Sturgeon’s mafia state & Trump storms primaries – The Week in 60 Minutes | SpectatorTV

John Connolly is joined by Freddy Gray in New Hampshire for the primaries. Can anyone get in the way of a Biden-Trump election battle? Also on the show, Spectator editor, Fraser Nelson and journalist Shona Craven debate the future of Scotland’s devolution, doctor Max Pemberton and Professor David Nutt reveal why Ketamine consumption is becoming increasingly dangerous in Britain, and Mary Wakefield and Devorah Heitner discuss the rise in parents tracking their children.

00:00 Welcome from John Connolly
01:36 Can anyone stop a Trump-Biden election battle? With Freddy Gray
08:25 What’s the future of Scotland’s devolution? With Fraser Nelson & Shona Craven
31:00 Has Britain got a Ketamine problem? With Max Pemberton & Professor David Nutt
54:17 Should parents track their children? With Mary Wakefield & Devorah Heitner

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Hello and welcome to the week in 60 minutes brought to you by spectator TV and broadcast on the 25th of January I’m John Connelly The Spectators news editor and your host this week coming up on the show can anything stop the Donald Trump Juggernaut Freddy gray has been in New

Hampshire this week where the Democratic and Republican primaries have been taking place Freddy joins me on the show to discuss Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s presidential bids over in Scotland the UK Co inquiry is exposing the way Hollywood operated during the pandemic in his cover piece editor Fraser Nelson

Describes it as being less like government and more like a mafia style operation what does that say about the state of Scottish Devolution Fraser joins me on the show with journalist Shona Craven what’s behind the dangerous rise in ketman misuse in Britain joining me is Max pton Mental Health doctor working

For the NHS we’ll be discussing some of the unknown health risks of ketamin and why he’s changed his mind on drug liberalization we’ll also hear from Professor David nut a long-standing researcher and advocate for drug liberalization to get his take and finally should parents be tracking their children seems like everyone is these

Days but is our safety obsessed culture depriving young people a vital part of growing up Mary Wakefield and deorah heitner join me later before we get going if you enjoy spectator TV do subscribe subbe to our YouTube channel just click the Subscribe button at the bottom of this video and tap the Bell

Icon so you never miss an episode first up it was an overwhelming Triumph for Donald Trump at the New Hampshire primaries this week but his runner-up Nicki Haley says she’s staying in the race short of a supreme court block over Trump’s criminal investigations is the Republican bid a

Done deal Freddy gray has been in New Hampshire for the primaries and he joins me now Freddy thank you for joining us on spectator TV from New Hampshire um where Donald Trump has just won the Republican primary this week I mean it he seems like he’s beaten Nicki Haley pretty

Convincingly uh how much now is it looking like he’s gonna he’s going to be the presidential candidate for the rep Republicans well I think barring uh legal interventions or uh you know um possible death uh Donald Trump is going to be uh the Republican nominee I think

That’s almost certain now you can say that with certainty now um Nikki Haley did slightly better than uh the later polls suggested she would do there was some polls suggesting she’d be blown out by 20 points or so um in the in the days before the the primary yesterday um but

In fact she came just just a mere 12 points behind Donald Trump which the fact that that is seen as a as a as almost a win for her uh tells you a lot about Trump’s dominance I mean he is the Republican party now he has been for

Some time uh and the real question is um why did anybody think that they were going to unseat him I mean if you look at the the just the crowd attendances between his events and any of his Rivals um it’s just very obvious that there’s still large amount of enthusiasm for

Donald Trump um and no other candidate can come close um despite that Freddy Nikki Haley’s not conceded yet she’s she’s going to carry on running I mean why do you think that is what do you think she’s hoping for something or well she she must be hoping for something uh

I mean she she thinks she can go down to South Carolina and improve uh her position I I don’t see that happening at the moment because at the moment she’s 30 points behind in the polls uh South Carolina is a much more conservative state with a much stronger uh Trump

Movement um if she if Haley couldn’t win in New Hampshire it’s hard to see how she wins anywhere really uh in the primary cycle I mean one element of concern for Trump or Trump’s team will be the fact that in certain counties in New Hampshire last night uh Haley per

Outperformed uh Trump in the general election which is that’s to say she got more votes in New Hampshire primary than Donald Trump got in the election in certain areas of New Hampshire which suggests that the sort of the the Haley the sorry the Trump Animas uh is still

Very very strong um and that could come out a lot in November in fact it will obviously come out in November if he’s the nominate what sort of Trump’s sort of view of the can the race continuing I mean is he getting quite frustrated now with Haley that that that it’s not all

Been stitched up basically um there was a lot of talk I was at the election night a watch party uh with the Trump people in in nashwa last night and uh there was a lot of sort of this is over talk you know the race is done and you

Could hear a little bit of frustration in it at the same time I can’t help thinking at some unconscious level uh Donald Trump quite enjoys uh the pleasure of sort of beating Nikki Haley over and over again um and so at some level I think uh he doesn’t mind it

Carrying on but yes it makes much more sense for his campaign to uh wrap it up to deal with these legal challenges and to focus on uh trying to beat Joe Biden in November and and on Biden um you’re writing the magazine this week about the Democratic Primary in New Hampshire as

Well which has been a bit of a sort of a strange setup can you can you tell us a bit about that well I have to confess here to uh being guilty of what a few journalists have been guilty of which is that the the main race is so boring

Predictable Donald Trump’s going to win that everybody’s looking for something interesting going on and there is something quite interesting going on on the Democratic side which is this uh candidate Dean Phillips uh who’s a former congressman from Minnesota uh who um has start he started his campaign 10 weeks ago and there’s a

Rather uh complicated fight which I’ll try and sum up quickly uh between the Democratic National Committee who run the Democratic party and the Democratic primaries and New Hampshire uh the Democratic National Committee tried to rearrange the primary schedule to make New Hampshire not go first South

Carolina would go first uh on grounds of sort of racial diversity because South Carolina’s more racially diverse uh New Hampshire said no the Democratic National Committee said uh well tough luck the your primary won’t count a lot of Democrats are very upset about that uh Dean Phillips uh was one of the

Candidates who ignored their ban on uh candidates running essentially and uh uh put his name forward in 10 weeks he’s gone from nothing to 20% of the vote here in New Hampshire uh Joe Biden still won the Primary should be clear with people writing in his

Name um so I don’t think Dean Phillips is going to win uh the nomination however I do think or win the nomination on sort of conventional in a conventional way however I do think that Joe Biden is looking increasingly frail uh his cognitive decline is becoming uh increasingly apparent I think by August

By the time he’s out campaigning all the time it’s going to look it’s going to be very difficult for Democrats to say seriously uh that he’s a fully functioning president in that scenario particularly with Trump doing so well in the polls for the national for the

General uh you know you could quite see a situation where they need to find another candidate that would obviously be camela Harris would be the Natural Choice the vice president but she is extremely unpopular and everyone knows it more popular than J but unpopular and Joe Biden uh there are other people

Gavin Newsome is person someone people talk about a lot um but it could end up being Dean Phillips who finished second and has this rather sort of appealing backstory which I describ in the magazine this week yeah so I me I mean I guess there must be lots of Democrats

Who are kind of looking on with horror at the idea that they might end up with a Biden Trump race again and not and and pretty worried about their own candidate by by that that his support suggests I guess well it’s not just Democrats I you look Independence as well and and quite

A few Republicans if if you look at the uh polls uh 60% of Americans say they don’t want or unenthusiastic about a trump Biden rematch and yet this is what they’re getting uh and this speaks to this dysfunction that seems to be happening in American democracy where

They can’t seem to select candidates uh that um that have you know anything like majority appeal BR thank you very much Freddy next the co inquiry is now in Edinburgh and has revealed the shocking ways were made north of the Border but as the snp’s conduct reveal something more about Devolution in Scotland

Joining me to discuss is Fraser Nelson and communities editor the national Shona Craven Fraser and Shona thank you for joining us on spectator TV um Fraser you write the lead story in the in the magazine this week about the ongoing covid inquiry in Scotland and there been a few interesting Revelations this week

So can you start us off by telling us a bit about them well it was never apparent that the UK Co inquiry would ever go to Scotland I mean we did have Nicholas serson setting up her own inquiry so I’m not quite sure she expected the kind of forensic Force

Which is now being Unleashed in Edinburgh so it there for three weeks and we’re seeing a rather different Co inquiry to the one we used to down here in London we’ve had you know this pretty bad QC um Hugo Keith and he has been s liking the own sound of his voice not

Really getting anything interesting uh but now there’s new guy jimie Dawson the Scott he’s a casc who’s really revealing um not just what happened during the co during in Scotland but how the Scottish executive sort of Scottish government works day-to-day basis now the S&P had various scandals over the years the

Ferry Scandal the Alex salmon Scandal and now the ongoing police investigation into potential fraud and Corruption but this was relatively new what we didn’t realize there was just the extent to which a civil service has been coopted as part of this so we saw already the culture of secrecy of deleted messages

Of being rather difficult to find out what was really going on but we didn’t really know that the Scottish Civil Service were playing the same game so perhaps the most memorable moments came when Ken Thompson one of the most senior a civil zmans in Scotland we was found

To have exchanged various emails telling his colleagues how to avoid foi be careful of what you’re saying is might be discoverable in Freedom of Information let’s see if you can press the clear chat and he he came up with a phrase perhaps the most memorable phrase plausible deniability are my middle

Names now it’s pretty bad to hear a special advisor Junior Guy saying that let alone the person who’s supposed to be assuring standards and probity now down here you see the Civil servers kicking off all the time against the government you know things have got bad when the ministers have to give a

Ministerial Direction in other words they they have to absolutely override the Civil Service and they have to send something write something saying that in Scotland this hardly ever happens as an indication according to the Institute of government of just how much more compliant really the machine is the

Checks and balances that we have in Westminster perhaps to a fault don’t seem to be happening up in Scotland and I think the co inquiry has shown us the extent of that Shona I mean you’ve been following the Scottish inquiry this week um when you take things like the

Deletion of WhatsApp messages by officials I mean it does sort of give the impression doesn’t it of a sort of Cronin between I mean ministers and officials do you do you agree with that I think there’s a level of informality to these conversations definitely and I

Think um some of the messages that have come out obvious ly will have um troubled people and and a lot of the time just because they maybe seem quite flippant and seem to be kind of joking laughing emojis zipped mouth emojis and things like that but I suppose some

People might think if there were some Grand conspiracy or or real wrongdoing to cover up then possibly the messages wouldn’t have had that tone and I think if people are working together in very difficult circumstances and over a long period and using an informal channel to communicate then there could be a degree

Of informality of indiscretion of saying things that you don’t want them to be fiable not because it would cause you know a huge political Scandal but because you’re maybe speaking a little bit more uh informally or perhaps slagging someone off or making a judgment about someone that ultimately

May be of very little relevance to the co inquiry itself and in terms of actual lessons learned about how decisions were made but of course the problem of the deletion the systematic deletion in line with a policy um of course that’s being used as the reason for it but the

Question then is why was that policy introduced at that point and is it compatible with the Integrity of an inquiry um but I think that the deletion obviously has dominated the headlines and hopefully we will get some more information on what emails if any were written to capture any discussions that

Were happening via WhatsApp are there gaps in decision making where it’s not apparent where we went from A to B it could have been a face-to-face conversation that we don’t know about you know ultimately we’re never going to know all the conversations that took place what’s important is trying to

Establish a trail of why this happened why that happened and obviously with regard to some of the more contentious decisions about care homes in particular about schools we’ve seen headlines today about um evidence potentially being ignored well there’s bound to be examples of somebody saying something and it being ignored because there were

A lot of different stances on a lot of um decisions that were made because it was a a really difficult Balancing Act for politicians I think it will be in the coming weeks that we really get into more important detail and identify if there are gaps that these whatsapps could potentially have provided

Illumination for but it could be that these whatsapps are of little relevance it’s just unfortunate people are always going to wonder now because of this systematic deletion yeah I I mean sha do you think as well maybe that the S&P have made a rod for their own backs here

In the sense of that they they make a lot of hay about how the fact that they’re not the same as Westminster and they pay a sort of emphasis on prob and the like and now they’re not sort of meeting their own standard there yeah I think definitely people have gone back

And said well hang on when when it was Boris Johnson or Rishi sunak or whoever doing this you said this um and I think some people are a bit cynical about some of the use of language you know saying messages were not retained rather than saying I deleted them you know that sort

Of passive voice versus an active decision so yes definitely when that was going on and when those comments are being made clearly the people making those comments must have known their position but felt confident in it because I suppose of this policy and say well we were just following a policy we

Were keeping things secure um because you know if the devices are falling into the wrong hands or or whatever else but it does create a bit of a problem we also have the usual situation with things at Westminster being quite so appalling that you then have this defensiveness from Scottish politicians

Sometimes to say well our leader wasn’t compared to an out-of-control shopping trolley and we weren’t spiraling from one thing to the next but of course that should shouldn’t be the bar the bar should be much higher than being significantly better than Boris Johnson um and so I think we will see

Defensiveness of we weren’t as bad as them but the Scottish public will be looking for them to be an awful lot better than that and fr it does seem there’s been some disingenuousness um when it comes to the role of the independence campaign and how that was

Dealt with when it came to the pandemic can you tell us a little bit about that because it seems like there’s something come out that that suggests that the Independence was definitely considered whilst the pandemic was going on yeah well Nicholas sturon was challenged about this during the pandemic she was saying

Look are you guys talking about independence because at the time the opinion polls that hadn’t really moved after brexit not in the way that you’d think all of a sudden started to show yes to be ahead now we now know thanks to the inquiry that the Scottish cabinet

Did discuss independence and and they did sort agree that they have a campaign that could be based on SC surgeon’s response to covid the funny thing is that she went hot fooot from that cabinet meeting to a press conference where she was asked directly about it

And this is what she said we’re not dealing with politics at the moment um with this virus we’re dealing with a virus a virus that we know poses a real risk to health and to life frankly anybody who is trotting out political or constitutional arguments is in the wrong

Place completely and has found themselves completely lost this is just what we need to do from a public health practical perspective to stop a virus spreading so this of course makes people think well hang on a minute not only will you discussing Independence but you are flatly and angrly denying that you

Were in the first place and this comes to a bigger concern that the the pursuit of Independence has become the primary objective of the Scottish government and that the Civil Service should be and pushing against that haven’t been doing so in the way that you would like so to

Me this is a wider story about simply the the concentration of power and we saw during the Alex Ammon Scandal how Hollywood doesn’t have enough power really to take on and to get to the truth of these matters and there was um I think Jason leech who was the national

Clinical Director there’s a exchange where I think he’s talking to Kate Forbes then Finance Minister and she’s saying look what’s going on I need to be told information is power and he REM messaged her back saying look um I have to say that that the first Minister and

Liz Lloyd or chief of staff are basically deciding this themselves that concentration of power isn’t good for any country you need by the way it happened in London I mean you know it was we saw that that the cabinet were kept in the dark as well but when that

Happens when it happens a systemic level like Scotland it raises questions of whether the Devolution settlement was fundamentally misconstrued where the Scottish Parliament lacks teeth to get properly stuck into the government and to challenge it so that’s why I think there’s a bigger picture here that whoever wins the next general election

Might have to look at Scotland and ask well really is 25 years on is a Devolution settlement doing what we want are Scots being short Changed by the fact that whoever has got power whether it was Scottish labor they were acting as a cabal first of all then the S&P are

Acting as a cabal you shouldn’t be able to act as a cabal in this small country they should be I remember as a reporter in the Scottish Parliament at the time we genuinely believed we’d set up something as as Scots that was going to be better more transparency more honesty

More openness and now we find it’s got all the defects of Westminster a few more thrown in beside sha do do you agree with that and when it comes to the flaws of devolution and and the S SMP in particular well there there’s a there’s

An awful lot in there I mean I think you know sort some of these Buzz phrases you know cabal one party State you know conjure up a certain impression I think if we go back to the notion of Nicholas sturgeon making these decisions herself um I suppose you you maybe have to

Consider what the general public would think of that and how they were feeling about that at the time she certainly was the the face of the response in Scotland of course she was on television every day people appreciated the fact that she seemed to be in charge that she seemed

To be making the decisions now obviously those should be informed they should be evidence-based and we will hear more about whether that was felt to be the case but also the notion of uh Independence being a priority at that time well I mean the be the biggest and

Best argument for Independence for an SNP government is to govern well and so again would people think that Nicholas sturgeon and the rest of her party thinking if we do really well at managing this pandemic that will help us with the cause of Independence is that dastardly Behavior or is that actually

Just two goals that are aligned nobody in Scotland wanted Scotland’s response to the pandemic to be fumbled um you know even if you were the the most committed unionist and wanted to see the SNP fail in the long run you certainly didn’t want to see the Scottish

Government H mess this up in the short and when so much was at stake so I think that it’s a bit of a reach to suggest that this was a big problem okay so the example of Nicholas D saying that wasn’t something that was being discussed well

I mean In fairness what would have been helped by her coming out and saying yes to be honest you know never mind the immediate pandemic we’re thinking about strategy for the future um I think I don’t know I maybe can’t get too exercise if if that was a white lie at

That particular point I do think that those two goals were very much in alignment and I think most people in Scotland believe that Nicholas sturgeon was the buck stopped with her and she was making these decisions of course when we get into the nitty-gritty of who

Was doing what who who knew what who understood what then we may identify more flaws but I definitely don’t agree that Hollywood has all the problems that Westminster has and more I think anyone who takes the the most cursory look at how Westminster politics operates will

Be a gas that this sort of ridiculous system is still in operation in a supposedly sort of grownup Democratic country yes of course you don’t want this uh iron Rod of discipline and people not being able to desent and come up with better policy but I don’t think

Um the chaos of Westminster is something we should look at and try to emulate further but the problem if there’s not enough debate you end up with really bad ideas being churned out as we’ve seen take gender M self ID that idea collapsed take the named Guardian system

That Adar collapsed in the courts and then you had ader to abolish juries now what you’re seeing here is that when governments come up with bad ideas that are ropey that would fall to Legal challenge were supposed to be torn apart by the parliament but that isn’t happening in Hollywood therefore they’re

Falling apart after they leave Parliament so that’s the scrutiny and again um it’s not this is this isn’t simply about Nicholas sergeon thinking her deaf handling of the pandemic was going to be an addition for Independence this was about the question of whether she was taking deliberately different

Strategies to that of England to pursue difference for its own sake during the inquiry for example we heard from another edber Professor one of Co advisers saying that the politicians he was around in Scotland were very insistent for example that Scotland kept lockdown for longer than England that

The the differentiation with England was very important but it was never explained to him what the public health benefits for that would be in other words they were looking for difference for difference sake we also saw during the inquiry how she um was flirting with the idea of zero covid and her adviser

Debbie stretar was basically advocating this as well in other words this having a policy in Scotland very very different to the one in England and the fact Scotland would be similar to that of New Zealand and Australia so what we’re seeing here is whether decisions are being made not really because they

Benefit the people of Scotland but because they give a dividing line with England for dividing land with the UK and whether this consideration has supplanted that of good government in Scotland which might explain why the education systems in such a mess which might explain why police Scotland this

Merged massive police force is so dysfunctional and it might explain why Devolution has not done what people like me thought it would do when we supported it 25 years ago I just think it’s I think it’s questionable to suggest that these uh differences for differences sake were not supported by any evidence

However flawed that might have turned out to be I mean the idea that Nicholas sturgeon thought we’ll do things differently to show that we are a different country and if it goes badly if it backfires then we can say well it was our own decision that we made you

Know the public aren’t going to be impressed by that the fence sitters the don’t knows on Independence aren’t going to know Well you aren’t going to say oh well you know what it worked out badly and thousands of people died but at least we went our own way I’m really

Inspired that we have Independence and and have all our powers I just don’t see how strategically I mean Nicholas sturon you know as a strategist has been pretty effective and certainly only really after resignation have a lot of the the the bigger criticisms really come to the

For but I just don’t think she would risk making a decision for the decision’s sake if she didn’t think it was going to have a good outcome for Scotland because that just doesn’t make any logical sense and some of the things she was pushing obviously she hoped to

Influence uh what would happen across the UK there was this idea that there could be these cross-nation meetings where you know it would be a respectful situation where it wouldn’t just be Boris Johnson dictating to everyone we’re going to do this like it or lump

It and so I think it’s it’s credible to push for different uh approaches to things like UK borders and to advocate for that um while acknowledging that clearly because of the the geography as well as what’s devolved and what’s reserved it Nicholas sergeon wasn’t going to get her way on all of these

Things do you think it’s been a bit of a disappointment compared to what a lot of us back Devolution thought it could be I mean let’s set Co aside but look at the education system the way we’re plunging down the league tables like that you it

Was this was never supposed to be the plan and and I can’t work out why in general 25 years on Scots haven’t been able to produce better ideas it’s difficult to point anywhere we were really better than England than than we used to be well I suppose it depends if

You ask the person in the street do you think that your life is better do you think that things are better under Devolution I’m not sure they would have the same concerns that political journalists would point to I think in terms of Education obviously we have had

The massive disruption of Co and with the Health Service obviously people also point to before Co and say well hang on you know things weren’t going in the right direction before as well but at the end of the day should we be able to make our own decisions about these

Things or not I would agree with you with a lot of the policies that I don’t think were uh a good idea or well conceived a lot of these with cross-party support we always have to remember and I agree that there are huge shortcomings in the scrutiny processes

We don’t have a second chamber you know as much as the House of Lords gets a lot of stick um it does provide a scrutiny function that we don’t have at Hollywood so I certainly think there’s questions to be asked about um a second chamber and I certainly think there’s a lot of

Room for improvement but when you look at what’s going on at Westminster particularly with education some of the ideas about education in England which I just don’t think fit with the Scottish mentality sometimes I read well I think a lot of the stories you hear from England about about Academy

About the sort of rigid enforcement of rules and discipline and uniform codes and things like that to me it does feel like you’re reading about quite a different country now obviously you’re look you look at attainment gaps you look at um inequalities in education and that’s extremely important but I think

Culturally there is a difference there and I don’t think a lot of Scottish people look enviously at what’s going on at Westminster and who the the UK education secretary is and think oh that person knows what they’re doing whether they think that the Scottish education secretary is the best person is another

Question but I just don’t think many people at this point or in the recent past think oh if only Westminster was in charge of this things would be better right but isn’t the whole point about schools it’s the parents who are in charge if you don’t like Katherine

Burbling school you don’t have to send your kids there I mean to put it mly that’s not like every school you’re right she’s got a very strict uniform policy no talking in lunch time but nonetheless she’s got she’s improved results for her kids faster than any other school in England or Scotland now

What can’t work out is why Scots Devolution was supposed to mean power from the government to the people now to me it seems that that power has been hoarded in Hollywood it hasn’t been passed down to the parents and that’s why the academy program for example all

That means is parents get a greater choice of who they want to go to um or what sort of schools they want the kids to that choice is not given to Scottish parents and they can’t work out why Scottish parents shouldn’t be trusted to make these kinds of decisions because

They they’ll make different decisions you bet horses for courses different families but I don’t i’ I’ve always seen this as the Paradox of devolution that your average Scott has less power less control over their school less control over the hospital Health Service because ironically of devolution well maybe

That’s just a a complete difference in Outlook about whether we are citizens or whether we are consumers of services and I think with health services in particular do people want to have lots of choices have that power actually when you’re unwell do you want power or do

You just want to know that where you go will look after you rather than being given that choice I mean a lot of parents with respect with respect with schools parents do make choices they make choices of where to live they make choices about placing requests make

Choices about private school but a lot of parents I think want their children want to know that wherever their children go to school they will get a good education they will be socializing with children from all different backgrounds and they want to feel that they are part of a a joint effort in

Scotland for for everyone to be well educated not just thinking well how can I get a leg up for my particular child and I think that’s a difference between being a citizen and being a consumer of services where you know some people end up winners and some people are losers

And some people have to go to a school that’s not as good I don’t think most Scottish people want to see anyone go to a quote unquote bad school or have a bad health care experience we want everyone to have equal opportunities if I will accept the Westminster has got bit too

Much challenge a bit too much chatis a bit bit little too much resignations would you accept that there isn’t enough of that in Hollywood that there is simply not enough debate there’s not enough testing I mean here it’s you there barely a day passes about somebody calling for the prime minister to resign

I get that that’s too much but the fact that Ash Reagan was the first minister to resign in Scotland for 14 years the fact that there is the Hollywood committee really doesn’t have the teeth to challenge the government don’t you think there could be a little bit more

Scot on Scot you know action in Hollywood to because governments need opposition they need scrutiny they need an independent civil service and they need people resigning now and again yeah well maybe watch this space I mean I think a lot of people think there is quite a lot of internal disagreement

Within the SNP quite a lot of rebellions let’s see how the budget goes for example I think the leadership contest surprised a lot of people with just how diverse the party actually is and I think a lot of people are perhaps keeping their powder dry waiting to see

How this general election campaign goes I don’t think hza yusf is particularly envied as the leader so I think there could be um a lot of room for disagreement whether that means resignations or whether the people who are in the posts are are loyalists to

Hamza YF H to to the end um I think we’ll need to wait and see but I think um in recent times you can’t say that there hasn’t been some pretty healthy and robust debate within the party thank you very much sha thank you Fraser next for the magazine this week

NHS psychiatrist Max pton has written about the rise of ketamine misuse in Britain and the lack of awareness surrounding this party drug Max joins me now to discuss Max thank you for joining us on spectator TV um you’re W in the magazine this week about the dangers of the drug

Ketamin um for any viewers who aren’t familiar with with ketamin um can you give us bit brief explanation about what it is and and why people are taking it yeah sure I mean actually it’s interesting because it’s it’s a relatively new drug I think for people to be using it’s now very very

Widespread it’s one of the most common drugs that people under the age of 24 are using um and actually when I was at University 25 years ago i’ never even heard of ketamin um so sort of roughly speak or kind of s medically speaking it’s a it’s what we call a dissociative

Anesthetic itic and it is it is used in medicine it’s used in anesthesia um it helps patients with kind of things like pain management um and to get people off into into uh when they’re being enzed um and it’s also been more experimentally used more recently very very recently

Probably the last couple of years um in the treatment of depression um but it’s it’s it’s CL classed as a as a form of anesthetic basically and it was developed back in the 1960s early 60s um but it was used um in combat situations in the Vietnam War um and that was when

It kind of it was sort of really widespread used within medicine within the Vietnam War and then following on from that it was used more within the anesthetic area and and really since the 80s it’s been a drug of misuse we might say um but really kind of 80s and 90s it

Was used um really by just only hardcore clubbers so it was with that kind of like really underground um sort of scene um so sort of you know along with things like ecstasy back in the ‘ 80s and ’90s and then it seem to have a a bit of a

Long period um during the na naughties and then really the last kind of like 10 15 years we’ve really seen it kind of taking off and certainly I think in the last kind of five six seven years it seems It’s really really really escalated and it seems Max that it’s

Particularly dangerous I mean you mentioned in your piece I think the times said last year something like 41 students who died had it in their systems I mean what what makes it dangerous particular I mean that’s a really good question I think first what’s interesting is people’s attitudes

Towards it it seems to have missed you know kind of if you think of heroin you think of the 1980s and HIV and hepatitis if you think of ecstasy you might think of people like liabetes um you know there kind of lots of big headlines around things like cocaine and things

Like that actually ketam has kind of flown below the radar quite a lot um and I think one of the one of his biggest PR coups um you know if it had a PR Company it’ be winning Awards is they actually it’s manag to um it it it’s still a

Class B drug so actually While most of other drugs that we call hardcore drugs are class A this is still Class B and actually that has kind of come with it there’s an attitude that kind of it’s not that really that bad it’s Class B it’s not kind of really serious um and

So so we sort of so when I speak to patients A lot of it is around their attitudes of like well i’ never do proper hardcore drugs I just smoke weed and I do ketamin but actually we know ketamin is a hugely hugely Dangerous Drug so basic people take it for this

Sense of euphoria they get the problem comes that actually that is only a very specific low dose it is an anesthetic it’s a tranquilizer it’s often called called A Horse tranquilizer because it’s sometimes used in vety medicine and in fact one of the one of the slang names

Is donkey dust U because it’s used for like to knock out large animals obviously if it’s knocking out large animals it’s all it’s all can also can knock out you you know 18 19 20 year old so the the problem is that actually dosing is incredibly difficult for a

Number of reasons it’s hard to know exactly what you’ve taken people are often taking with other things as well so they lose track of what they when they last took it and also it’s often of very frequently cut with other things so not only do you not know what you’re

Getting but also the dose that you’re taking you don’t know how strong the actual the power that you’re taking is um so in in a higher does um it then creates this kind of dissociative state where people lose a track of of of time they start um they start kind of

Retreating into themselves they’re unable to communicate with the outside world it’s often a very very scary experience it’s what they call a khole so people fall into a khole they are often they they appear paralyzed they’re not they’re they’re awake but they are no interaction with the outside world

You can’t speak to them they can’t communicate and actually then that then moves on to them respirat depression um it increases your heart rate and so on um and then it leads to death and in fact Matthew Perry the uh the friends actor actually the autopsy report said

That he died from from the acute effects of of ketamin and actually this guy was a seasoned drug user you know he he he was very used to using drugs and the concern is that actually even people that seem to know what or think they know what they’re doing because of the

Way that ketamine affects you because of the fact around the dosing it’s actually almost impossible to to to take a safe illicit dose I see so there’s the danger there and then you you mentioned as on the piece that there’s sort of long-term effects um for for high high dosage

Users which which sort of concern their bladder can you tell us a bit about that too yeah well actually interesting it’s not even necessarily high dose users so there is a thing and actually I’ve seen this a couple of times in A&E um and uh and I mean every urologist

You speak to will have seen this now and this is new this is a relatively new thing if you go back 15 years as I say it was quite an unusual thing to see now particularly working in the city if we’ll see it all the time so it causes a

Number of problems specifically to the bladder so of course there’s all of the problems that any drugs can cause around you know sort generally if you take too much but actually ketamine directly affects specifically the bladder and it does a number of things to it it can cause like an ulcerative

Kind of condition so it ulcerates and it is can be absolutely agonizing so you have these open wounds inside the bladder so I mean I’m not going to go into tooo much detail but it’s incredibly painful and very very unpleasant and actually the tragedy is people often end up taking more ketamin

Because they for getet it’s an anesthetic they end up taking more ketamin to try and get over the pain and actually that just makes the situation worse and worse it also causes a retraction of your bladder and it can be really quite serious it can be to the

Size of a toddler so it can be massively massively SW of bladder which means people have frequently H to go to the toilet and actually in some cases we’ve they’ve seen they’ve had to remove the bladder entirely and and and give a a false bladder um um so I mean it can be

Cred and actually the the sort of initially it was felt well this is a quite an idiosyncratic unique reaction to KET it’s unusual reaction um probably you know it’s probably quite rare and actually Studies have now been shown that probably about affects about 20% of users and actually some Studies have

Shown it it’s actually up to 90% of users depending on on uh on which which kind of particular studies you’re looking at um when I sort of talk to Pat and even friends about this cuz I’ve got even friends that are using it um and I

Kind of said guys do you not know about the risks you know it’s an anesthetic you could fall into a khole you could die you could choke on your tongue lift all these things and I talk about bladder problems people are just they I mean I had somebody a couple of months

Ago didn’t believe me and had to Google it I was like I’ve been a doctor for 20 years I definitely know what I’m talking about it’s just really surprising how again in some are with with some illicit substances there seems to be so much knowledge even alcohol you say to stop

Anyone on the street you say you to ask about alcohol they say oh it damages your liver you ask about ketamin users don’t seem to know what it’s what what the potential that how it can affect them Max later on in the show we’re talking to Professor David nut who’s

Talked obviously a lot in the past about legalization and I’m guessing his argument will be that if we legalize it you’ll allow people to control the dosage they have they’ll to be informed and educated they won’t make you know mix ketamine with alcohol um I mean what

Do you that do you think there is a a safe way of of taking this um do you see any Merit in that yeah that’s very good I mean I’m I’m a great fan of actually profess not I think he’s great I mean I would say he’s he is an academic um now

You know he doesn’t as far as I know he doesn’t see patience so much and certainly doesn’t work in drug clinics but I mean he’s incredibly knowledgeable about the pharmacological side of things um I would say just to kind of preface everything is that actually ketamin has

Been shown to be really interesting in the treatment of depression in certain time types of depression um um for people with treatment resistant depression it seems to really potentially have been a very Innovative interesting area and I know that Professor nut’s very interested in that is’s doing research into it and and

I and I was so I wouldn’t want to scare people for ketamin it’s very different being given a ketamine infusion in a hospital to snorting it off a key in a toilet in a club um and that’s kind a really important distinction to make the question around legisl legalization I’m very wary of

Decriminalization cuz I think actually all we do is we allow allow the drug dealers basically then take over and we just turn a blind eye it doesn’t help us or protect anybody um and it just allows criminality to run rif I have I’ve thought a lot about about legalization

When I first started as a doctor I was quite against it and I thought actually no people need protecting they they’re not making really informed decisions um because they haven’t seen the kind of things that you know that really is going to happen to them um and and

Actually we need to try kind of treat those people still with kindness and compassion because often they’re using illicit substances because of deep emotional problems but actually we need to make sure that we’re protecting them from it I have to say I feel now having worked in drug services for many years

And with lots and lots of drug users and worked in a and seen the Fallout of drug use over years I’ve kind shifted actually I kind of feel that we had a decision we had a choice we had two things we had to decide either Legalize It Or Don’t Legalize It And criminalize

It and actually we didn’t really decide either we didn’t go down the kind of Singapore model where actually it’s incredibly punitive we Crush down on people we’re very strict um and actually we kind of had like a bit of a halfway house um and I think there’s an argument

Of like well we’re not going to win the war on drugs because we never really started it really when you compare to other countries where they really really cracked out now actually I don’t want to live in Saudi Arabia or Singapore to be honest um so I kind of feel that well actually

Professor n has got a really good point actually if we did legalize it and we s to people look there were these risks and we taxed it and you could only get it from select kind of you know authorized places um that there was some kind of you know prohibition or there

Was some kind of um legislation in place to make sure that people under a certain age can get access to it and that there was very strong um uh penalties for people that did Supply it um to people who are under and so on in a sort of

Similar way but maybe much more stronger than we do with alcohol and and even cigarettes now um actually it would enable us to kind of monitor its use it would ensure that we could have it so that it was in its purest form it would take it out the hands of

Criminals um so I’ve actually have shifted much more I think there is an argument for making some drugs still ilicit illegal and they were made illicit substances but I certainly think the problem is at the moment we have we we’ve got alcohol which is a depressant

We don’t really have if you want to go out and party and you want an enhanced experience if you use alcohol essentially your night’s going to end probably quite early if you want to be out until 6:00 in the morning I think they’re very far from a very well-known

Nightclub and people are coming out literally at 6:00 7 8 in the morning there is no way that everyone coming out there has been drinking alcohol all night they’re all on drugs um and if we kind of acknowledge for whatever reason there’s people that want to do that we

Need we need some kind of stimulant that is that’s legal so be it ecstasy or ketamin or cocaine or something we need to kind of understand that there’s people are using substances for specific reasons and actually we’re not our legislation at the moment doesn’t allow for a whole cohort of people doesn’t

Allow them to use anything legally um and so they they’re deciding I personally think it’s an error but they are deciding to do to to to get stuff illegally um so I I actually think he has a very persuasive argument as I say I I feel that there was a decision was

Made at some point and we decided not to have a war on drugs and it’s pointless considering that we killing ourselves that we did thank you Max for joining us on spectator TV before we move on to our final segment we also caught up with Professor David nut an author and renowned

Supporter of drug liberalization David thank you for joining us on spectator TV um here to talk to us about ketamine today uh you’ve written a lot in the P of you’ve spoken a lot in the past about sort of the benefits of drug legalization and things that could come

From that for people who are maybe less familiar with your arguments um could you sort of briefly make that case here well in essence uh I believe people are rational and if they actually know what they’re doing they’re likely to come to less harm than if they do things which

They think are safe uh with drugs of unclear Providence certainly of unclear strength and dose in which case they can often come to harm so I think a a policy where you have a regulated market or at the very least uh decriminalization of users so and testing so people can find

Out what they’re doing without fear of prosecution that is the most rational Way Forward and um it’s been proven because dut have been doing that for the last 30 years and they have very very very few deaths from drugs whereas we have lots of deaths and drugs and am I

Right in saying you believe sort of legalization should be applied to katam katamine as well when we say legalization what I mean is that that what we should be doing is at the very at the very least decriminalizing possession I think we should also encourage people to be able to access

Testing very very readily so they know what they’re taking but I haven’t done enough of an analysis of the realities of a kmy market uh that’s something that we’ve done before with um our alcohol and and tobacco and opiates I suspect if we did that analysis it would also come to the

Same conclusion that a some kind of regulated market where people knew what they were getting where those people who were buying it could be vetted might even have to have evidence from their doctor that they were mentally well enough to have it where they could be

Given safety advice uh and um also been told what to do if things go wrong I think that kind of approach which could well work I think it it’s certainly likely to be better than what we have at present Max makes the case in his piece that that ketamine in particular is

Quite dangerous in the sense that when it’s mixed with alcohol it’s very difficult for your body to regulate and that’s the kind of the danger point which is that it might be safe maybe some or most of the time but it can be particularly lethal um if you get if you

Make that judgment wrong in terms of quantities I mean do you do you buy that I mean because that seems like something that that’s sort of testing and um legalization maybe wouldn’t be able to deal with no you AB he’s he’s right for particularly for naive users it’s a huge

Issue I mean I just want to say a couple of things about that there is no doubt that ketamine is much more dangerous if it’s used with other drugs particularly if it’s used with alcohol because they’re both sedatives and they both they work in interestingly they’re sort of a double

Whammy on the brain and together they can produce a state of great intoxication and anesthesia and sometimes that kills you and sometimes you just do other strange things like decide you can swim in a Bath Underwater and then you can’t so that seemed to be what Perry did so yes

Ketamine used particularly with other sedatives is very dangerous but my argument would be um is it more dangerous than alcohol probably not uh there’s we know that very few people die of ketamine who aren’t using other drug so I think if you had it in a situation where there was appropriate

Education and uh people knew it as I say the doses they were taking and were warned not to use it inappropriately you might well get away or at least reduce the number of these deaths like that’s the recent student death um where she was clearly drunk in fact I have a

General message to anyone uh don’t ever drug and drink and and you know if you’re drunk don’t take other drugs because you don’t know what’s in them I mean it might be ketamine it might not be it might be fenil or some other even more dangerous substance so alcohol is a

Problem because it encourages people to take risks and it makes them more vulnerable to the effects of the risks they’re taking with other drugs um David you’ve talked as well in the past about the sort of maybe there are some beneficial uses of ketamine particular with regards to mental health and that

And depression could you tell us a bit about that well yeah I mean ketamine is a really valuable medicine it’s one of the most important medicines in the world half of all the surgery done in subsaharan Africa is done on ketamine why because you don’t need doctors to give ketamine it doesn’t

Cause respiratory depression you don’t need to ventilate people you don’t need anatis basically a trained nurse can do ketamine adequately to provide for surgery so it’s a hugely important medicine and I just want to emphasize this because the hysteria particularly generated a few years ago in China about the misuse of

Ketamine led the Chinese government to petition the United Nations to ban ketamine globally to try to stop the misuse in in Hong Kong essentially and we and and also doctors and and and and vets protested this ter you know that would be an utterly utterly ridiculous approach so Banning ketamine in order to

Reduce the harms for recreation use will be absolutely outrageous totally disproportionate so I just want to emphasize that banning has potentially very perverse consequences and just as an aside when ketamine was rescheduled it was once upon a time it was um Class C and then it was rescheduled to class B

In an attempt to reduce harms which it didn’t it had a huge negative impact because it used to be being held by paramedics and and people at festivals to deal with broken legs Etc and then they couldn’t do that because they had to have a special license to hold

Ketamine there so there was a year when it it was very very hard for people to do emergency repairs to people in in the field so so banging up the classification penalties usually just has no impact on use and that’s get in the way of clinical value so the

Clinical value I’ve already mentioned is if through anesthesia worldwide it’s also for the last 20 years being developed in lowd dose infusions for pain syndromes so pain entists and other doctors use it and in the last 10 years it’s undergone a fascinating Resurrection as an anti-depressant because it seems to

Allow people one or two doses of ketamine break down patterns of negative thinking and allow people to escape from really deep treatment resistant depression so it’s turning out to be an enormously valuable drug in Psychiatry as well I see um max makes the the argument in his peace David um I imagine

You disagree with this that the sort of studies that show ketamine is beneficial for your mental health for example almost act as a bit of a PR for the drug and make it seem more safe to recreational users um do you think there’s anything to that or do you think

It maybe needs to be made clearer that you’re not doing a controlled study you’re taking you know a ton of ketamine at the weekend and it’s it’s different sort of uh proposition yeah I mean the reality is I don’t think the use of ketamine is changed since it became a medicine I I

Don’t think it’s a PR I think the reality is there are a lot of patients and you can talk to people like Rupert mcshain in Oxford who’s been running a ketamine CL for 10 years and saving lives no I I don’t think it’s a PR at

All but but even if it was encouraging people to use which I I I say I don’t I suspect it isn’t the way around that is education it’s not Banning it it’s not I mean this is great these calls make it Class A well I should put my hand up I was

Actually chairing the committee that made it a control drug in the first place be before 2004 it wasn’t controlled we looked spent about two years on the acmd evaluating the hars of cine and we decided you know ra rather grudgingly we ought to try to give a message of harm

By rep putting it into the misus of drugs act as a Class C drug I don’t think that had any impact on use whatsoever and then a few more deaths and then it was moved to class B and now they moved to class A but the reality is people who use the use

Ketamine they don’t actually care what the class is because the users it has almost no impact on and uh and the the people who are selling it the difference in penalties for a dealer between a Class C drug and a Class A drug are trivial because the government has

Actually distorted the drug laws so that basically you supposedly attract the maximum pretty much the maximum penalty 14 years for class B and life for class A well I mean very few people get 14 years with a l sentence so the reality is the penalties are not a dissuasion to people who are

Dealing it they have abs zero impact on the users what users need is to know how much they’ve taking and and what it is and you know we’ve certainly seen examples in the states there’s a lot of examples now of ketamine being cut with feny which is considerably more

Dangerous than ketamine alone so so knowing what you’re taking either through testing or through having a regulated market my is my view the best way David you mentioned that for drug dealers I mean do you think the classific ation system makes any difference for users who might be be

Facing possession for example are they more like to use ketamine because it’s below say cocaine or cannabis in the in the schedule no the reality is drug users know more about drugs and politicians and they know that the drug laws don’t make any sense brilliant thank you very much

David finally in an Ever digital world have parents become addicted to tracking their children what could be the implications of this Mary Wakefield WR wrote about why she’s changing her mind about snooping on her child she joins me now along with d’vorah heitner author of the book growing up in public growing of

Age in a digital world Mary and d’vorah thank you for joining us on spectator TV um Mary you write in the magazine this week about the sort of Rise of people tracking each other on their phones but in particular um tracking your children oh yes and you mentioned that whilst you’ve done this

In the past you maybe now think it’s a mistake so can you can you tell us a bit about about that and and why you think that maybe is yes I mean I didn’t really think about it too much um until and and I’ve signed up to find my friends so my

Husband and some of my family do know where I am and it’s been kind of useful but the other day I went out without my phone and F this felt this sort of great sense of euphoria and freedom and I pinpointed it to not being able to be

Tracked my husband can’t just text and say oh I see you’re in the supermarket can you pick up some apples and I just realized the luxury and joy of no one knowing where you are and that made me think my God all the you know generation

That’s on Snap maps and stuff um they don’t know that freedom and my own child who I’m afraid I do track he won’t know that freedom of never being watched so so that’s what I was writing about that’s what I’m worried about and as you

Say it’s not it’s not just you it’s it’s a very common thing these days do you find well gentics I don’t know anything you know um but you know as a parent of a seven-year-old um I do find more and more parents are beginning to track their children and what wasn’t normal a

Few years ago people you know gave trackers a funny look is now completely routine you know well where do you put your Apple tag oh I just stick it in their collar and I’ve just realized there’s something you know there is a there’s a price to pay if if my mother

Told me now oh darling yes we tracked you throughout your childhood and you never knew it I’d be horrified so should I be doing the same thing to my kid D’Or what do do you make of this it’s something you’ve written about a lot I mean are you Pro or anti sort of

Tracking children I think for the most part anti but certainly I think if we’re going to do it we should be overt and not covert so they should know if they’re being tracked how they’re being tracked and when what’s our plan for turning it off

You know when I talk to parents who are tracking their kids at University and they’re not living at home and they’re saying oh are they leaving their housing and going to class and they’re watching The Little Dot that seems very extreme so working your way back to a

Seven-year-old you know there may be situations where they’re riding their bicycle to a new part of town where it does feel like a good idea to see if they got there and maybe in some ways we can even say it’s adding to their freedom because we feel more comfortable

Letting them take a new independent experience because we can track but at a certain point I think that euphoria that you felt being untracked is worth thinking about and kids need to know that they have the autonomy and the resilience to find their way out out of

A scrape find their way home and that actually a set of skills including knowing when and how to ask for help in the immediate environment and who is the safe person to ask for help if you need help is actually more important because even if you’re tracking your kid what

Are you going to do if suddenly their phone turns off like what’s your plan you know I mean and how will you manage the anxiety that that causes in you as well um Dora you mentioned that so some some parents taking this as far as their children going to University I mean I

Mean do you think that seems absolutely incredible but do you think that’s quite a common thing in the United States it’s more common than you might think and and I think in general parents in other places run a little less anxious so maybe in the UK parents are not doing

That as much and people don’t tend to of course go as far away for University so maybe there’s less anxiety uh I don’t know how often kids are learning to drive or at what age but I do think those are the inflection points that we see here in the US parents are getting

Very anxious and and uh over half of the students in one study at University said their parents are tracking them some of the time so that was that was eye opening for me because the thing is if you get used to having that data when do you turn it off

Exactly so I mean I understand it with the seven-year-olds apart from you told me I have to be honest with my son but if I said to him darling this device is tracking you wherever you go if I was him I couldn’t help just but you know

Throw it into a trash can or or put it on the back of someone else’s bike or just you know I mean the potential for sort of Mischief is huge um but yeah no no most of um my teenage godchildren and even the ones at University just naturally assume their parents will know

Where they are um and I do think there’s a price to pay for that not least in the for for the parents because if you’re always looking and I would be always looking you know you’re never really letting them go you’re not really letting them develop Independence even

If they don’t know it if you’re sitting there on on find my friends watching them and what do you get financially too like if they’re on an app where they’re spending money that’s shared family money like then you see where they spent their money too if they have like apple

Wallet or you know Google pay and you’re that’s tied to you you know you might not see them on the map but you know where they just bought a hamburger or whatever do you think keeps them keeps the it does infantilize them a little bit doesn’t it if as a parent you’re

Always in that overseeing role you’re not letting them grow up properly yeah and they may not learn how to make their own plans independently or again get elves out of a difficult situation yeah it just is a a diff different quality of feeling when you’re completely alone and unobserved you have

To rely on your own resources don’t you Mary since you’ve written this piece there has been the sort of the push back in the office by lots of people here who are sort of tracking their friends and have their parents there been some quite vigorous feeling but it’s completely

Normal and fine and I’m insane to worry about it the argument and I think that the the the force of their emotion is covering up the fact that they know there’s something wrong with it would say and I actually just I find it very weird and a bit creepy but they would

Sort of make the case what’s the harm in it you know if it puts people at eased knowing where I am then then and you know I’ve got nothing to hide I go to my work I go back home I go to you should have something to hide I think if you

Haven’t got something to hide there’s something wrong with you have things to hide what what’s your view of the adult side of it Deora do you think it’s fine when when adults track each other as well I actually think that when we we track our kids we’re also teaching them

That it’s normal to do in adult Rel relationships and I think we have to question that like if our kids are in a romantic relationship with someone who wants to track them all the time you know is that normal or does that border on abuse is that is that problematic

Like why does someone need to know where you are all the time or and then what’s the next level the next level is a lot of parents might read their kids’ texts well what if your kid’s romantic partner wanted to read all their texts would you think that was invasive and I I

Recognize that the parenting relationship is different than a relationship between two equal Partners at the same time if we normalize all of this invasion of privacy at what point do do kids learn that in any relationship they might have some rights to privacy that maybe someone shouldn’t

Be reading all their texts or tracking their location 247 do you get the sense there’s a a big generational divide over this still with sort of you mentioned this in your peace Mary as well but sort of the older Generations are still you know find this find this incredibly

Creepy as as we do or or is it sort of taking over everywhere now it is definitely something kids and adults are getting more accustomed to I also talked to a lot of people who are tracking their elderly parents and I actually think that the case of someone you know

With like Dementia or something who might get lost is a little bit different than tracking your teenager you know if you’re looking at someone who really is in danger in public places or who might get wander you know wander and be confused again I think it’s something to

Do carefully I don’t think we should just start tracking our parents just because we’re curious you know how they’re spending their days but that might be a situation where someone is a risk to themselves where it might make sense ethic so I mean I I think all of

These Technologies need to be used with intention and and thought and not just I think it might ease my anxiety to know where my 15-year-old is at every second of every day you know did you ever ditch class when you were 15 and did you live

To tell the tale and learned a lot from it really you know um yeah we don’t have to be comfortable all the time we don’t have to you know medicate our anxiety all the time um yeah I mean I have sort of friends in their 20s who’ve been been

Stalked by their ex-boyfriends because they haven’t learned to let go you split up with someone and then on Snap Maps they’re following them around the place and and getting worked up at night about the fact that this person might be seeing someone else I think it’s

Horrific to to be able to see where all your exes are in the world and who they’re with you know you mentioned as well Mary that it might be a bit of a false friend in the sense of it might let you put let your guard down that you

Think you can be rescued at a moment’s notice almost yeah I I I I wonder what d’vorah thinks of that you know do you get a full sense of security if you’re tracked yeah I do think that that it doesn’t if you don’t think you have responsibility for keeping track of

Yourself or finding your way home if you’re lost or figuring out what to do as I used to when I would go into New York City as a as a teenager with my friends from the suburbs and then you know sort out what to do like oh I spent

All my money now how do I get home well that’s a good problem to figure it out yeah exactly I’m not going to say it’s wonderful to ride back to the suburbs in the toilet of the train but you know it’s a it’s a very useful skill to have

Developed voting trainers I’m not advocating law breaking on your show exactly but I am saying that you know you want kids to have what I would consider to be sort of mild problems to solve where the end of the world isn’t you know nigh when they solve the

Problem you know when I taught my kid to ride the public bus you know if he missed our stop he was just going to end up at the mall right that’s not a reason to track him if he ends up at the mall he’ll turn around and get back and get

On the other bus it’s not like oh no he’s going to you know end up getting out of the country by mistake without a passport right like nobody will let that happen so I think it’s really important to look at the actual risks your kids face whether it’s walking or biking or

Taking the train to school whether it’s deciding that you’re not going to track your kid to make sure they’re on time there’s also a lot of grade tracking going on and you can track a lot about how your kids doing academically and that might be too much information

To have you know you do need to see every single quiz every single homework grade yeah I suppose we have quite a safest culture don’t we at the moment Mary and you know it might well be you know it we used to let kids outplay much further for example and that sort of

Radius of how far we let let children go narrowed and narrowed yeah I’m sure doru agrees yeah do you yeah sorry go ahead I was goingon to say do you think at some point it will be seen as very irresponsible if you have lost your child and you haven’t been tracking the

Moment yeah I think it it it operates on a ratchet system it’s very hard to go back which is why we’ve all got to be so careful you know it’s easy to put all these tracking things on and think safety first but it’s very hard to say

I’ll take them off again because then you think oh my God if this is the one time I don’t use the Apple tag and it’s the time that something happens then I’ll feel so so much more comfortable so proceed with caution yeah and do you find dvor sort of difficult to say to

Parents because they could equally say could come back to you and say well you know if something did happen to them and that was that was the time I wasn’t tracking them and something bad happened how could I justify that to myself I mean what what do you say it’s when own

Thinking I think it’s I I I do understand that and I live with those anxieties too and we live in a world where the news media frankly you know overplays some very unlikely dangers and underplays the sort of day-to-day things that our kids skills our kids really

Need but I would say whether or not you’re tracking your kid they still need to know how to ask a safe stranger they still need basic self-defense skills they still need to be aware of their surroundings right and we do a lot to teach our kids stranger danger but we

Maybe don’t do enough to teach them wait how do you talk to The Friendly Stranger you know if you have a kid who can’t talk to the children’s librarian to ask where a book is or to the crossing guard or someone who is a safe adult to get

Directions from and we also have to remember we don’t want to teach our kids such a high level of threat assessment that we feel like they need a phone or a tracking device just to ride their bike around the block because we do live in a world where most

People would help a kid who fell off their bike right we don’t live in a world where everybody is a terrible person um and would harm your child and so we don’t want to teach our kids a a disproportionate level of threat yeah very good point actually what are you

Telling your kid if you put a tracking device in their school bag every day you’re telling them that the world is so unsafe I need to watch you all the time you know which just isn’t true brilliant thank you Mary thank you d’vorah that’s it for this week once

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