Browse content similar to 05/12/2011. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Afternoon folks, welcome to The Daily Politics. As Gary McKinnon | :00:22. | :00:25. | |
fights attempts to send him to the United States to face computer | :00:25. | :00:29. | |
hacking charges, MPs debate a change in the law - is it too easy | :00:29. | :00:39. | |
Another week, another crunch meeting for the eurozone. President | :00:39. | :00:42. | |
Sarkozy and Angela Merkel are meeting in Paris - but what's the | :00:42. | :00:52. | |
The kids are hooked to their games consoles - the grown-ups to their | :00:52. | :00:55. | |
smart phones. But could our obsession with these digital toys | :00:55. | :01:05. | |
:01:05. | :01:07. | ||
be messing with our brains? We have now been in government for 500 days. | :01:07. | :01:13. | |
Although, to be fair, it did take 499 of those for Gordon Brown to | :01:13. | :01:16. | |
accept that he was no longer Prime Minister. The art of political | :01:16. | :01:19. | |
speechwriting, and making sure they deliver them right. I'll be talking | :01:19. | :01:26. | |
to one of David Cameron's former wordsmiths. And with us for the | :01:26. | :01:28. | |
duration, the Prime Minister's former speechwriter Danny Kruger, | :01:28. | :01:30. | |
who now runs a charity that works with prisoners, ex-offenders and | :01:30. | :01:39. | |
young people at risk of crime. First this morning, MPs will debate | :01:39. | :01:41. | |
a motion this afternoon which attempts to make it more difficult | :01:41. | :01:44. | |
to extradite British citizens who are wanted for crimes committed | :01:44. | :01:50. | |
abroad. The debate is inspired by the case of Gary McKinnon, who is | :01:50. | :01:52. | |
alleged to have hacked Pentagon and NASA computer systems, and could | :01:52. | :02:02. | |
face a prison sentence of up to 60 years if convicted. MPs claim this | :02:02. | :02:04. | |
case highlights an intrinsic unfairness in the extradition | :02:04. | :02:07. | |
treaty that's led to 25 British citizens being sent to the US but | :02:08. | :02:17. | |
:02:18. | :02:22. | ||
only five American citizens extradited to Britain. So, is it | :02:22. | :02:29. | |
unfair? The figures suggest that there seems to be something unfair | :02:29. | :02:34. | |
about the flowers of suspects. But this debate today, I understand, is | :02:34. | :02:42. | |
also about a European aspect, which is parallel but unrelated. There is | :02:42. | :02:46. | |
an assumption that simply because the European countries have their | :02:46. | :02:51. | |
own rules, that they have a justice system which is as fair as ours. | :02:52. | :02:55. | |
While I do not think the American system is corrupt or wrong, there | :02:55. | :02:58. | |
seems to be something about the principle of any country being able | :02:59. | :03:03. | |
to decide who was extradited and when. What we have is caught some | :03:03. | :03:07. | |
ministers here being powerless to decide who should go abroad, and I | :03:07. | :03:11. | |
think there's something wrong about that. There's justification for | :03:11. | :03:15. | |
debating it. The Gary McKinnon case has been very emotive, it has been | :03:15. | :03:20. | |
picked up by Fleet Street, he has his champions on this but it could | :03:20. | :03:24. | |
be dangerous to change the law on the basis of one case. There's | :03:24. | :03:28. | |
always human beings involved in these cases, and there's no reason | :03:28. | :03:31. | |
why they should not talk about it. I think there is something wrong | :03:31. | :03:41. | |
:03:41. | :03:49. | ||
about this case. It is really an Now, Italy's new Welfare Minister | :03:49. | :03:52. | |
showed governments all over Europe how to use empathy to sell | :03:52. | :03:54. | |
difficult austerity policies. She burst in to tears yesterday when | :03:54. | :03:58. | |
announcing an increase in the retirement age to 66 - part of a 30 | :03:58. | :04:00. | |
billion euro package aimed at shoring up Italy's finances. | :04:00. | :04:06. | |
Meanwhile the quest to resolve the wider eurozone crisis rolls on. | :04:06. | :04:08. | |
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel | :04:08. | :04:12. | |
are meeting in Paris now to thrash out an agreement ahead of a crunch | :04:12. | :04:22. | |
:04:22. | :04:31. | ||
European Council meeting later on this week. We hope to speak to our | :04:31. | :04:34. | |
Paris correspondent shortly, but let me try and explain what's going | :04:34. | :04:41. | |
on first. Just before we came on air, I spoke to our Europe | :04:41. | :04:43. | |
correspondent, Christian Fraser. It's the sheer complexity of | :04:43. | :04:46. | |
decision-making in the eurozone and the wider EU - with 27 member | :04:46. | :04:49. | |
countries, some of which even have their own elected government - that | :04:49. | :04:52. | |
makes this crisis so difficult to resolve. It's not just the French | :04:52. | :04:55. | |
and the Germans who have one eye on their own domestic political | :04:55. | :04:59. | |
concerns - here in Britain, the debate is also hotting up over any | :04:59. | :05:00. | |
potential treaty change.The American Ambassador here, Louis | :05:00. | :05:03. | |
Susman, has told MPs that the current arrangements are working | :05:03. | :05:06. | |
well for both countries. So should David Cameron be playing a straight | :05:06. | :05:09. | |
hand and aiming to help his fellow players fix the euro, while | :05:09. | :05:19. | |
:05:19. | :05:24. | ||
stopping the new euro union gaining too many powers? Or should he | :05:24. | :05:27. | |
gamble that this is an opportunity to raise the stakes and demand the | :05:27. | :05:30. | |
repatriation of powers from Europe that his party promised at the last | :05:30. | :05:40. | |
:05:40. | :05:43. | ||
election and many of his MPs would like to see? And if there is a new | :05:43. | :05:46. | |
treaty on the cards, will David Cameron be forced to play his trump | :05:46. | :05:49. | |
card, and call a referendum, potentially threatening to wreck | :05:49. | :05:59. | |
:05:59. | :06:05. | ||
the whole rubber? We can go over to Paris now, I spoke earlier to our | :06:05. | :06:08. | |
Paris correspondent, and I asked him what was separating the French | :06:08. | :06:17. | |
and German leaders. The German Chancellor obviously wants legally- | :06:17. | :06:20. | |
binding limits on all eurozone countries, with automatic penalties | :06:20. | :06:25. | |
for governments which break the budget rules. And she would like to | :06:25. | :06:28. | |
take the decisions away from member countries, she would like the | :06:28. | :06:31. | |
institutions of Europe to decide when those penalties are imposed. | :06:31. | :06:35. | |
So perhaps there would be a move to get the European Court of Justice | :06:35. | :06:38. | |
involved, there could be a stability commissioner, who would | :06:39. | :06:42. | |
have an oversight of national spending plans and tax-and-spend | :06:42. | :06:47. | |
policies in these countries. The French agree that there has to be a | :06:47. | :06:50. | |
change in the system, because self- regulation obviously has failed. | :06:50. | :06:56. | |
But they are nervous about transferring more power to Brussels. | :06:56. | :07:00. | |
They would like to see power resting with the countries, perhaps | :07:00. | :07:04. | |
in the shape of qualified majority voting. They would also like to see | :07:04. | :07:08. | |
countries adopt decisions made within the round of the eurozone | :07:08. | :07:12. | |
within their constitution, the so- called golden rule which President | :07:12. | :07:15. | |
Sarkozy has talk about. Let's suppose that they do come to some | :07:15. | :07:19. | |
kind of agreement, some kind of compromise, before the European | :07:19. | :07:24. | |
Union summit later in the week - is there any evidence to indicate that | :07:24. | :07:29. | |
the other members of the eurozone will be happy to have what is in | :07:29. | :07:37. | |
essence their tax-and-spend policy controlled by an external body? | :07:37. | :07:42. | |
I understand it, the smaller eurozone countries prefer the idea | :07:42. | :07:45. | |
of Europe controlling that element of their budget, or having | :07:45. | :07:51. | |
oversight, rather than Germany and France. Over the course of the last | :07:51. | :07:54. | |
few months, they have been dictated to by Paris and Berlin. Politically, | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
it looks better if it comes from Brussels. But obviously all | :07:58. | :08:02. | |
governments have concerns about transferring powers to the centre, | :08:02. | :08:06. | |
away from nationally elected governments. The problem I think | :08:06. | :08:11. | |
also for the Germans is that unilaterally, they cannot be seen | :08:11. | :08:15. | |
to be imposing austerity rules on the rest, so they do need the | :08:15. | :08:18. | |
French alongside, although it is the Germans which are dictating the | :08:18. | :08:22. | |
terms. Nonetheless, politically, it suits them to have the French | :08:22. | :08:27. | |
alongside them, urging the others on. In that sense, President | :08:27. | :08:32. | |
Sarkozy does have bargaining power. We're hearing that there will be I | :08:32. | :08:36. | |
think an agreement between the two, probably to add something to the | :08:36. | :08:40. | |
treaty, in the shape of a protocol, rather than root-and-branch reform | :08:40. | :08:44. | |
of the Lisbon Treaty. With me now are the Conservative MPs Nadhim | :08:44. | :08:54. | |
Zahawi and Bernard Jenkin. Let's assume, Bernard Jenkin, that the | :08:54. | :08:59. | |
French and the Germans agree to some kind of fiscal union in order | :08:59. | :09:03. | |
to attempt to keep the union together - what should the British | :09:03. | :09:10. | |
response be to that? This represents a very fundamental | :09:10. | :09:14. | |
change in our relationship with our European partners. It started at | :09:14. | :09:17. | |
Maastricht, this is the conclusion. The Prime Minister says we should | :09:18. | :09:22. | |
have had a referendum at Maastricht. Well, this is Maastricht plus. If | :09:22. | :09:26. | |
we did not have a referendum then, we need one now. The question on | :09:26. | :09:31. | |
the ballot paper is, do we support these terms of membership? Because | :09:31. | :09:35. | |
we need to renegotiate our terms of membership. We have been asked to | :09:35. | :09:39. | |
believe two completely incomprehensible things, firstly, | :09:39. | :09:43. | |
that this does not represent any change in our terms of membership, | :09:43. | :09:47. | |
and secondly, that when all of this is done and dusted, in two or three | :09:47. | :09:51. | |
years' time, that's the time when we will go and renegotiate, when | :09:51. | :09:55. | |
they have settled everything already. Those two propositions are | :09:55. | :10:00. | |
ludicrous. But if the fiscal union applies only to members of the | :10:00. | :10:04. | |
eurozone, of which we are not a part, why does it change our | :10:04. | :10:07. | |
relationship with the wider European Union? We would not be | :10:07. | :10:12. | |
bound by these fiscal laws. This is the the credit crunch point. This | :10:12. | :10:17. | |
is about real power. At the moment, the institutions of the European | :10:17. | :10:21. | |
Union are meant to serve all 27 member states. If, effectively, | :10:21. | :10:25. | |
there is an economic state at the heart of the European Union, of 17 | :10:25. | :10:29. | |
members or maybe fewer, that is going to be their main | :10:29. | :10:33. | |
preoccupation. They're already attacking the City of London, they | :10:33. | :10:37. | |
already want a financial transactions tax, they already | :10:37. | :10:40. | |
burdening our competitiveness with more and more regulation, they do | :10:40. | :10:44. | |
not care about our interests. Are we seriously being asked to believe | :10:44. | :10:47. | |
that we're going to have more influence in this new arrangement? | :10:47. | :10:51. | |
Of course we are not, we're going to have far less influence, which | :10:51. | :10:55. | |
is why ministers are talking about the threat to the single market. If | :10:55. | :10:59. | |
now is not the time to renegotiate our membership, when will be a | :10:59. | :11:04. | |
better time Question Time so, the theory is that come the time when | :11:04. | :11:08. | |
it turns into a fiscal union, rather than just a monetary union, | :11:08. | :11:11. | |
that is the time for Britain to reassess fundamentally its | :11:11. | :11:18. | |
relationship with Europe? Bernard Jenkin is right to be passionate | :11:18. | :11:21. | |
about this, but timing is everything. The point teammates, | :11:21. | :11:24. | |
that there is going to be a paradigm shift in structures within | :11:24. | :11:28. | |
Europe, everybody agrees about that. That will happen. But we need to | :11:28. | :11:34. | |
see the detail of it. I think the timing, push and the crux of it, we | :11:35. | :11:40. | |
are uniquely positioned, in Britain, I believe, more so than France, to | :11:40. | :11:43. | |
put our arm around Germany and help them make the decisions they need | :11:44. | :11:50. | |
to make to allow them to save the eurozone. Because their demons are | :11:50. | :11:55. | |
the Weimar Republic of 1920, we are uniquely placed to help them. | :11:55. | :12:00. | |
we are not close enough, our arm cannot reach that far. We are an | :12:00. | :12:06. | |
economic powerhouse. Remember, we buy more from Europe... Did you | :12:06. | :12:10. | |
hear the Autumn Statement last week?! We're having tough times, | :12:10. | :12:14. | |
but we are still economically powerful. My point is that timing | :12:14. | :12:21. | |
is everything. It is not the right time... You have just heard it, | :12:21. | :12:24. | |
we're going to put our arms around Germany, and in a couple of years' | :12:24. | :12:28. | |
time, Germany is going to agree to all of the things they have never | :12:28. | :12:32. | |
agreed to for the last 20 years. This is ludicrous. This is the end | :12:32. | :12:37. | |
game in Europe. This is the final act of desperation in the European | :12:37. | :12:42. | |
integration project. One assumes that they are going to save the | :12:42. | :12:47. | |
euro, but I very much doubt that myself. Unless we're going to | :12:47. | :12:51. | |
negotiate and put our demands on the table now, when will we do it? | :12:51. | :12:56. | |
If David Cameron was simply to say, look, this is so fundamental, this | :12:56. | :13:00. | |
change in our relationship with the European Union, even though there | :13:00. | :13:05. | |
is nothing which directly legally applies to us, this is so obviously | :13:05. | :13:08. | |
the European Union changing the nature of itself, that we're going | :13:08. | :13:13. | |
to have a referendum on this, and unless we can get the renegotiated | :13:13. | :13:17. | |
terms which suit our national interests, we will be saying no. | :13:18. | :13:23. | |
is unlikely, if the eurozone becomes a fiscal union, which means | :13:23. | :13:27. | |
increasingly it will have a common tax policies, common budget deficit | :13:27. | :13:31. | |
policies, Konnie regulations, all of which will be quite centralised, | :13:31. | :13:35. | |
perhaps even quite onerous, it is unlikely they are going to agree to | :13:35. | :13:41. | |
a kind of Hong Kong type Britain, deregulated, lower budget deficit, | :13:41. | :13:44. | |
less government spending, floating off into the North Sea - they're | :13:44. | :13:48. | |
not going to let that happen. not just Britain, you have got nine | :13:48. | :13:53. | |
other countries, with Britain. some of them want to join the euro. | :13:53. | :13:57. | |
Well, not all of them. A lot of them are legally bound to join the | :13:57. | :14:02. | |
euro. Yes, but they have opted to be outside the euro. So, at the | :14:02. | :14:07. | |
moment, there is an argument, essentially, for saving the | :14:07. | :14:11. | |
eurozone countries first, and at the same time, as I said earlier, | :14:11. | :14:16. | |
using that opportunity to negotiate a settlement which is advantageous | :14:16. | :14:22. | |
to you, versus the eurozone countries. It sounds to me, Bernard | :14:22. | :14:28. | |
Jenkin, from the Department of Honesty, do you not really think | :14:28. | :14:31. | |
that if the eurozone goes ahead and becomes a fully fledged fiscal | :14:31. | :14:37. | |
union, you basically think Britain should leave the EU. We do not want | :14:37. | :14:41. | |
to leave the EU, for one simple reason. We are in something called | :14:41. | :14:45. | |
customs union, and a lot of business depends upon that free | :14:45. | :14:50. | |
movement of goods and services. But you do not have to beat in a | :14:50. | :15:00. | |
:15:00. | :15:01. | ||
federation, or monetary union, to enjoy the benefits of that. We are | :15:01. | :15:04. | |
looking at a completely different template of membership, but | :15:05. | :15:08. | |
personally I would not advocate walking out of the customs union. | :15:08. | :15:13. | |
But interestingly, Turkey is not a member of the European Union, and | :15:13. | :15:17. | |
they have a customs union agreement with the European Union. That is | :15:17. | :15:21. | |
the kind of new relationship I am talking about. We would not be a | :15:21. | :15:31. | |
:15:31. | :15:32. | ||
member of the EU, we would be And what would that do took Nissan | :15:32. | :15:40. | |
and other companies which invest here? We cannot give up our self | :15:40. | :15:47. | |
government permanently which this is amounting to. Danny? Understand | :15:47. | :15:50. | |
the Prime Minister has a responsibility as a Euro leader to | :15:50. | :15:58. | |
save our biggest trading bloc from implosion and his mission this week | :15:58. | :16:06. | |
is to try and renegotiate the eurozone and I think we should save | :16:06. | :16:13. | |
the euro zone. The priority should be to save the eurozone because of | :16:13. | :16:17. | |
that blows up the recession we are heading for turns into a | :16:17. | :16:22. | |
depression? I don't think this is incompatible with saving the | :16:22. | :16:25. | |
eurozone. The more flexibility we can give eurozone countries, the | :16:25. | :16:31. | |
better for them. We can give them more flexibility if they give us | :16:31. | :16:36. | |
the flexibility that we need as well. It is called quid pro quo. | :16:36. | :16:42. | |
But his Latin! Who is closest to the Prime Minister on this issue? | :16:42. | :16:47. | |
don't think we know the Prime Minister's mind. I don't know | :16:47. | :16:51. | |
whether the Prime Minister believes we can save the euro. I think the | :16:51. | :16:58. | |
Prime Minister knows the priority is to make sure that he acts. Is | :16:58. | :17:04. | |
the closest to you or Bernard Jenkin? I think he is close to both | :17:04. | :17:10. | |
of us. I would not like to see you fall out. | :17:10. | :17:15. | |
Unaccustomed as I am, to public speaking, who wrote that? My guest | :17:15. | :17:22. | |
of the day is not because he used to write the speeches for the Prime | :17:22. | :17:26. | |
Minister. Now I come to think of it, I could blame the oratorical | :17:26. | :17:29. | |
failings of this programme on the producers who write the scripts, | :17:29. | :17:34. | |
rather than the chap who delivers them because obviously the delivery | :17:34. | :17:37. | |
and timing is pretty close to perfection. Danny, perhaps you | :17:37. | :17:41. | |
could give our producers a few words of advice on this. Here is | :17:41. | :17:46. | |
somebody who writes his own scripts, Giles Dilnot on the art of | :17:46. | :17:50. | |
political speech-writing. Sadly, there are not many who can | :17:50. | :17:53. | |
do it but they do not do it alone. In the world of the political | :17:53. | :17:59. | |
speech, the writers are also King's. You need a script editor, you need | :17:59. | :18:03. | |
somebody who makes editor Errol -- editorial decisions, otherwise you | :18:04. | :18:06. | |
have a script written by a committee which is not a good idea. | :18:07. | :18:11. | |
A lot of Gordon Brown's speeches are like that. They are patchworks | :18:11. | :18:15. | |
of a bit from this person, a bit from that person and even worse, a | :18:15. | :18:19. | |
bit for this person and that person and you end up with no coherent | :18:19. | :18:25. | |
argument. You do need one central writer but usually you will take | :18:25. | :18:30. | |
the ketone from the person themselves. It will be about who | :18:30. | :18:34. | |
has the strength, the judgment, the weight, the ideas for Britain's | :18:34. | :18:39. | |
future in an uncertain world and we do. This party does. If you don't | :18:39. | :18:47. | |
know what a central argument is, you do not have a good speech. | :18:47. | :18:56. | |
Berate his speech for William Hague. Somehow, we managed to leave the | :18:56. | :19:02. | |
key bit of his speech. He was congratulated by the Guardian so | :19:02. | :19:10. | |
Leaving Las -- Even your mistakes can even work. High oratory has its | :19:10. | :19:15. | |
place. A pastiche of Martin Luther King will not work on housing | :19:15. | :19:22. | |
benefit so you have to write for the occasion. You have to write for | :19:22. | :19:27. | |
the setting. You do not get to write I will fight them on the | :19:27. | :19:32. | |
beaches very often. If the script is too heavy, what about a bit of | :19:32. | :19:40. | |
at lib? The classic example was Tony Blair at the CBI. It is also | :19:40. | :19:44. | |
why we cannot afford... That is probably the Chancellor on the | :19:44. | :19:48. | |
phone there! By then he was so clear on speaking and what he | :19:48. | :19:52. | |
wanted to say that actually we were no longer worried. And if you have | :19:52. | :19:58. | |
got it, flaunt it. The image of Gordon Brown greeting his | :19:58. | :20:03. | |
predecessor as an EU President was a Just William in 2008. The choking | :20:04. | :20:10. | |
sensation as the words Mr President are forced out and then once in the | :20:10. | :20:15. | |
Cabinet Room, the melodrama of when will you hand over to me all over | :20:15. | :20:21. | |
again? When you work for William Hague, I think George Osborne said | :20:21. | :20:25. | |
it was like taking free-kicks for Beckham and he is so good at him | :20:25. | :20:29. | |
himself. Trying to be funny and failing is the worst thing you can | :20:29. | :20:34. | |
do. We have been in government for 500 days although to be fair, it | :20:34. | :20:40. | |
did take 499 of those for Gordon Brown to accept he was not Prime | :20:40. | :20:45. | |
Minister. If you are not good at it and not funny, just don't do it. | :20:45. | :20:51. | |
There you go, how to do it and how not to do it. Isn't it frustrating | :20:51. | :20:55. | |
writing speeches, didn't -- don't you think you could do it better | :20:55. | :21:00. | |
yourself? There is a bit of that. I left that job because ultimately, | :21:00. | :21:05. | |
it is a terribly literary form unless you are writing the | :21:05. | :21:10. | |
Gettysburg Address. The have three minutes to deliver, one simple | :21:10. | :21:15. | |
point and it was an opportunity for hire oratory. Mostly you are | :21:15. | :21:18. | |
talking about pretty mundane everyday things. The opportunities | :21:19. | :21:24. | |
for literature are not great. going to say, Mr Blair, when we | :21:24. | :21:29. | |
covered his party speeches, he in the end got rid of the verb. His | :21:29. | :21:35. | |
speeches became almost a series of one-word sentences. I think it is | :21:35. | :21:38. | |
actually OK if you are speaking, if you are delivering a speech. | :21:38. | :21:45. | |
Because it comes better -- comes across better? Good communicators | :21:45. | :21:50. | |
are good communicators. Blair could do it and Cameron can do it. One | :21:50. | :21:55. | |
difficulty are always had was in the British political tradition, we | :21:55. | :22:01. | |
do not do great oratory and except perhaps in times of the Second | :22:01. | :22:05. | |
World War. You're writing boring stuff most of the time and you | :22:05. | :22:09. | |
write great long speeches which are 20 minutes long, they bore | :22:09. | :22:14. | |
everybody in the hall and they are ultimately only read by 20 or 30 | :22:14. | :22:17. | |
political journalists who are looking for the one or two lines | :22:17. | :22:20. | |
which can be used in the headline. The main lines in the headline have | :22:20. | :22:24. | |
been written by the press office and pre-release so what is the | :22:25. | :22:29. | |
point of the 30 minutes? So you are glad you're not doing it any more! | :22:29. | :22:35. | |
I can understand that. OK, where was I? Sorry, am I | :22:35. | :22:40. | |
presenting a TV programme. I was reading some tweets. Is our | :22:40. | :22:44. | |
constant exposure to computers having an impact on the human | :22:44. | :22:50. | |
brain? I wouldn't have thought so. It is not expecting my brain. I | :22:50. | :22:54. | |
think it might have. This evening, neuroscientist Susan Greenfield | :22:54. | :22:59. | |
will use a debate in the House of Lords to ask the government to look | :22:59. | :23:03. | |
into whether our brains are being changed by using things like this | :23:03. | :23:11. | |
and playing games like this. think I am mad, but soon, you shall | :23:11. | :23:21. | |
:23:21. | :23:25. | ||
see that every move, every strike, was meant to bring us to this. | :23:25. | :23:33. | |
If he is back on the grid, then so are we. | :23:33. | :23:38. | |
Attacks were triggered across Europe. Reports of the death toll | :23:38. | :23:47. | |
are at 100. That was a clip from Modern Warfare | :23:47. | :23:54. | |
3. It is the latest in a series called Call of Duty. I don't think | :23:54. | :23:59. | |
anybody will mistake it for Andy Pandy. It sold 55 million copies | :23:59. | :24:03. | |
around the world. I don't know if that should cheer you up or make | :24:03. | :24:08. | |
you very, very depressed. It is the kind of video game which is often | :24:08. | :24:13. | |
blamed for violent behaviour. It is one of the concerns that Susan | :24:13. | :24:16. | |
Greenfield who joins me now has along with Tom Chivers. He writes | :24:16. | :24:22. | |
about science for the Daily Telegraph. What impact do videos | :24:22. | :24:27. | |
and games like that have on children's brains? That is a very | :24:27. | :24:33. | |
big question. There is a lot of work going on about it. Let's look | :24:33. | :24:38. | |
at a so called Metro analysis. This was 130 papers which encompasses | :24:38. | :24:44. | |
130 subjects using 100 or so tests and the broad conclusion was there | :24:44. | :24:47. | |
is an increase in aggression, an increase in recklessness, high | :24:47. | :24:52. | |
levels of arousal and a decrease in social behaviour. However, this | :24:52. | :24:57. | |
paper has been critique as biased. That is the nature of scientific | :24:57. | :25:04. | |
evidence. Do you think it is right? As a neuroscientist, it is a given, | :25:04. | :25:08. | |
the brain adapts to the environment. The human brain is exquisitely | :25:08. | :25:13. | |
involved, more than any other species to adapt where it is placed. | :25:13. | :25:19. | |
It follows that if the environment chefs with only hearing and vision | :25:19. | :25:27. | |
being accessed, the brain will be changed. -- if the environment | :25:27. | :25:32. | |
shifts. Let's unpack the different issues that comes from that. What | :25:32. | :25:37. | |
do you say about that? I think you are right, no one disputes the | :25:37. | :25:41. | |
brain changes to its environment. But that has always been the case | :25:41. | :25:48. | |
and just because our environments involve lots of screens and | :25:48. | :25:53. | |
computer games, that is accepted it will change our brains but there is | :25:53. | :25:59. | |
a lot of evidence and studies into these things and as far as I am | :25:59. | :26:04. | |
aware, there is no solid evidence either way. They have been some | :26:04. | :26:12. | |
pieces which suggest. I would suspect that most parents would | :26:12. | :26:16. | |
think instinctively, if my child has got a constant diet of this | :26:16. | :26:21. | |
sort of thing, it must affect them in some way. Let's just think of | :26:21. | :26:26. | |
two separate things. One is the anecdotal evidence and I am yet to | :26:26. | :26:30. | |
make -- meet apparent he says it is great that they Kidd spent so much | :26:30. | :26:34. | |
time on the computer. Secondly there are the statistics. In a | :26:34. | :26:39. | |
recent study in the United States, between a child's 13th and 17th | :26:39. | :26:46. | |
birthday, over half were spending 30 plus hours a week not giving | :26:46. | :26:50. | |
someone a hug or looking summoning the ire or walking along the beach, | :26:50. | :26:59. | |
not feeling the sun on your face -- not looking someone in the eye. | :26:59. | :27:06. | |
That is not true. It is not true that 30 hours in front of a screen | :27:06. | :27:11. | |
does not mean you are talking to a friend. You are not talking to a | :27:11. | :27:18. | |
person, you're talking to a screen. You do not look them in the eye of. | :27:18. | :27:25. | |
You do not do that when you talk on a phone. Their art some -- there is | :27:25. | :27:30. | |
some evidence that people who have active lives on social media have | :27:30. | :27:38. | |
active real lives as well. That would surprise me. Also, you look | :27:38. | :27:44. | |
at other papers like a report from the United -- the University of | :27:44. | :27:50. | |
Michigan. We can look at different papers. A whole point being that it | :27:50. | :27:54. | |
is never the case in science way you have the conclusive paper. What | :27:54. | :27:58. | |
you have to do is rate and evaluate and think and discuss and be | :27:58. | :28:03. | |
specific in what you are asking. What I want to do this evening is | :28:03. | :28:07. | |
ask the government for a co- ordinated initiative. Ordinary | :28:07. | :28:10. | |
human beings who are not scientists, who are parents, teachers, | :28:10. | :28:15. | |
employers, there is aiming for them to understand what is happening so | :28:15. | :28:18. | |
they can question and challenge what is happening and we can go | :28:18. | :28:24. | |
forwards. Our work with ex offenders and youths at risk and | :28:24. | :28:28. | |
they spend a lot of time playing Call of Duty. They accept it is not | :28:28. | :28:31. | |
good for their brains like they accept that smoking and cannabis is | :28:31. | :28:37. | |
not good but they still do it. will come back to this. Thank you | :28:37. | :28:41. | |
for joining us. That is it for today. Special | :28:41. | :28:46. |