PM blusters on as we’re being played for fuels
TOPPING up has become my new filling up.
With petrol at £2 a litre, I can’t afford to allow my tank to fall below the halfway mark. It could cost as much £100 to refill if I let it get anywhere near empty.
Some fuel outlets have had motorists trying to drive off without paying. There have been up to 3,000 attempted thefts a month, a leap of almost 40% between January and May, according to Forecourt Eye which collects payments on behalf of about
1,000 garages around the UK.
Desperation has set in for other drivers who have been either “forgetting” their wallets or offering no explanation at all.
Asda reports shoppers are asking cashiers to stop scanning items when the till total hits £30, as they try to cut costs.
The Daily Mirror reported only yesterday that the shortage of NHS dentists has led to patients, unable to wait, pulling their own teeth out.
Josh Keeling, from Dorset, has seen an online petition he set up reach nearly 200,000 signatures after his 28-year-old partner, Olivia Morley, needed root canal treatment - only to find her nearest NHS dentist was 64 miles away.
Josh, 27, said: “The pain was so excruciating she considered asking me to get the pliers. There is something wrong with the system – private dental treatments are readily available. It’s a chaotic mess.”
Meanwhile news emerges of Boris Johnson’s alleged attempt to have a treehouse built for his son Wilf costing £150,000 of our money. We haven’t even got to the jobs for his wife, Covid deaths and the restrictions on our lives while he and his cronies remained drenched in debauchery.
He was never going to step down after the Wakefield and Tiverton by-elections which saw his party given the boot by voters there last week.
He will never admit he and his regime are the problem. While Labour leader Keir Starmer continues to sit on the fence and RMT union leader Mick Lynch defends workers with simple truths, Johnson lies and continues with the bluster that many remarkably regard as charismatic.
As a result the rich get richer and the rest of us continue to do what we can to protect ourselves and our families.
Reporting on the cost of living crisis earlier this month from the council estate where I grew up in Hackney, East London, nothing had changed. The poorest remained invisible to the people with the power to do something about it.
So will it get worse before it gets better? Too right it will. In fact, it is hard to see exactly when it will improve.
NHS dentist shortage has led to people pulling their own teeth