Wind-Up Radios Sell Out Across the UK After Government's "Be Ready" Call

Nothing moves wind-up radios off the shelves quite like a government telling the public to prepare for the worst — and that's exactly what's just happened across the UK.

Wind-up radios are selling out nationwide, with retailers reporting a fivefold surge in orders after the Government advised households to stockpile emergency supplies. At least seven models were sold out across four outlets by Saturday, just two days after ministers urged the public to buy wind-up radios and stock up on food and water as part of a broader national resilience push.

The "Be Ready" Checklist

Wes Streeting, the Defence Secretary, launched a "national resilience conversation" on Thursday, asking Britons to prepare for potential disruption from natural disasters or cyberattacks carried out by hostile states. The government's accompanying guidance recommended households keep an emergency kit on hand, including three days' worth of non-perishable food and bottled water, an FM radio, power banks, and blankets.

The timing was notable: the guidance landed just as websites around the world were going offline following the discovery of a serious vulnerability in PHP, a foundational piece of web infrastructure.

Retailers Caught Off Guard

The surge in demand wasn't limited to radios. Maplin reported torch sales up 284% since Thursday's announcement compared to the same period the previous month, with its own-brand power bank sales up 106%. Managing director Ollie Marshall said customers reached for the basics — a torch, a wind-up radio, a power bank — within hours of the announcement. Maplin's £18.99 Ionos Almere wind-up radio sold out by Friday.

At Sgt Prepper Shop, a self-described "one-stop shop for outdoor gear and prepping supplies," co-owner Jack Brown said the business had taken in six weeks' worth of sales since Thursday, with orders running at roughly five times their normal volume. He said he initially thought his phone was malfunctioning given the volume of orders coming in. Two of the shop's best-selling wind-up radios, the Midland ER100 (£55.79) and the ER300 Pro (£74.50), sold out on Thursday night. Brown added that sales would have been even higher with more stock on hand.

Elsewhere, emergency supplies specialist EVAQ8 sold out of its C725 radio, while electronics retailer Duronic listed three wind-up models as unavailable.

Interest Spikes Beyond Retail Too

Traffic at Start Prepping UK, a disaster-preparedness website, surged twentyfold following the announcement — from around 300 visitors a day to 6,000 on Friday. Founder Dan Goss said the site's most popular content was a beginner's guide to emergency preparedness alongside two shopping lists for stockpiling food and water, noting that people seemed to want both general guidance and a specific list of what to actually buy.

Pete Sipple, founder of Essex Ham, one of Britain's most popular free amateur radio training courses, said enrolments had been climbing steadily as publicity around the Government's emergency plans grew: from 150 in August to 199 in September, when Streeting first called for a national conversation on resilience, up to a record 285 in October — a 90% rise in just two months. Sipple said a growing number of applicants were citing emergency preparedness, or "prepping," as their reason for signing up, though he'd only had a couple of enquiries directly tied to Thursday's announcement so far, with more expected to follow.

A Messaging Headache for Ministers

Some retailers are said to be frustrated that the Government chose to publish its "Be Ready" guidance on the same day a global cybersecurity scare was unfolding. The day before the stockpiling announcement, critical flaws discovered in PHP — a programming language underpinning much of the internet — had triggered a worldwide scramble to patch website vulnerabilities, with some government services knocked offline in the process. One industry source suggested the timing led people to connect the two stories and assume a bigger problem was brewing.

The messaging got murkier still on Friday, when Andy Burnham had to clarify that sauvignon blanc wasn't considered an essential emergency item, after older comments resurfaced from Housing Secretary Angela Rayner joking that her own survival kit would include mascara, concealer, and a bottle of white wine from the Loire Valley. The Prime Minister weighed in too, stressing the importance of a clear head in a genuine emergency — while conceding people would still be allowed a glass or two. Burnham, for his part, said his own emergency stash would run to baked beans, soup, and Twiglets.