Update 20
The GP’s suggestion of Ketoconazole to sort out my mouth didn’t work out. The pharmacy said it was too expensive (£550) for the course of 14 tablets and referred the prescription back to my surgery. On Monday the GP called to ask how the K was working. I explained the situation and offered to reimburse the system personally but to no avail. He said “leave it with me, I’ll come up with something else”. My mouth awaits his deliberations.
His deliberations appeared later in the day on my online nhs account, revealing that he’d prescribed Miconozole. This a disappointment because that’s a relatively mild drug I’d previously bought over the pharmacy counter and which made no difference at all to the oral Thrush.
On Tuesday, Palliative nurse Gill Called to say Michelle was on sick leave and then going on annual leave until Nov 7th. I explained the situation re the drugs and she said there was another option called Itraconozole . She recommended I try the Miconozole for three days and if there’s no reaction, then call the GP again. That’ll be Monday’s task.
Most of last Monday was taken up following the machinations of Tory MPs as their different groupings issued claim and counter claim about support for their chosen leadership candidates. At mid morning, Sunak was claiming 165 names, Johnson was on 102 whilst Mordaunt was “in the 90s, within a hair’s breadth of 100” so let’s call that say 95? That’s a total of 362 - but hang on, there are only 357 Conservative MPs. By lunchtime, Sunak’s team were claiming up to 200 so I’m guessing it was the Johnson and/or Mordaunt camps who may have had trouble with their maths.
By the evening Sunak had pretty much filled his cabinet including the genuine shock of Suella Braverman returning to the Home Office. It was only six days earlier that the Cabinet Secretary had insisted on her resignation for breaching the Ministerial Code. This apparent case of almost instant forgiveness for a blatant lack of integrity will probably be the cause of more challenges from the country in general and the opposition parties.
For now, the threat of more Johnson led corruption and cronyism has passed, but don’t relax yet. For the moment, the ERG who I wrote about last week have nailed their colours firmly to the fence, but they and their Tufton Street colleagues are not going anywhere. Their mission to turn the UK into ‘Singapore on Thames’ is far from over. But, and this is a significant but; there is a slight change of mood amongst the commentariat.
For the last seven years, polite society has required everyone to pretend that Brexit has done no harm to life in the UK - no longer: this week the multi millionaire investor Guy Hands stated that unless the Johnson/Frost Brexit deal is renegotiated, the UK economy is doomed and will probably need rescuing by the IMF. It’s a theme that has recently also been carried in the pages of, among others, the Times and the Economist. This is a crucial national conversation that needs to be had, and had before it’s too late.
There are very real signs that even the new government is prepared to adopt a different approach to discussions with the EU. The Northern Ireland Protocol must be renegotiated, if only to ensure that part of the UK can resume its own governance. Johnson’s insistence that he got Brexit done was untrue then and remains untrue now. His total lack of shame about the so called deal negotiated by Lord Frost and Johnson himself, is unbelievable. My fingers are crossed that the Sunak regime can rebuild a properly working relationship with the EU, and thence negotiate a proper deal that works for both parties.
Earlier in the week, we took a deep breath and accepted an invitation to stay with some very good friends at their holiday rental at Bampton in Oxfordshire. We spent two nights away and all was well - my eating and drinking was still well below par, but the warmth of their company and the change of scenery did us both good.
