Preparedness in the UK - or lack of

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AIBU to wonder why the UK is not recommending preparedness?

An increasing number of countries in the EU now officially recommend basic preparedness - storing water, food, hygiene products and medicine for a few days. But the UK - nothing. Why? I would think the UK would be one of the more obvious countries to be attacked in the event of war, given its high profile status is politics and NATO. I also understand that the military is actively preparing for WW3 on the basis it is seen as very likely.

Are you preparing?

No, you numpty, it would need to be stored long term prior to the catastrophe starting.

I think the idea is that when disaster strikes you won't be able to pop to the shops for 3 day of provisions.

So sorry for not keeping track of every post on mumsnet 🙄If you are fed up with them you are of course welcome not to engage.

I guess the military is a big organisation, so lots of people will know someone.

Well, I still have 4 five-litre bottles of mineral water I stashed away during, or in anticipation of, some crisis or other. Maybe Covid? Out of date now, but could be boiled in an emergency, I suppose (on my gas bbq - I have an almost full gas canister fortuitously!), if that counts?
I have also inadvertently stockpiled a load of cat food, mainly due to the cat constantly changing his mind about a particular favourite just after I’ve stocked up. So he should be ok for a couple of weeks, but knowing him he’d rather go without than cave in, if it’s not to his
current taste!

Quite literally no need to be a dick. Particularly when you aren’t even making a valid point.
OP stated the advice in “other counties” to have 3 days of food available, and her outrage that the UK government didn’t explicitly advise this.

You would be hard pressed to find a UK household that couldn’t survive for 3 days with the amount they current have in their home.

I don't disagree that the "prepping" can be very simple. It just does take some sort of action.

Personally, I've not done it previously but did this week order some batteries, torches and a wind up radio. I will also add a few extra cans/ rolls of toilet paper when I shop just to have some extra stuff in the cupboards. I alternate between feeling like it's silly and like it's sensible.

Who in their right mind doesn't already have a week's worth of supplies. Any of us could be faced with illness, power cut or no tap water at any time. Some folk mums wander through life with their in the clouds ( or more likely in their phones) If you don't have emergency supplies you deserve the chaos.

I think it’s wise to prepare individually for your household. If food supplies ended tomorrow or the power grid destroyed, my family would be okay for 3/4 months. It’s smart to be prepared for a number of situations, anything from war to sudden unemployment to severe weather/flooding…etc.

The UK in general is hugely unprepared for a war, whether that’s using weapons or not. Hopefully that changes rather quickly but the manpower, time and funding required would be huge and I just can’t see our current government making the right decisions.

I know it's not what you're asking, but there is a Preppers topic on Mumsnet which might interest you.
I half-heartedly prep. I think the most likely near-term threat is loss of internet/comms.
Which would - if widespread- mean: no supermarkets, banks, money, hospitals or healthcare, travel infrastructure, police, well everything really because the whole lot now depends on it. Which is a bit nuts.
We're much more vulnerable than anyone wants to admit. Hey ho. I do believe it'll happen, sooner or later. Let's face it with nutters like Elon Musk in charge of it all it's not exactly stable, is it?
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/preppers

I'm not at all outraged. What an odd thing to say.

But yes the point is that it's long life before an emergency. I guess the idea is your fridge/ freezer might not be working, you will have nothing to cook on etc. I am not sure I entirely agree that "most" households are stocked with lots of cans of beans and long life milk. Mine certainly it (and not for economic reasons, just that we don't really eat that sort of thing).

I wonder why you are so outraged at the idea of giving advice on preparedness?

And yes I agree, i don't think war necessarily means boots on the ground. My friends (genuine not made up people 😂) also said cyber attacks on infrastructure is the biggest risk. And it just causes chaos because we are so reliant on it.

We got a woodburner put in. We have a large 5 bed house that literally freezes without heating but we’re preparing for energy costs to go through the roof.

If only the milk of human kindness could be stockpiled!

https://news.sky.com/story/britons-should-have-three-days-worth-of-tinned-food-and-water-government-says-13141114

From 2024
which links to the Gov website
https://prepare.campaign.gov.uk/

• Consider what supplies you and your household might need during an emergency lasting a few days, such as a power cut or water outage, or situations where you are advised to stay at home or to leave your home (evacuate) for safety reasons.
• It can be helpful to keep these items in one place in your home and ideally somewhere easy to find if the lights aren’t working – if you are escaping your house due to a fire you should not take anything with you at all. You could consider keeping items you might need to take with you if asked to leave your home quickly in a spare bag – you might hear some people call this a ‘grab bag’.
• You should ensure you have enough of the medication you need to keep you going for several days.

Thanks - it was shared above too.

It's just quite discreet I'd say. First of all it's about an emergency like a fire, then if you scroll down you see the preparedness stuff. In other countries there are government campaigns etc.

My OP was mainly just wondering why the UK has taken this approach. Maybe it's the avoid the wrath of those that passionately don't believe it to be true?

I always wonder what preppers think they’re prepping for if war breaks out. Are they prepping operating theatres and cupboards full of medicines? So they can sew back family members’ limbs or treat terrible burns?

Or are they prepping for a long stay in the cellar: Geiger counters, shortwave radio, gallons of water, torches and astronaut food in pouches?

Let’s get serious, any attack on the UK is not going to be like Goering’s Luftwaffe dropping conventional bombs on us.

I did marvel at a prepper who once started a thread about tips for getting ready to manage the laundry after a nuclear strike.

We've been "preparing" our entire adult lives. Not to an extreme extent, but we always have plenty of "spare" provisions in the house, bottled water, lots of tinned/packet foods, loo rolls, etc. We also have candles, a camping stove (and spare gas cylinders), a battery radio, torches (and plenty of batteries), etc.

We are both in our early sixties and remember living through the power cuts of the 70s. We're also in a small town in a rural area, and power cuts in bad weather happen every few years for a few hours. Our area was entirely without electricity for 4 days as a result of the sub station flooding during Storm Desmond, and it even knocked out the mobile network and even our local "pulse" telephone exchange, so we had no power, and no communications. We were certainly grateful to have candles and torches, and listened to local radio on the battery radio to keep updated as to timescales, extent of the blackout, etc.

We didn't need to "panic buy" at the start of Covid as we already had a good stock of loo rolls, soap, and plenty of food/drink, so we basically just shopped as normal, sitting out those couple of weeks of utter madness at first as the shops were emptied and then started back to normal as shops returned to normal.

Certainly not extreme enough to build our own nuclear bunker or create a "safe space" under the stairs, or make tinfoil hats etc., but whatever happens, we'd be relatively comfortable for a couple of weeks if chaos ensued around us, short of being obliterated by nuclear fallout or a bomb!

Sometimes, it just makes sense to not rely on our 24/7 society where people seem to have embraced "just in time" and can't cope when what they expect suddenly isn't happening.

Keeping in touch with an offline world is so important because of this. I know so many people who have gone all out on tech. Some of it IS avoidable.

For example, we still have a hard copy up to date A-Z map.

Don't have bottled water, we have the tap! Or the water from the fridge. I do however have water purification tablets. And a wind up radio/torch/charger all in one thing.

Because the supermarket is a stones throw we are more of a grazing style of shopper though, buying as and when instead of one big bulk shop that would last several days.

Oh OP! Please go back to your day job.. or go and get a job if you don’t have one, you clearly have too much time on your hands 😂

lol people who start these threads always know someone either in the armed forces or high up in government/royalty who told them this was happening….

for the record the armed forces have been preparing for the next world war since 1945. I expect one day someone will be right about this

You don't have 'the tap' if infrastructure is down, hence water being part of the recommendations for being prepared.

I think people who are not struggling for cash probably could manage on what is in the house for a couple of days, unless they call in at the supermarket daily or live on takeaway.

People who are truly being hammered by the col will likely not have pantries that are well stocked for every day use.

Things we could be just getting to the end of as the shtf would be things like washing powder and washing up liquid.

I'm not sure how we could carry supplies that would last for something that went on for months unless we developed a project of proper rotation, refilling water bottles etc.

War will sot out youth unemployment

Yes, I think this is the real risk in this modern world. As said above, our area was badly affected with 4 days loss of electric during storm Desmond. Something like that affects literally everything. Buses didn't run, the train station was closed so trains just ran through without stopping, all big shops were closed, petrol stations were closed, a few small/independent shops opened to sell off their perishables per a few hours, like milk, bread, chilled/frozen food, etc but only took cash, taxis were cash only, but were scarce because they couldn't fill up with petrol so had to travel outside the area to where there hadn't been an electric outage (20-30 minutes away, so over an hour round trip!). Local radio station was down for the first day as they had to find a generator and do a lot of technical re-wiring to re-attach themselves to a working transmitter etc. No mobile network for the first day, no pulse telephone for a couple of days, even the very few street corner payphones were either not working or had huge queues!

It took a couple of days before mobile generators started to be placed around the area, it took 3 days before mobile hot foot trailers were organised by the council/electricity firms and placed around the area, likewise for the water firm to bring in vans of bottled water for people to collect.

Things take time to get in motion so at the very least, people need to be prepared to "survive" 3/4/5 days on their own resources as a minimum, which seems to be the timescale for councils/infrastructure providers to start getting things repaired or alternative provisions put in place for the bare minimum.

It's a funny thing with mumsnet, that someone is always lying if it doesn't suit someone else's agenda. What exactly is my motivation for lying about this according to you? The thread was inspired by a dinner conversation with these two recently, and is mainly just curiosity. No deeper agenda, and no reason to make things up. If you don't believe me that's absolutely fine - you are of course perfectly entitled to think that preparedness is rubbish and the UK will be untouched by conflict for eternity.