UK public responds calmly to Be Ready campaign, say experts

Government advice for emergencies

The UK government’s new Be Ready campaign advises people to stock three days’ worth of supplies for severe weather or cyber-attacks. A two-page document suggests bottled water and non-perishable food, a torch with spare batteries, a wind-up FM radio, a first aid kit, and a copy of a passport. It tells people to check their cupboards first and build up items gradually on regular shopping trips, to stave off panic buying. The advice is a far cry from the 1980 Protect and Survive campaign, which suggested building a fallout room and whitewashing windows against nuclear blast.

Preppers welcome the campaign

Jack Brown, co-owner of Sgt Prepper Shop, said he received a month’s worth of orders in the first 24 hours of the Be Ready campaign. “I thought my phone was glitching or being hacked with the number of orders coming in,” he said. Brown called the advice sensible and proportionate, and said three days is the “sweet spot”. Most everyday emergencies like power cuts, burst water mains or flooding are sorted within three days, he said. Three days is “realistic, affordable and fits in a cupboard”; a month’s worth would feel overwhelming, and most people would do nothing. He praised the wind-up radio, saying a built-in torch and phone-charging USB port make it “one of the most useful bits of kit you can own”.

Dan Goss runs Start Prepping UK. Traffic to his website is up 700% since news of the campaign emerged in August. He is glad the subject is taken seriously and spoken about in “plain language” by government. The risk of panic is low, he said: “The level of uptake required for that would be huge – you would need to have an enormous number of people all take the government’s advice very seriously and all jump on it as a priority.” He said more disruption to people’s lives, not necessarily apocalyptic disasters but big impact on small areas, makes the advice very much needed.

Psychology of preparedness

Dr Sarita Robinson, associate dean for school of psychology and humanities at the University of Lancashire, said there is little evidence messaging campaigns cause panic. “There’s this perception that if we tell people the truth we’re somehow going to panic them and it isn’t the case,” she said. Accurate messaging leads the public to engage proactively; hiding information and a void of information is when things go wrong for government. She said Be Ready is “realistic, quite low level, and should be reassuring because it’s basically treating the public like the grownups they are”. Robinson added that the perception of “prepping” has shifted, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic and empty supermarket shelves. A study during Covid showed people who did mild prepping had lower anxiety and depression, and less stress. The government needs to portray prepping as normal and everyday, common in other countries, not “wearing a tinfoil hat and building a nuclear bunker in your back garden”.