Starmer to embrace ‘nanny state’ with plan for toothbrushing in schools
www.theguardian.com
Labour leader hits out at perceived criticism as he attacks Tory record on child health

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/6562239

Keir Starmer has said he is “up for the fight” of defending the “nanny state” as he announced plans to improve child health under a Labour government, including supervised toothbrushing in schools.

The Labour leader said that children were “probably the biggest casualty” of the Tories’ sticking-plaster approach to politics over the past 14 years, adding that, if the government were a parent, they could be charged with neglect.

“I know that we need to take on this question of the nanny state,” he told reporters. “The moment you do anything on child health, people say ‘you’re going down the road of the nanny state.’ We want to have that fight.”

Ahead of a visit to a children’s hospital, Starmer criticised the Tories’ record on child health. “They’re probably the biggest casualty of sticking-plaster politics in the last 14 years,” he said. “Frankly, if parents had treated children as badly as the UK government has, they would probably be charged with neglect. It’s that bad.”

  • UraniumBlazer@lemm.eeEnglish
    403·
    10 months ago

    This is absolutely essential. So many adults that I know brush their teeth wrong.

    1. No, don’t brush your teeth too hard. Your teeth aren’t supposed to be whitey-white-white. Brushing teeth too hard will cause enamel loss. That’s stuff that u can’t get back once lost completely.
    2. No, don’t wash your mouth with water after brushing for at least 10 minutes. In a nutshell, fluoride keeps you from getting cavities. But it needs to be present in your saliva for your teeth to use it for remineralisation. Of course, don’t use too much toothpaste or you might poison yourself.
    • curiousPJ@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      10 months ago

      No, don’t wash your mouth with water after brushing for at least 10 minutes.

      Uhh…

      Enrolls myself into UK elementary school.

      • 🐍🩶🐢@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        10 months ago

        Don’t feel bad. I 100% cannot stand not rinsing that shit out immediately. It was even worse as a kid. Only saving grace is water picks sort of make up for it, but I will never be able to use toothpaste the way you are supposed to.

        • jimbolauski@lemm.eeEnglish
          11·
          10 months ago

          There are flouride mouth rises that you can use after brushing, those come in a variety of flavors.

    • Wanderer@lemm.eeEnglish
      74·
      10 months ago

      I completely agree with you. Kids go to school to learn and this is a great example of low cost, high reward. It will pay for itself 1000x over. It’s a good move and is the type of thing that should be encouraged from politicians actual meaningful improvement of society.

      I gave up on the world when I realised how many people can’t tie their shoe laces.

      I couldn’t possibly imagine that there are more than 1 adult in 100 that couldn’t tie shoe laces and that’s at a push. I would have guessed a much lower level than that.

      But now that I know people can’t tie their shoe laces I notice it all the time. The worst is that people don’t even know it. They swear right to your face they know how to tie shoe laces and they don’t. Then I try telling them and they don’t see the issue. So I was like fuck this, the amount of stupid and ignorance in the world is actually off the charts. If we can’t do basic things right what hope do we have?

      A shoelace knot is a reef knot that has an extra bow. Doubled is optional and really you’re mad for not doing it. But that’s not really the issue, the amount of people that do a granny knot is somewhere between 40% and 20% by my exceptionally rough estimate.

      You can tell when people fuck it up because the “ears” on the knot go perpendicular rather than parallel to the laces.

      Heres the most basic form of a shoelace knot.

        • Wanderer@lemm.eeEnglish
          21·
          10 months ago

          Yes I know, I tried a few myself especially the ian knot. Anyone that wants to use those knots all the power to them. I didn’t really find they had enough benefit for me to switch.

          But none of them are a granny knot. I’m talking about people that do the basic shoelace knot wrong.

      • mipadaitu@lemmy.worldEnglish
        52·
        10 months ago

        Wow, you really wrote a giant paragraph to say that something that works just fine for the vast majority of people, but is slightly sub-optimal, is grounds for dismissing someone as a lost cause.

        Yes, tying your shoes correctly does make the knot slight neater, and slightly less prone to coming undone, but it’s not that bad. It most likely doesn’t impact people as you think.

        Spending your whole life trying to optimize every little detail, especially something as minuscule as tying your shoes, can be a very wasted life.

        • Wanderer@lemm.eeEnglish
          51·
          10 months ago

          I’m not on about optimising it’s about doing one of the most basic daily tasks most humans do wrong.

          Makes you wonder how many other basic tasks people are doing wrong. Or how many average or advanced tasks.

          It’s also the ignorance and insistence that they are right, and the unwillingness to change to do something right.

    • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.worldEnglish
      48·
      10 months ago

      Brushing for ten minutes? Didn’t your other point say not too hard? Brushing too much can have a similar effect, especially in a manual-brushing situation where there’s no automated device that reacts to varying pressure.

      • rorsche@lemm.eeEnglish
        14·
        10 months ago

        They’re saying not to wash out your mouth for 10 minutes after brushing. It’s worded ambiguously.

      • UraniumBlazer@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        No u brush only till you get the plaque out (so like 30 seconds maybe?). But after brushing, you just spit out the stuff in your mouth. You are not supposed to wash your mouth with water for at least 10 minutes. That’s it.