HM Gov telling us to get tinned food and bottled water?

[DecisionTime123]

Call me old fashioned, but isn't this sort of thing likely to provoke a run on toilet rolls? Couldnt find any other threads on it, but I think there is a "preppers" topic on here somewhere. In any case, what do you think? I'm sort of concerned, should I be? Or has this gone under the radar?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/aug/25/uk-to-warn-citizens-to-stock-up-on-food-amid-threat-from-climate-crisis-and-hostile-states

Fair enough - well we can live 2-3 days without water and longer without food if we don't have any. A problem that is that temporary isn't a big deal - unless already vulnerable obviously. Otherwise there really isn't much point in hoarding stuff.

Well we didn't have to go anywhere near the shops but plenty of our friends and relatives said they had problems getting food, water and toilet paper

This has been the advice for ages. The UK gov prepared campaign. They just drip feed it into the news to avoid a panic. But our lack of resilience as a country massively impacts our defense position - you can't really withstand even grey zone attacks if people in your country can't get through a 48 hr water disruption without the govt stepping in. Citizens in most EU countries have far better household and community resilience that we do. The advice going back at least a year was to have 3 days of bottled water, tinned food, light sources, backup communications etc.

People should always have a week's worth of food available at home, in case something happens, regardless of any situation happening in the wider world.

Perhaps the economy needs a bit of a boost, so they're looking for people to spend some money.

Who knows.

But this is nothing new. There has always been a threat to our safety, it is no greater now than it's been for years.

In 2024 some Scandinavian governments sent out an updated guide to survival in case of war. The guide contained practical suggestions and is available online in English. IMHO, the UK government should, like the Scandinavians, treat adults as adults and provide pragmatic advice on what to do in these situations.

Even a non-war event like a severe fuel crisis can create local shortages of food, water, medicine, etc. IMHO, it is better to prepared than to have a bare pantry if it is at all possible to prepare.

Sweden, Finland and Norway release new advice on surviving war

I’ll get some more beans in

I now live in a village, and one year when it snowed badly I went to the local shop to buy some milk, as I always did, and Rose who ran it was busy telling folk who never spent a penny in her shop, that she would not sell them milk, because her regular customers (OAPS mostly) relied on her, that's what I call a local shop.

One months tinned/ dried food, and 125 litres of water always on hand at my house. Why wouldn't you ?

Well the tins are neatly stacked, bottles of water at the ready. Solar powered radio fully charged ( not sure how that works in mid winter) and torches have new batteries, new board games have been dusted down. Fire wood has been chopped and kindling and plenty of boxes of matches are ready to go. A normal winter preparation week in the country. I don't feel remotely worried about any kind of attack. The second beast from the East is however much more likely.

Exactly this . If there was a war shortage , a few extra tins in the cupboard wouldn’t do much would it ?

Plus in the worse case and the enemy attacked our power network, we wouldn’t be able to cook our food anyway. We’d have no electricity/ gas. I’d imagine an enemy would attack our energy infrastructure.

Seriously, is living on cold tinned beans for few days really going to make you survive?

I've got about a year stored on my body

Well if you do experience a power cut, you'll surely be glad to be hungry too I suppose.

What the Burnham government is saying is that if you are on benefits you'll get support (like the winter fuel allowance) and everyone else can get fucked! Get ready for more tax!

Was the article sponsored by Andrex?

Since Covid I will never run out of toilet paper!!! 😂
I have a lot of tins as I cook using them a lot.
I am going to order water.

I think people also have to realise that if anything major happens, the government or police might not be in a position to make things right. We might have to sort ourselves out - every man for himself kind of thing.

From working at a supermarket, you could tell those who don't have a store cupboard. They come in daily with buying what they need for that evening's meal. Plus 2-5 items buy you buy weekly, monthly or less often - milk, coffee, cereals etc.

One of these customers was my colleague's neighbour and they have a large kitchen and 2 newish SUVs in the driveway.

Also buying daily costs more money. Two loose tomatoes can cost 50p. Buying a pack of 6 tomatoes -99p.

To me it makes people panic.

I always have a store cupboard and boy was I glad of it during March 2020. I never panicked bought anything then

We should consider what we do when AI straps our bank accts and ability to buy food.
DH likes the idea of buying physical wealth and burying it.
🤷‍♂️

We have a portable gas stove and canisters, I'd rather have the option than not; we use them on trips anyway and replace constantly, as well as firepit in the garden and a supply of firewood. Also wind up/solar radio/torch/powerbank.

I like to have a few weeks worth of tinned food, pasta, sauces etc in the cupboard at any given time. Just incase life throws a hiccup at us at any point. We use the food and replace it regularly- its not a proper stockpile just a safety net.

My village occasionally gets completely cut off after heavy rain when all the roads in and out flood. Due to climate change these floods are likely to be more frequent and more severe in future. Keeping a few days food and water seems a pretty sensible contingency to me.

Floods, extreme heat, storms, wildfires etc. all have the capability of both stopping you leaving your house to get to food, but also disrupting nationwide food supply chains making you unable to buy food even if you can get to a supermarket.

It has nothing to do with actual danger. The reason for this advice is the same reason why we got a government alert on our phones regarding BBQs. It's a political strategy.

Causing fear in your population can be successful in uniting people - it's called the "rally-around-the-flag" effect.

I'm looking on Amazon now for one of those flame thrower things that Sigourney Weaver uses in Alien. I'm also going to get a pack of singlets...

Another one here who always has a stock of loo roll in these days. I am like my grandmother, who, having lived through WW2, had a wardrobe full of bags of sugar, 'just in case.'

I’m sorry, but that’s a level of cynicism too far. Warning people about the risk of wildfires in the midst of a drought when we had literally just seen people’s houses burning down is not fearmongering. Neither is having a sensible level of bottled water and food in case energy or water supplies are impacted. As they were in East London a few weeks ago.