To think we are being lined up for something?

[BeverForget]

I work in food supply chain.
Four of the 'big' grocery retailers have just asked to renegotiate at least four weeks min supply, as opposed to two.
This happened in Feb 2020 as well.
Lots of rhetoric about being on a war footing, from politicos.
And then Sunak essentially jumping ship yesterday, as though he knows there is a crisis on the horizon that he wants no part of.
There is no way that the Tories have a prayer in a July election.
So what do they know that they aren't telling us?

I never get the approach that you are either scaremongering, paranoid and should be wearing tin foil hats, or are completely dismissive, what about a middle ground?

Such as thinking that there isn't a conspiracy, nothing specific is looming, but in present times, there's a few reasons you might need to bunker in for a few days, or reasons there might be water /food supplies issues so it's fine to be mindful and keep some supplies in and stay alert to news.

You can have a healthy middle ground where you aren't terrified but neither complacent. Its reasonable to speculate

@wateringcanface

I completely agree.

@wateringcanface you have just about restored my belief in sanity with that!

Since covid we have always kept enough emergency food in for 7 days. Not necessarily amazing nutritious meals but pasta, sauces, cans of fruit, tuna, vegetables, soup etc alongside biscuits and crackers etc. We also make sure we have frozen fruit and veg and also keep a loaf of bread and a carton of milk frozen.
In our garage we have a spare 12 pack of toilet rolls, some kitchen towel, 12 x 2 litre bottles of water and an extra pack of dry cat food (Unopened in a plastic box)
Our bathroom cabinet always has extra toothpaste, shower gel etc
Have never seen that as panicking but more about having learnt the hard way how difficult things are if you can’t leave the house for a week!
There is definitely a vibe that’s something’s about to happen though - not necessarily planned or a conspiracy theory, just a lot going on - so have added a battery radio, battery torch, batteries, candles and matches to the supplies.
Figure the candles and matches will be useful anyway if there’s a power cut and a torch is never a waste. The only thing I probably won’t ever need is the battery radio but for £7 (Amazon) I thought I might as well add that too!

Funnily enough I was just poking around on Reddit and came across a thread exactly like this from 5 months ago. Right down to the Times having run a "preparedness" article. That time posters were speculating a connection to something to do with hacking and Sellafield. That one passed me by entirely.

Turkish delight would be a good stock up item

This is the likely reason.
Good old Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving.

We spent a period of time living self sufficiently, but moved back to grid when we had kids and it was just too hard work. But always have a supply of food. We have huge sacks of grains and other things in big barrels... maybe enough food for a few months. We have a berkey water filter, solar panels with invertor that turns solar to 240v. Matches (making fire is quite difficult without a spark...), a big wood supply, wood burner that can be cooked on, and a huge amount of tools (such as chainsaw) which are battery operated and could charge from solar panel. It's not recently gathered in a worried panicked way, we just have those things from our previous life, but as a mum of three I definitely feel better knowing we can provide for our children in case of emergency for an extended periods of time (potentially indefinitely)

things do feel a bit unstable at the moment, the new surges of technology seems to be having a destabilising effect on societies around the world, who knows what's round the corner.

This is exactly what's happening. The gov has obvs told the supermarkets they were going to make their 3 day preparation plan notification yesterday. Rishi has then made his general election speech on the same day hoping everyone will think omg something’s afoot we’d better vote for the conservatives to keep the status quo we can’t have anymore turmoil if something big is coming.
Keeping you frightened makes you easier to control.

Sunak called an election in July to avoid another Rwanda embarrassment, when he pledged the planes will fly by July. PM got sunk by small boats he scapegoated, you can't help but chuckle in your tea about it!

we're have a spring nearby and are on a river so water isn't an issue.

So weird people stockpile toilet roll, there are so many other things you could use in an emergency. The number one thing to have would be water. Get a load of the 5l bottles, and a simple rain water collection barrel that collects water from drainpipe. Not drinkable, but good for washing. Water is crucial

Are they thinking Nuclear War....Like the old ''Protect and Survive'' days?
Bastards.

Interesting. Does anyone have a link to the 3 days thread? I saw it on trending but assumed it was some prepper thing and didn’t click. Didn’t realise it was the gov

Andrew Bridgen.

l mean come on, 😂who takes that knob seriously?

Link to Gov page here

Possibly , BUT there are increasingly worrying earthquakes occurring in Italy....last huge one there 40 thousand years ago altered the worlds climate bigtime so way overdue now.., China appears to be prepping it's military, and the Putin saga is escalating, on top of increasing sunspot activity, they've understated how strong and for how long for that one. Personally, I'm not at all sure I'd want Sunak in charge in a big disaster, and apparently he doesn't wish to be either

This happened in Feb 2020 as well.

General crapness, inefficiency and other supply line issues (wars, cyber attacks) are just as likely to cause shortages as a pandemic or nuclear attack. But ... the bird flu pandemic is migrating to humans more often. Reading about it a few weeks ago, I did wonder if another shitshow was on the way. I haven't kept up to speed with it like I did with Covid, though (or the new SARS-like pathogen, as it was being called then.)

PPs' point about mounting staff illness is a good one, too. Combine that with all the failures to prepare for Brexit, loss of imports from Ukraine & Russia and other spanners in the works, and I guess we no longer need a big event to fuck everything up 😕

People who voted for Brexit...What were they hoping for?

It has made life for more expensive...With more illegal Migrants than ever, and no more money for the NHS..that was all lies.

Sunak called the election now so he is in time to sign his kids up to school in California in time for September.

@MegsNaiceJam

That made me laugh!

I don't agree actually that people will be less accepting of infection control measures than they were in 2020. I was amazed at how much people accepted changes in 2020, and were willing to try and do their bit to get through the crisis. There are still a few people round here who wear masks when out shopping now; I think many people would try and do the responsible thing/ follow Government advice if we had another pandemic.

I think some would and a lot wouldn’t. All in all I think there would be a lot less compliance this time round, so let’s hope we don’t get anything really bad doing the rounds.

Everyone is talking about water and tinned food and loo roll but the question should really be will the supermarkets have enough tinfoil? I need to make my hat for Ascot and I just don’t know I’ll have enough tinfoil!

@wateringcanface that is a very sensible comment but I just had to make a joke about hats. Sorry.

Yes, we're being prepared for WW3, to make us think this is all natural rather than contrived and planned.

Before every major war there is a financial crisis, so they will starve us all first.

Britain doesn't have enough land to feed it's population, and are happily plastering over what remains of our arable land with vile new build houses. A lot of land is already wasted on livestock, who only convert a fraction of what they eat into food.

In today's world it doesn't need to be war or pandemics that can bring things to a standstill. Major cyber attacks are a real and constant threat, and can stop communication, banking and finance, food distribution, healthcare, water and electricity supply. Almost everything really, since we depend on technology for everything now. I suppose there's no harm in being prepared with a few days' worth of water, food, and cash.