Children, Screens and State Strategy

This week Westminster shifted its attention decisively from abstract debates about the future of technology to a policy question: what role should the state play in regulating children’s use of mobile phones and social media? The government launched a national consultation on children’s relationship with digital technology, signalling that ministers want evidence and public views on measures ranging from phone bans in schools to raising the digital age of consent and even banning social media for under-16s. (Kiran Stacey, The Guardian 19^th January, 2026, UK ministers launch consultation on whether to ban social media for under-16s)

The consultation should address:

• Phone use in schools: immediate action asks schools to make mobile phones phone-free zones and tasks Ofsted inspectors with checking enforcement.
• Age and access rules: on the table are proposals to raise the digital age of consent and consider banning children under a certain age from social media platforms.
• Platform design: ministers are consulting on curbs to addictive features such as infinite scrolling and better age verification to ensure children see age-appropriate content.
• Guidance for families: alongside regulatory questions, the government will produce evidence-based screen time guidance for parents of children aged 5-16 and under-fives.

Ministers presented this as an opportunity to build on the existing Online Safety Act, which set out duties for platforms to protect young users and to drive a “national conversation” about digital wellbeing. The consultation will run for three months, with a government response due in the summer  (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, 19^th January, 2026, Government to drive action to improve children’s relationship with mobile phones and social media.)

Political dynamics

Labour leadership on digital issues has been cautious. Starmer has publicly expressed reservations about sweeping bans, citing both harms and benefits of online platforms, while noting his personal experience with his own children with apps like Instagram and TikTok. (The Sunday Times, 25^th January 2026, Keir Starmer hesitant to ban apps for under-16s ‘due to his kids’) Meanwhile, Conservative MPs and bereaved families press for firmer action, arguing parents and teachers have been left to grapple with digital harms for too long.

Context and reaction

Across health and professional bodies there is support for recognising digital harms as a public health issue. (That will sort it out! Ed) The Royal College of General Practitioners described the impact of social media on children’s wellbeing as a public health crisis, noting real concerns about mental health, sleep and behaviour. (Fiona McDonald, Pulse PCN, 22^nd January 2025,  Impact of social media on children is a ‘public health crisis’)  That aligns with pressure from grassroots movements such as the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign, which argues that device use should be a choice and not an inevitability in a child’s life.

In Parliament critics on both right and left warn that without clear enforcement mechanisms a consultation risks being just a holding action. Whether this moment becomes a turning point in digital policy, or another round of delayed implementation will be central to the political debate in the weeks ahead. TWOP stands four-square against any phone or social media “ban” for under 16s. Regultations and technical capability should be improved rather than banning a whole media class. A thought-piece is under preparation. You have been warned.

Across the Pond:
The US Is Going In a Different Direction

While London ponders how to shape children’s digital lives, political turmoil in the United States has taken several dramatic turns this week.

Greenland (or is it Iceland? Helmets on Rekjavik!)

But a familiar retreat from TACO Trump left his tariff threats unimplemented without the need to deploy the EU’s trade “bazooka” (who knew?) Mark Rutte delivered a fig-leaf for Trump in the shape of a “framework” for future cooperation rather than outright control. (Nik Popli, Time, 21^st January 2026, Trump Drops Tariff Threat After Meeting Yields ‘Framework’ of Future Greenland Deal.)

However, it is striking that Trump must have been told (although it seems worryingly possible that he may not have understood) that the USA already had the Treaty-codified right to expand its military presence in Greenland without limit. The only viable conclusion here must be that Trump wanted an argument, wanted to make a demand and did not want to be satisfied with an existing and uncontested right.

It is also worth noting that while the UK’s and Europe’s “Phase 1” response to Trumpian nonsense to date has been flattery and “gratitude.” The Greenland crisis has simultaneously identified the potential limits of that approach, while also usefully establishing a new ‘Code Don’ response: send the tallest European leader available.

Minneapolis shootings and federal force

In Minnesota the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti apparently for “brandishing” a mobile phone to record ICE agents in military fatigues assaulting a woman, has ignited outrage and protests over law enforcement conduct in the USA.

Eyewitness accounts and video evidence immediately contradicted official claims that the ICE agents were acting only in self-defence almost immediately posted by the Department of Homeland Security on instagram and followed up by Kristi Noem in a hastily arranged “news” conference at 2:30PM EST (19:30GMT) from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) headquarters in Washington, D.C. This finally made it clear that Noem is now moonlighting for the “whatever you say sir” fantasy alliance, in which capacity she repeated the absurdly obvious lies previously put out by local Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino at his press conference at 11:13AM CST (17:13 GMT) from the Whipple Federal Building in Fort Snelling, Minnesota.

TWOP was very struck by the immediate deployment of a photograph of a strange sidearm that ICE and then Federal leaders distributed as “proof” that Alex Pretti had come to protest in an armed and dangerous manner, justifying his murder by ICE “officers.” From bystander videos it appears that this weapon was holstered until an ICE officer took it while Alex Pretti was being held down by 4-5 of his ICE “colleagues”.  The ICU nurse was then hit round the head seemingly for no reason at all and then shot 10 times. It is particularly egregious to then see an ICE officer clapping as he walks away from this outrage. What sort of morality do these people have?

An excellent and profoundly disturbing long-form eyewitness piece by political correspondent Charles Homans with photographs by Philip Montgomery put some very even-handed context around the shooting and, in 6,500 words, justify anyone’s subscription to the New York Times. (Charles Homans, New York Times, 25^th January, 2026, Watching America Unravel in Minneapolis.)

Trump and NATO

A separate row flared over Trump’s public characterisation of NATO allies’ contributions to the Afghanistan campaign. Talking to Maria Bartolomeo on Fox Business (inevitably) on 22^nd January, Trump said: “They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan or this, or that and they did, but they stayed a little back, a little off the frontlines” from 6:00mins in. It’s a remarkable thing to watch as a European (or indeed a sentient human): the tone of unalloyed interviewer awe is quite absurd. No wonder Donny thinks he’s clever.

Veterans and political leaders across allied countries condemned the remarks as disrespectful to collective sacrifices. Trump initially seemed to double down, revelling in the annoyance he had caused, but then abruptly changed tack, apparently having been informed of significant worries from and by King Charles and then partially walked back his language without fully retracting the original absurdity. (Leyland Cecco, Jakub Krupa and Matthew Weaver, The Guardian, 25^th January, 2026, ‘If you haven’t served, respect those who have’: Nato soldiers on Trump’s slurs.)

The Breaking of the Fellowship*

Taken together, these threads suggest the US and its former allies are diverging on core values. Values that cannot be represented transactionally, but which have underpinned the Western alliance since the creation of the post-war institutions that came to represent the liberal settlement. In values terms the UK falls definitively on the European side of this growing chasm: democracy, care for the less fortunate, both within and without, climate change, the significance of international treaties, respect for sovereign borders, the self-determination of peoples. As senior US government figures lie to hide the facts of federal agents murdering civilian protestors while threatening Iran with further missile attacks if it executes its own protestors, Europeans quietly decide they cannot be complicit in the destruction of the values that they had felt that America shared with them since 1945. It is truly the end of an era.

*To stretch the Tolkien analogy, at the breaking of the fellowship Boromir dies and Merry and Pippin are taken prisoner. Strap in: bumpy times ahead.

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