CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews the TV last night: It would make life so much simpler if you could microchip your children

Reported Missing

Rating:  ****

Trump’s Comeback

Rating:  **

Every child should have a microchip at the time of their birth. The satellite tracker under your skin could communicate signals to a smartphone app, so parents can see where their offspring are.

You won’t feel panicked if you lose your child in a store or on the playground. There’s no need to worry if teens tell you they are planning on going to sleepovers. It’s a relief to be able to travel to Thailand as a gap year student.

Do not scream at me about the ‘invasion’ of your privacy. Each youngster who has a smartphone is sending their personal information to Silicon Valley megacorps through social media. Parents should also be aware.

In nearby Stocksbridge, 18-year-old Matthew walked out of college after an altercation and disappeared. It was almost 24 hours before he turned up, after roaming over half the North of England. His mother is pictured above

Matthew, 18, walked from Stocksbridge college following an altercation. He then vanished. After having travelled over half of the North of England, it was nearly 24 hours before Matthew returned. Above is his mother

Although you might think I am joking about it, there is a serious side. Two families from Yorkshire may have been saved a lot of pain by electronic tags when their autistic sons wandered off. These cases can be seen on Reported Missing (BBC1) as an argument in favor of the technology.

Luke, aged 29, was a resident of a Sheffield care home. He gave the slip to his caregivers, which sent Jo, his mother, into despair. He thought nothing of a nine-mile walk to his parents’ house — but because of his learning difficulties, he wasn’t able to take basic precautions, like remembering to eat and drink.

He could not imagine Mum or Dad being away. After an unplanned home visit, Luke was lost and the cameras were there to follow him.

Luke did not know his parents were in Skegness on vacation. After they failed to respond, Luke set off on a different course. . . However, no one was able to guess his destination.

Matthew, 18, walked from Stocksbridge college following an altercation. He then vanished. After having walked over half of the North of England, it was nearly 24 hours before Matthew returned.

Hunted’s fans may think police only need to inspect the CCTV or send up heat imaging cameras on a helicopter, so that any escapee can be located.

It is quite different. Matthew never left his college campus, and the cameras weren’t working. Because passengers simply flashed their passes towards drivers at the time they boarded, local bus company said they did not have any means of tracking anyone.

As an extreme measure, police did check Matthew’s phone data — but they could do this only because they feared for his survival. However, Matthew’s phone was untraceable and switched off.

Both stories were happy, thankfully. Matthew returned home by himself, and an unusual coincidence saw Luke spotted by an off-duty officer who was involved in his search that afternoon in a supermarket parking lot. 

Jo said that they are always looking for ways to keep Luke safe. Phone app trackers that are used to monitor vulnerable adults or children may be a good idea. You can explain why to Luke’s mother.

If only for the sake of ensuring that Donald Trump never returns to Washington, many would appreciate a microchip-tracking system. Katty Kay used Trump’s hint that he may run for the U.S. presidential election again in 2024 as an excuse to mislabel her report about America’s midterm elections (BBC2)

“If Trump’s first term seemed wild to you, you haven’t seen everything yet,” she said.

What happened was a boring briefing about Republican rifts, and the resigned frustration that voters who don’t like Joe Biden. Katty became bored of the program and joined an animal round-up by horseback. The one thing that is certain about America’s liberal media is their missing bogeyman.

The word game of the evening: Matt Lucas, host of The Great British Bake Off (C4) joked that desserts backwards can be referred to as’stressed’. There are many terms that linguists use to describe words that have their meaning reversed. These include ‘anadromes,’ ‘levidromes, and’semordnilaps. Thanks, I will just say “pudding”. 

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