To ask what is your plan if the UK hits a period of civil unrest?

[AbsentmindedWoman]

Another thread making me wonder really, but not a thread about that as there are so many potential fuckups that could leave things shaky for us mere commonfolk for a while. From a severe bout of bad weather, to a cyber attack on the grid, or a weird glitch like the Visa cards not working last week.

Not talking about a full on apocalypse! Rather emergency situations where everyone is freaking out, but that are hopefully temporary and can be resolved.

Some people are very prepared and have sensible plans. I am not one but thought it'd be interesting to discuss. Prepping in general I find quite fascinating, but also it's sobering to see how quickly talk turns to defending your supplies (if you bother to stockpile) so I guess I always know I won't bother stockpiling. As a woman on my own in a city full of ravenous hangry people, I ain't gonna stand a chance if it comes to a fight

What are your thoughts?

The definition of terrorism is actually:

'The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.'

The threat of bringing down the banking/finance (think 'savings and pensions' not fatcat financiers there) would be intimidation in my book.

Our main 'prep' comes from the realisation that supplies of pharmaceuticals can be unreliable (various causes) - DH is gradually building up a bit of a buffer of his drugs without which he'd be severely ill or dead by now.

We have a big stock of essentials: water, toiletries, nappies, tinned and dry food, etc that we work through day to day but always hold enough for about 2 weeks for the family.

We also have sleeping bags, wind up lanterns, a camping stove, well stocked first aid kit and so on.

We would be screwed if anyone found out though as we've no way to protect it

Sit down, have a cup of tea and think "oh bugger". Anything else is a waste of energy.

Because of a childhood of poverty, I always have lots of food in the freezer, so would last a while in theory. In practice some thugs would break in and steal our food while we cowered behind the sofa.

stepmother Costco was shut after Sandy for a week. Every entrance is shuttered and couldn't be opened because there was no power.

My thoughts are that in the event of what you are describing Op I would be ok. I always have plenty of food in the freezer and plenty of dried goods like pasta, rice, pulses. I usually have cash in the house for emergencies, I have candles and a camping stove with gas. I would just batten down the hatches, read my books, watch my DVDs, drink all my booze and I would survive several weeks on my body fat, I'm built to survive a famine.

I do have a friend who lives on a boat. If I could get to the boat we could all cram ourselves on there and hide for the duration.

I apologise if my zombie apocalypse comment offended. I meant it to be lighthearted. I actually find Preppers to be fascinating. Lots of good ideas on here for if things did actually go wrong. Since Donald Trump has had the nuclear launch codes I have been thinking about making the space under my house more secure. I keep meaning to do that..

I also have lots of booze in the house always. So at worst I could just get so drunk that I don't care what happens. DP does not drink though, so not sure what he will do.

I wonder how long it would take people to make the leap to breaking in and ransacking family homes.

I mean there was plenty of food in Ireland and no need for so many people to be reliant on the potato

The Irish were NOT ALLOWED by the English to eat the food they grew, this was exported to England for profit and the English government allowed 1,000,000 people to die of starvation and 1,000, 000 escaped on ships to the new world where most also died on these 'coffin' ships. This is not a myth it is a well documented fact.

I don't think this is what the OP meant and you would do well not to trivialise it.

In reality, water would be the big issue. But presumably there would be standpipes? And the army would be out on the streets?

The definition of terrorism is actually:

There actually is no one definition of terrorism.

@Spudina your comment wasn't offensive at all! You weren't remotely sneery or patronising

AbsentMinded Not long. Which is why the army would be on the street

There’s a huge difference between doomsday prepping and just being sensible. After Sandy the shops were closed for days and when they finally did open the shelves were pretty bare since the trucks couldn’t get up here with supplies because the roads were damaged and power lines were down. You don’t have to go nuts “stockpiling “. When toilet paper/tampons/canned foods go on sale just buy a lot more then you normally would, use it and keep replacing it.

My mum used to worry about stuff like this. Then my dad died unexpectedly and she says she wished she’d spent the time they’d had being happy, before she really had something to worry about.

So that’s probably shaped my attitude to stuff like this - that while you never know what’s round the corner, it’ll be the stuff that comes out of the blue that changes your life, not the things you’ve spent so long worrying about. Its best just to get on, do your best, try and be happy, and not plan for every eventuality. Because you can’t!

I think it's good to have stuff for all kinds of reasons, my doctor asked me to keep spare meds, just in case, years ago.

In a flat so very limited storage but bottled water and tinned food always on hand. We've lost our water supply a couple of times over the years, just one of those things. Cash machines being hit is something I've considered for years, though not in the Sheldon Cooper way (I think he said they'd be the first in a robot uprising, lol).

@crunchymint I'm inclined to agree it wouldn't be too long.

Basically after all the takeaways and corner shops are emptied, I suppose!

Well we've got some water in store (after the winter's burst pipes incident), so I guess my plan will be to slowly rock myself back and forth in withdrawals from all things internet, drink my water, and live off my body fat until the I'll succumb to elements/withdrawals/looters/whatever.

I think there would be carnage after a week of food shortage. I doubt the army could control all towns and cities..
Wasnt it just the last episode of snow that people ripped down a Lidl with a digger?! Yep, it's be no time at all I'm sure!

The nearest we've come so far is the 2011 summer riots which happened just as DS was born. We couldn't get baby stuff we needed from the big branch of Boots as it was shut just in case of riots. DH was actually saying that if things got bad he would be barricading the doors and standing by with his metal baseball bat.

But in the end nothing came anywhere near here.

I think we should expect in our time for there to be things like a major petrol shortage. I'm glad my kids are used to walking quite a long way, as I think it is a good idea not to get too wedded to private car use for every trip!

If anything truly awful happened to the UK, my parents have a large house in an quiet, rural part of Eastern Europe, so we'd probably try to escape over there and hide out.

My plan would be to get to my parents if possible and hope they're prepared

Between Visa and TSB I thought I was going to have to barter an hour or two of shelf stacking for food this weekend. That's about as far as my apocalypse planning got though, and then my card worked anyway.