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

I'm not sure it is just cynicism.

Take Covid for example, some decisions were made due to "hygiene theatre" - the performance of visible cleaning rituals that create a false sense of safety while doing little to stop actual disease spread. I know this because my husband had the inside scoop.

yup, this. Nobody is running around like Chicken Little (well some may be, there are always a few) Its a bit of commonsense that seems to have been lost.

I live opposite a the local supermarket and don’t drive. It’s quite possible to shop like that and still have a store cupboard at home. Especially if you live alone.

I am the candle queen. I inherited dozens and dozens of Christmas candles and various other ornamental candles from my mother and my mother-in-law. Every time I am tempted to declutter them, I think, NO, we might have days of power cuts and then I will be glad that I kept them. I also keep lots of food and drink stored up, because we live in a remote rural area and we are most likely to be hit by power cuts caused by severe weather events.

my dad runs a shop that sells scented candles. I have dozens of the bloody things. I fear lighting them all at once may be an ‘interesting’ experience 😂

Those “blue light” things which supposedly sterilised the moving handrail on London Underground escalators. Were they part of the theatre, and nothing more than blue lights? I bet they were.

yup. Do NOT have scented candles for your candle stash. Even if they are all the same scent it will be horrendous.

Grab a glass of Pinot (or two) and do tell...

Having had water outages regularly due to the poor infrastructure of South East Water! I’d advise anyone to keep some bottled water! It takes them up to a day to set up water stations!

We got some bottled water in and left it in the garage after seeing the poor people queuing up in one of the water outages.

It is idiotic putting this out as it will only encourage fools to panic buy

They will literally be baked beans then.

I don't live in the UK but had no problems getting food or toilet paper. Water? What was wrong with their taps??

Also, why are so many people buying water? Surely you could simply fill some empty containers with your own water?

The world seems to have gone mad.

Thats the whole point. For the buying to happen whilst things are stable and plentiful.

A couple of years ago we lost our mains water with no warning whatsoever. It was off for a week. The outage was spread over a wide area and it wasn't a question of panic buying, the local shops and grocery delivery services, many of which are based in local shops, just could not keep up. The water stations set up by the water company were woeful. I am on the priority services register and was supposed to get bottled water delivered which never happened. I was one of the organised ones, got a water delivery from amazon prime, which I shared with neighbours, also water sterilising tablets to be able to use my water butt water for washing and flushing. That is what was wrong with the taps!

yep. I remember the whining when there were shortages during the beginning of lockdown "oh the preppers are doing this" Nope the preppers were already stocked and didn't need to panic buy.

Why is it that even a thread about a subject like this has to attract yet another benefits rant? As a tax payer myself I'm sick of being on a discussion about something unrelated to benefits and this pops up....again. Can we just leave that out of it, for once?

Also, why are so many people buying water? Surely you could simply fill some empty containers with your own water?

You've never turned your tap on to find no supply? It happens.

It's not just the UK that is doing this. European countries also are.

Maybe it is to make us all feel a bit on edge so we don't get so grumpy about tax increases for defence spending.

I do think it’s useful in case of immediate emergencies like burst water mains and broken fridges/ outages, but let’s face it - zombie apocalypse, nuclear strikes, wildfires. 100 bottles of water and 100 tins of food is going to last my family of 4 about 2 weeks at the most. I’m just prolonging the torture. If we’re being wiped out, I’m happy to go down with the ship than live in a post apocalyptic nightmare. I’ve seen too many films to want to go through that shiz.

There is nothing you can do to save your life from a natural disaster when it really comes and is too severe.

Russia does not have any interest fighting with the west but as the west does not stop that proxy war, Russia will continue.....

It is the unravelling of the urban west....the rural areas might survive the coming challenges. The cities and urban developments will suffer

I bet you'd very quickly regret not having a bit of water or food stocked up for a few days. The reality would be grim and you wouldn't be getting any help.

I don't understand why people aren't willing to build some resilence against emergencies, unless the cost is prohibitive. It is in line with plenty of other developed countries' advice.

ETA why are people imagining nuclear apocalypse/zombies? There are shorter term things, that are recoverable from, that could still make life nasty for a few days.

A lot of nonsense and western propaganda on the thread. The biggest bullies in the whole wide world the last 500 years have been/are the Anglo-Saxons. English and German nations