"NHS dentistry is at death's door," the UK health secretary said at the start of the year.

Wes Streeting has pledged to improve access to dentists – but the scale of the challenge came into focus last week when hundreds of people (pictured above) queued for hours in the cold to register as patients at an NHS dental surgery in Bristol.

How bad is Britain's dental crisis?
Nearly 97% of adults who didn't already have a dentist weren't able to access NHS dental care last year, according to the Office for National Statistics. For new patients, NHS dentistry has "effectively ceased to exist", said British Dental Association chair Eddie Crouch.

Stories abound of "DIY dentistry" – people feeling forced to pull their own teeth. And extraction of decayed teeth is now the most common reason children are admitted to hospital. In the poorest parts of England, almost two-thirds of children have rotten teeth. Ministers have called the situation "truly Dickensian".

What's to blame?
Services are in "near-terminal decline" because of the increasing difficulty in accessing a dentist, the closure of routine dentistry during the pandemic, and a "funding squeeze", says the Nuffield Trust thinktank. Government spending on NHS dentistry has fallen by £1 billion in real terms since 2010, according to the BDA.

There is also "widespread consensus" that the government's contract with NHS dentists is "unfit for purpose", said The Guardian. Dentists are paid for each "unit of dental activity", a capped system that means they are "paid the same whether they deliver three fillings or 20". Treating a patient with a lot of dental problems can end up incurring the dentist a financial loss. 

What are possible solutions?
Dentists advise check-ups every six months but that could be changed. An expert review has found that check-ups as long as two years apart are perfectly safe for many adults, and that would "free up dentists' time", a Nuffield Trust policy analyst told The Guardian.

What is Labour doing?
The government has promised to provide an extra 700,000 urgent appointments, and "reform the dental contract", said the Department of Health and Social Care. However, the government's much-trumpeted Plan For Change does not include any targets or timelines for dentistry.

As lonely hearts have begun calling time on dating apps, artificial intelligence has arrived to woo them back. From virtual "wingmen" to tools that choose your best profile photo, AI is in use as a 21st-century matchmaker – but will it rekindle the dating-app appeal?

Natural bedfellows
"More and more users seem to have fallen out of love with dating apps," said NSS Magazine. Ofcom found an almost 16% decrease in the use of the 10 most popular apps between 2023 and 2024.

AI has been part of online dating "for longer than you've probably even realised", said London's The Standard. On Hinge, an AI-informed selection has long offered users the most "relevant" profiles. But now, AI and dating have become "natural bedfellows" and "they're tucked in, comfortable, and leaving crumbs in the sheets".

Baldness predictor
Bumble has new features that weed out spam and fake accounts, and blur lewd images, and it says these blocked more than 2.2 million inauthentic profiles last year. The Rizz app offers to help users by suggesting responses to conversations on dating platforms, and a recommendation platform called Pookie Tools includes functions like a "baldness predictor".

But Tinder's Photo Selector tool, which requires access to a user's camera library to pick out the "best" pictures, has proven controversial, said The Standard. The Wingman tool on the gay dating app Grindr is already "entirely redundant".

More burdensome
In another Tinder development, AI will be conducting voice interviews with users to understand what they are looking for, and suggesting messages to send to matches. But "one might wonder" whether users will want AI to "interrogate them", and whether this "will actually lighten the experience" or simply "make it more burdensome", said NSS Magazine.

Users "relying on AI for their love life" might "lose the ability to hold real and spontaneous conversations", said Anastasiia Babash, a member of Ethical Dating Online.

AI's march into dating apps poses a particular risk for "vulnerable young people", said New Scientist. "Widespread use of AI to write dating bios and prompt conversations" could make manipulation "easier than ever".

Devon: Cubby Close Cottage, Hele
A delightful Grade II thatched cottage in a rural setting that forms part of the Killerton estate. 3 beds, family bath, shower, kitchen / breakfast room, utility, recep, conservatory, garden, parking. £650,000; Bradleys

Buckinghamshire: The Hale Farmhouse, Wendover
A 15th-century farmhouse with stunning views. 5 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 4 receps, study, outbuildings, garden, parking. £2.25m; Michael Graham

Suffolk: Fleurael Cottage, Westhorpe
Charming thatched cottage dating back to the 16th century. Set in a secluded location surrounded by mature gardens. 2 beds, family bath, shower, kitchen, study, 2 receps, garden, garage. £495,000; Bedfords

Worcestershire: The Old Rectory, Malvern
A Queen Anne house set in 14 acres with views over the Malvern Hills. 2 suites, 4 further beds, 2 baths, shower, kitchen / breakfast room, 3 receps, study, 2-bed annexe, tennis court, outbuildings, garden. OIEO £2m; Stowhill Estates

We'll miss Pax Americana now it's gone
Emma Duncan in The Times
"Hostility to America rises as you travel leftwards along the political spectrum," writes Emma Duncan. The US has "certainly made mistakes, moral and strategic, since 1945" but the "rules-based global order that has prevailed since then was America's doing". As a "world order based on conflict" edges ever nearer, it's hard not to look back at "the blessings that Pax Americana conferred on the world", and wish we had "counted them at the time".

Labour has outlawed banter
Kathleen Stock on UnHerd
"Have you heard the one about the Labour WhatsApp chat that got leaked?" asks Kathleen Stock. As writers "queue up to pass pained judgement", I "find myself at a loss" because "amnesia has collectively infected nearly everybody". But "I still remember the existence of a human activity called 'joking'", and also 'black comedy', which was "quite popular in the olden days". Now, "whole swathes of discourse have become effectively off-limits", so you're "best sticking to anodyne puns or Christmas cracker fodder".

C'mon Saudis! Let us drink a lager or two at your World Cup
Sean O'Grady in The Independent
"I don't know" whether the Saudi ambassador to the UK "has ever watched England eke out a 0-0 draw against, say, Slovenia", writes Sean O'Grady, but, if he has, he "might not take such a hard line about the consumption of alcohol" at the 2034 World Cup. He "plainly doesn't understand" how much "nice ice-cold lager (usually German, ironically)" can "help to dull the pain of disappointment". It's "not too soon" to "reconsider" the booze ban.