Is it only on mn that people are stockpiling?

[ScafellPoke]

Seems to be a lot of pre brexit stockpiling going on here. But none in real life

@graphista but people believe stupid things all the time, there really isn’t much the government can do against mass hyteria. Do you remember how many people freaked out over swine flu?

I started withnokives and capers

heron I'm doing my best to decipher this but all I can come up with is that you've been stocking olives and capers, which surely can't be the case

Or are you planning a series of Brexit cocktail parties?

These threads go through phases when people have sensible and helpful discussions and then a few pile in with drive by posts full of high dudgeon at even suggesting things might not be hunky dory. Bosums duly hoiked, they piss off bored and self satisfied.

ITV news poll reckons that 25% of people are either stockpiling or considering stockpiling, so most likely some people you know are doing it.

Humpty all fingers and thumbs here. Yes I started with olives and capers and other Mediterranean things which I thought would be disrupted. Obviously I now have a goodly stash including household stuff and tins etc etc. Olives suddenly seemed important last autumn !! (Rather addicted).

Actually, scrub that, only 5% are actually doing it so maybe you don't know anyone - but 20% are thinking about it. Gonna be fun in the shops if that 20% decide to join in the fun.

I have Parmesan in my stockpile. And halloumi. And feta. And manchego.

Aha now I get it heron. Though I'm rather disappointed that you don't have the Brexit cupboard I was visualising, packed with rows and rows of jars of capers!

Tbh I think (and I'm not British so take this for what you will) that it's quite patriotic to do a spot of well-planned stockpiling if you can afford it. There IS likely to be a bit of a rush on the shops at some stage, the media (DM I'm looking at you) isn't going to let this go by without whipping everyone up into a frenzy. So if you're organised and don't need to shop around that time, and if there IS any sort of short-term interruption to supply, you're leaving goods for those who weren't able to stock up beforehand.

As long as you're buying things that will actually get used and won't spoil before you can eat them, surely no harm's done either way? I've got heaps of tins of toms and packets of pasta for example. They'll last a long time and we use them anyway.

"but people believe stupid things all the time, there really isn’t much the government can do against mass hyteria. Do you remember how many people freaked out over swine flu?"

Agreed - but in this case this govts failure to y'know GOVERN is CAUSING Public concern when any decent govt wouldn't have created a situation likely to cause concern let alone panic in the first place!

We've been begging for reassurance for months and none has been forthcoming.

Gregorypeckingduck are you in uk? Where is this magical "elsewhere" you're going to get food from if you are? You are aware we're on an island right?

Lots on Twitter.

Agreed - but in this case this govts failure to y'know GOVERN is CAUSING Public concern when any decent govt wouldn't have created a situation likely to cause concern let alone panic in the first place!

Yup, that's the nub of the problem. We seem to be lurching to no-deal through incompetence rather than policy, with a government who wilfully chose to ignore this policy and deliberately failed to start making contingency plans for it in time. Whether you voted remain or leave, you should be shocked by this shitfest.

Yes it's not longer a remain v leave issue

I voted remain but I would have been fine with leave IF it had been managed properly! It would have perhaps caused some teething issues, perhaps issues for investment banking and large international companies but I really do feel much of this COULD have been dealt with, with minimal disruption, job loss etc IF we'd had a competent govt doing it

Yup, that, 100%.

A government who said "okay, we're leaving, but hard-line leavers have to accept that 48% voted to stay, and that even among leavers, there were a variety of reasons for voting leave and stances, so some sort of compromise position is what we should aim for - e.g. EFTA membership". (I personally think part of the problem was that May, although a Remainer, was one of the most draconian, hard-line home secretaries in recent history, and the only way she could get her head round "leave" was to see it as an anti-immigration vote, so she was prepared to sacrifice all other considerations on the altar of immigration control - hence her "deal" which satisfies no-one - neither remainers nor leavers. But that's a bit of an aside.)

And a government who said "risk=probability times exposure, so even if we think the probability of no deal is really low, the exposure is HUGE so we have to spend quite a lot of money on contingency plans for that outcome."

“why do you think it necessary? The U.K. Govt won't allow it all to go to hell in a handcart?”

Which is what I suspect the majority of the people of Yugoslavia believed pre-1991. That their first world, highly educated, prosperous country couldn’t destroy itself, surely the Government wouldn’t possibly allow it.
Obviously, we’re not looking at a war situation with vehemently opposing religious or ideological groups (yet!) - though many learned articles I’ve read recently have suggested uncomfortably close political and social parallels between the UK now and pre-war Yugoslavia in the 1980s. However, the idea that “the Government” won’t allow us to go to hell in a handcart when considered against the current backdrop of our highly volatile politics and potential for civil unrest doesn’t give me a whole heap of comfort.
We have to get this ridiculous idea out of our collective head that we somehow have a golden ticket against harm and want simply because we’re British, dontchaknow. We are an insignificant island with a fracturing union which cannot feed or clothe itself and relies on imports for fuel and communications. There is the potential in a no deal situation for very, very serious consequences indeed.
If you’re able, storing up essentials to keep your family going if such an emergency occurs is the only sensible thing to do.
If you’re not able, the fact that many others did will help to cushion the impact for you, so don’t knock it.

“I’m as anti Brexit as the next (sane) person but I’m not sure this type of rhetoric is helping anyone. It seems a little unhinged!”

Seen footage of Black Friday? And that wasn’t even about food, it was televisions.
So people are unhinged. Imagine if they’re hungry, too.

Food stockpiling isn't unhinged, it's a rational response to the uncertainty we're all facing, a modest insurance policy. I don't expect to have a house fire; I still have smoke detectors and contents insurance.

Perhaps I'm wrong - but I'd rather be wrong than hungry.

Fermats -exactly! Regardless of their personal opinion on brexit they had/have a duty to manage brexit in the best way for the country.

That STARTS by not making knee jerk decisions (like triggering art 50 before you've even got all the info!) and by establishing the facts of the situation first and DEFINING what brexit would mean - again BEFORE taking any irreversible decisions.

It's completely amateur how the whole thing has been handled! My local town council could have handled it better and they're pretty useless!

"but I'd rather be wrong than hungry." Damn straight!!

JRM you're absolutely right. I did my nurse training in the early 90's, a few of my fellow trainees were formerly citizens of eastern bloc countries having to start their lives all over again having seen their countries go from "normal" developed countries to war torn, wrecked and impoverished. Nobody thinks it'll happen to them...until it does

Many historians and economists have been warning along these lines and being dismissed as scaremongers.

Project Fear was a clever catch phrase. Any warnings of problems are easily dismissed with the phrase without the need to explain why they are false.

I expect that many people are dismissing warnings with this, or are just not getting the news that would warn them in their algorithm generated content.

Either they believe the lies they have been sold or have not even heard of any risks of shortages.

People don't want to think about difficult things either. It is much better to be thinking about booking a holiday than going to the shops and lugging home extra tins we might not even use...

People want to have confidence that the government will sort it, realising that they might not is scary and best put out of mind as it is too difficult to contemplate.

I started stocking up the morning the vote came in in case of price rises. Never thought it would come to potential food shortages.

The whole thing was very clever. If anyone hasn't seen Brexit an uncivil war I would recommend it. It shows just how the country was manipulated into voting to leave.

cecreamcarton

“Stockpiling Parmesan would be the most middle class thing in the world to do”

Really? Bog standard in the UK since at least the mid-70s. Decent chunk of the genuine article £2.99 at Lidl, not exactly nectar of the gods.

Or are the unwashed masses allowed only grated cheddar on their spagbol?
Unless they just avoid suspicious foreign muck altogether 😱

Pepys was burying his in the 17th Century and if anyone deserved as asbo it was him.

To be fair, as someone who does have extra parmesan stashed and who can see the middle class silliness of it, I do agree a bit with icecream. When you think of people stockpiling you generally think of rice, pasta and tins of beans not parmesan

For us I already have lots of the basics and am now focusing on the nice to haves which bring a sense of normality to a potentially unsettling time. Hence a few blocks of DSs favourite parmesan alongside the chocolate, biscuits, lotus spread, cake mixes, wine etc. None of them are essential in any way. All completely frivolous really. But they make life nicer and could get expensive or difficult to find.

I have been at this for months and still a big part of me thinks it surely won't be necessary and we'll end up gradually eating it down for the next three years. But the fact that it might be necessary keeps me going with it. I'm simply not prepared to take the risk with my children's health and wellbeing.

Worth thinking about the fact that the 5% that the news reported a couple of days ago as having stockpiled already equates to 3.3 million households. The 25% that are reportedly planning to equates to nearly 17 million households.

And those stats only include those who were willing to talk about it.

Easy to look at stats and think 5% is a very low number. It isn't when you look at the size of the population and the fact that most people are part of a family.

Bellini surge I've found your tips really helpful as have loads of other posters...