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?

The uk is a tiny island, if we were nuked we’d know very little about it and wouldn’t be needing tinned carrots.

Some people in this country will be screwed when Deliveroo is the first service to stop when the war / insurrection begins!

This is a good point too - preparedness is not just for conflict. It's also for the increasingly common weather related disasters.

And I agree with PP who said technology is counter to preparedness. If everything is electronic/ automatic, etc there's no fall back. Unless you intentionally prepare otherwise.

What am i preparing for?

Yup, we have three cars and we have road maps in all three of them, not fully up to date, but none are decades old either. I buy them when I notice them on offer at places like "The Works" - usually those huge A-Z full country ones. I also have some local street maps for our nearest two towns and nearest city which I've had for a long time, so will be out of date, but probably 90%+ still right, obviously excluding new build estates!

When we're doing long drives, we keep a big road map in the car with us as we find them more helpful when there are motorway accidents or congestion etc as sat nav can often give some strange alternatives and we prefer to check via a map as to the sat nav alternative and also maybe alternatives of our own if we decide to take a more enjoyable "scenic" alternative rather than being stuck in nose to tail queues through random towns etc for hours. Many a time, we've decided to "sit out" a bad congestion by spending the day somewhere else en route or taking a much longer but more enjoyable alternative - sat nav's can't make those kinds of decision.

And this is a problem. If you don't live like that then you're buying it for the sake of it and then having to keep track of dates so it can be donated to someone who would want it.

It's a good point about fridge and frozen stuff - better to keep those shut if it's only going to be a couple of days, so then you do need more pantry stuff.

We camp so I generally have about 3 days of food in my camper for spontaneous trips. I'm sure I have a few tins, pasta and cous cous left over from last year and obviously torches, stoves etc are all together in there.

I do think campers are often all set!

Yes, technology has "sold" us Just In Time, which gives us false reliance on shops always having stuff, getting next day deliveries, etc. The result is that shops have no "stock rooms", and households don't have "spares" either. That's absolutely fine when things go as planned, but a sudden shock like a power cut, bad weather, or even a major motorway accident, can throw it all into chaos. Just look at last year's Co-Op and M&S computer viruses - Co-Op shops were empty for weeks afterwards as they had no "plan B" to fill their shops with stock if the computerised ordering/delivery system was down!

@ContentedAlpaca

If you don't live like that then you're buying it for the sake of it and then having to keep track of dates so it can be donated to someone who would want it.

It's not that hard to "keep track of dates". When I've been shopping, I put the new stuff in the cupboard behind the old stuff, so basically "rotating" to the new stuff is at the front and gets used first. So no need to keep checking for dates etc. We never buy anything that we wouldn't use on a "normal" basis - yes, some things will only get used occasionally, maybe monthly, but we never buy anything ONLY for use in an emergency.

We need to broaden our idea of attack to include cyber attacks, which might take out parts of the energy network, water processing, food distribution etc- more likely than conventional bombing or a nuclear attack. In this situation having food that can be stored at ambient temperature and doesn't need cooking, drinking water, basic medical supplies etc would be extremely useful.

must wander not mums wander

I think this is how I'll go about it too - e.g. instead of 4 cans of tuna I might buy 8 till we have some spare and then rotate. That sort of thing. I do still think it takes some conscious planning, especially when you mainly eat fresh foods.

Also, I think Covid taught us not everyone has enough to get buy for a while. Remember the mass loo roll hysteria? And that's something I would think most people would have enough to last at least a week or two.

Agree with this. A large proportion of the British public seems to have delegated any responsibility for their own lives to the government.

Kind or not i can't put up with people that won't sort out the basics in their lives.

I don't think it's that. It's just we've all got used to a convenience society, where everything is available almost instantly if we need it. People just live the way society enables them to live. Then, as other people say, some people might just not have the money, or capacity to plan ahead. E.g. storing 36l of water isn't going to be a priority if you have a very small house.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67b5f85732b2aab18314bbe4/National_Risk_Register_2025.pdf

its not just about war, it’s about ensuring you can function in a disruption and reducing your reliance on the authorities so that they can assist the most vulnerable. We have become so dependent on services and goods being available on demand that any level of disruption will challenge many in the population

Not only that, but then whinge when the government issues perfectly sound "advice" about being prepared etc as "nannying" etc. But these days, it's always "someone else's" fault isn't it? No one seems to want to accept personal responsibility anymore.

Sorry- I'd add to this petrol and any regular meds. These are obviously harder to manage as you can't stockpile prescription meds and it's not safe to store lots of petrol for most people, but it's sensible not to let either run low (this is just generally sensible TBH).

Other than building a fallout shelter (I'd rather stand directly under the blast), I'm not sure what preparation is needed by households for a war you say is predicted to happen in 3 years.

Besides, some commentators are saying we're already in WW3, it just looks very different to traditional warfare. Russia can stimulate civil war by interfering in communications and politics without lifting a military finger. Their focus is on creating social instability, cyber attacks on key infrastructure and cutting lines into the uk. It's in nobody's interest to start throwing nukes around - oligarchs are very fond of their money and power, so my betting would be that one of them puts a bullet in Putin's head before they risk losing all that.

Whilst it's true to say that the world is much more unstable than it was a few years ago, the ability to align on allegiances is much more blurred. Europe is perhaps more united as a result, but beyond that, everything becomes a lot muddier. The US is isolating itself, the UK has stronger ties with China that it won't want to jeopardise. I can't see us rushing to help America with Iran, either.

Cyber attacks happen now, all the time. So Cyber defences are used, all the time. It’s not just enemy states probing servers, it’s thousands of malicious hackers too.

If there’s a war our enemies aren’t going to decide that the local water pumping station is a good place to sabotage from a keyboard in Moscow or wherever. They’re going to nuke us.

Well, the things I mentioned. So you and your family can be safe and relatively well while the government mobilises support. I don't think the intention is to survive nuclear fallout (although some countries recommend iodine tablets), but just to keep chaos and panic at bay while the government can get sorted following some kind of attack or natural disaster.

But you can keep your car relatively full of fuel, i.e. fill up when half full instead of only putting half a tank in when nearly empty.

As for prescription meds, you "can" stockpile slightly, just by ordering your monthly supply a few days earlier every month and then you can end up having a full months' supplies "in hand" after a year or so. GP surgeries don't seem to check if you've had 14 "months" of prescriptions issued in a year rather than the expected 13 months' worth (being every 4 weeks rather than calendar monthly).

I don't think so. I think infrastructure attacks are much more likely (and I am not talking about hacking M&S). It's not about obliterating a country, but about making it as vulnerable as possible. Plus it's much lower effort and risk.

Only an utter demented mad man (like Putin or Trump) would "nuke" us as they know we'd nuke them back - it's only all major countries having their own nuclear deterrent that's prevented it so far.

Turning off gas/electric pipelines, or disrupting communications/internet, or cyber attacks can cause a lot of harm, so is more likely to be the "weapon" of choice in wars between countries, certainly involving leaders who aren't completely demented.

It's far more likely that China or Russia will "attack" us is such ways than them sending over a nuke!