London Talking — Appearance January 15th 2008

Made a brief appearance as a named guest on London Talking, with Konnie Huq, Nick Ferrarri, Vanessa Feltz and a rep from the NSPCC. The discussion was on whether it was right to smack children or not. Nick Ferrarri and some other ill-informed guests defended smacking, which in my view is tantamount to defending violence against children, and mercilessly pursued the poor representative from the NSPCC, saying that she probably had very badly behaved children. I tried to defend her, and called three of the guests ‘bullies’. We chatted afterwards about the triviality of these shows and the harm they can do in the name of entertainment. As a teacher, I know the children who cause the most problems in class are the ones who have parents who whack them. Violence breeds violence. It all made want to send even more money to the NSPCC. http://www.nspcc.org.uk/‘