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.”

  • Wanderer@lemm.eeEnglish
    7·
    11 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
        2·
        11 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
      6·
      11 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
        5·
        11 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.