remember its stashed in my garage when it goes past expiration in however many years…right now im hesitating to buy as,like the re chargeable spot light i bought a few years ago during the blackout scares, itll be big waste of money

Agree I’m all for having some extra cans that I’d be eating at some point anyway but bottled water… never. Seem like such a waste. I can imagine people stocking up with litres and litres and then just throwing it away.

The government copied this from the European Parliament who issued the exact same plan 18 months ago. Sleepy as always.

The Government first published this plan in May 2024, 29 months ago.
Who's sleepy?

So why publicise it now. No one seems to know it existed!

I did. But the government does surveys and when it became obvious that hardly anybody reads the news or had heeded the advice, they sensibly decided it needed a push.

To be honest, I can’t believe that anyone who keeps abreast of current affairs needs the government to tell them this stuff. It’s plainly obvious.

Roughly half the population knew it existed.
The other half are harder to reach with factual information.

We should have three days food in the house though shouldn't we? It's a grown up thing to do

That was my assumption, but evidently not.

Why would anyone be cynical about Wes Streeting's motives in promoting his own profile and that of his department? Hmm 🤔, tricky one that.....

Obviously Defence Ministers will claim we need to shore up our defences. That’s their job. And if shit ever hit the fan it would be their neck on the block.

But if we employ some critical thinking skills, we can see that if a Defence Minister made those claims and there was zero substance to them, he’d be sacked immediately.

Military experts and historians have roundly agreed that war will probably be inevitable since Putin first invaded Ukraine nearly five years ago. I’m surprised that NATO have held out this long.

There were numerous very similar threads on MN in 2024 when the advice was first published. People forget this kind of advice very quickly if you don't suffer power or water outages now and then. Most of governments of the rest of the world publish similar advice.

It's sensible.

Wes Streeting announced it kind of accidentally (apparently):

news.sky.com/story/be-ready-checklist-the-national-resilience-moment-that-almost-barely-happened-13602517

The advice came from the Cabinet Office.

Streeting was involved primarily because he was on media duty although some of the events the precautions cover are on his watch.

Why is it a grown up thing to do? Plenty of people shop week to week so by the end of the week do not have three days worth of food. And I certainly did not have three days worth of food and water tha5 did not need cooking. I do now.

He only announced it due to being asked about it, not because he had it on his brief to announce it. As per the story I linked

Oops ...he did it again 😆

It might. Keeping a little stock of food in can be useful for various reasons, including supermarket systems being hacked.

I always have enough food in to feed my entire street for a week 😂

What else should I do to be prepared?

We have gas heating/hot water and hob, is there a chance of both being off at the same time?
As long as I have one or the other we can cook and keep warm, maybe some water bottles and extra torches needed?
Ive seen stuff about stock piling before and never really worried but it seems to be coming up a lot at the moment so I think its time I took it seriously?

Sorry for my ignorance, I have a FT job, an autistic pda teen and a collection of auto immune conditions so I rarely get time to look beyond whats going on inside ny own 4 walls!!

It might be useful if the water goes off...maybe put some water from the tap into some containers...? To wash with etc... it might seem extreme but no harm in taking precautions

You don't need to buy any kind of water. Surely you have some containers you could simply fill with tap water and store somewhere? Why do people have this idea that you must go and buy water???

Every time discussions such as these come up, so many people claim they "had a protect and survive booklet through the door in the 80s" or "saw protect and survive government advice/adverts on TV".

Both of these claims are rubbish. Protect and survive was never issued to the public en masse. From mid 1980 you could buy a copy (50p!) but not that many were sold.

The TV information films (which of course lots have people have seen on youtube and the like now as a historical curiosity) were never shown, they were only for public broadcast in an actual transition to war period. The only times small snippets of the films were actually seen by the public was in TV drama "threads" and in a BBC panorama episode.