Desperate people yanking their own teeth out because they cannot get an appointment with an NHS dentist is the stuff of nightmares.
If anything symbolises the decline of our most precious public service in recent years, it is probably this.
The one-in-four patients unable to book an appointment, languishing on long waiting lists or deterred from treatment deserve better.
Half of surveyed dentists slashing NHS patients and more than two-in-five planning to go entirely private is the death knell for a public service unless we save it.
Funding cuts and “perverse” payment contracts blamed by dentists must be rectified. And if that doesn’t work, the NHS recruiting and directly employing thousands of dentists will be needed.
The Tories will not fix this decay but Labour must if it wins power at the next election.
Individuals have a responsibility to look after their teeth. Politicians have a responsibility to guarantee access for all to dentists.
Strike a right
Condemned by an all-party group of MPs and Peers as a breach of Britain’s international human rights obligations, the ban on some public service workers striking is a rancid piece of prejudice.
What is erroneously billed as an attempt to maintain minimum services is a reactionary attack on key workers threatened with the sack and their trade unions.
A government that cared about standards and decency would take the criticism on the chin and withdraw this draconian legislation.
That Rishi Sunak’s Tory regime seems hell-bent on pressing ahead shows them behaving, in the words of one-time Tory grandee Lord Hailsham, like an elective dictatorship.
Freezy does it
Forecasts of snow and ice are likely to reveal very different responses.
Down South there will be panic, while up North folk will put their big coat on.
