Labour is calling for bystanders and bar staff to step in when they think something is wrong but This Writer has to ask, would government action have stopped me being spiked?
I don’t think it would, because it isn’t as easy to spot as some might think.
Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, has said bystanders should check up on women who appear at risk of spiking – asking them if everything is all right and helping if they aren’t.
The government has already promised extra training for bar staff to help them prevent incidents, support victims and retain evidence.
And there is a pledge to make giving someone alcohol or drugs without them knowing or agreeing a specific criminal offence, after having advice that it would have a deterrent effect.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
This Writer was spiked – we think – earlier this year. Obviously I’m a man, so Ms Phillips’s advice would not count for me (although let’s face it – it should apply to everyone). I had moved from one venue to another, where bar staff did not consider whether I had been spiked and simply thought I was spectacularly drunk (in fact I had not had anything like enough alcohol for that).
Whatever I had been given actually changed my personality, so I lost all my filters and started holding forth about how I disliked other people in the bar (to their faces). I played a game of pool with a female friend in which I could hardly stand up. Then when I was offered a lift home, I raced her to the front passenger door (lost); had a fight with her for it (lost) and ended up in the back seat acting like the driver was my personal chauffeur.
Arriving home, I tottered into the neighbour’s fence and nearly fell over it. Then I felt my way to my front door and spent so long trying to unlock it that my lift nearly got out of the car to help me. Falling into the house, I crashed through the furniture. The then-Mrs Mike was still up; she had to go to hospital for a minor operation in the morning and couldn’t eat, so I made a bacon sandwich and ate it at her. Then I crashed around the bathroom for a while before going to bed where I sat motionless on my side of it for something like an hour before getting in and falling asleep. This lasted around an hour and a half before I leaped up and threw up.
I know this because people who were around me at the time told me about it the following day. When I woke up, I had no idea that anything untoward had happened; in fact I had no memory of the previous evening at all. I wondered why Mrs Mike was glowering at me, and uncommunicative, all the way to the hospital, but she didn’t tell me until after her procedure, in the hospital canteen. These revelations about my behaviour at home filled me with fear about what I had done while I was out, so I contacted a friend who told me the rest.
Next time I went to the pub where I misbehaved, I was given a long lecture about how to avoid being spiked by my favourite barmaid (who hadn’t been there at the time and was not amused).
But nobody who was around me at the time had noticed anything going into my drink in the other pub, and nobody in that one had thought for a moment that I was anything other than extremely far gone on drink.
Talking to another friend, who works as a chef in a hotel, I confessed that I couldn’t understand why anybody would bother drugging my drink. He just said: “Funsies” – that whoever had done it just wanted to laugh at whatever I did afterwards.
Ironically, because I went somewhere else, they probably didn’t get to see it.
My question now is: would any of the measures now being proposed have made a difference?
I don’t think so.
It is extremely difficult to distinguish someone who has been spiked from someone who is just extremely inebriated.
And if you were out with a friend who was that far gone, wouldn’t you make sure they were properly looked-after and got home in one piece? If not, what kind of friend are you?
So forgive me if I’m sceptical about this Labour initiative.
Keir Starmer’s comment that it is “personal” for him is laughable. He says it a lot and it means nothing.
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Would government action have stopped me being spiked?
Labour is calling for bystanders and bar staff to step in when they think something is wrong but This Writer has to ask, would government action have stopped me being spiked?
I don’t think it would, because it isn’t as easy to spot as some might think.
Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, has said bystanders should check up on women who appear at risk of spiking – asking them if everything is all right and helping if they aren’t.
The government has already promised extra training for bar staff to help them prevent incidents, support victims and retain evidence.
And there is a pledge to make giving someone alcohol or drugs without them knowing or agreeing a specific criminal offence, after having advice that it would have a deterrent effect.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
This Writer was spiked – we think – earlier this year. Obviously I’m a man, so Ms Phillips’s advice would not count for me (although let’s face it – it should apply to everyone). I had moved from one venue to another, where bar staff did not consider whether I had been spiked and simply thought I was spectacularly drunk (in fact I had not had anything like enough alcohol for that).
Whatever I had been given actually changed my personality, so I lost all my filters and started holding forth about how I disliked other people in the bar (to their faces). I played a game of pool with a female friend in which I could hardly stand up. Then when I was offered a lift home, I raced her to the front passenger door (lost); had a fight with her for it (lost) and ended up in the back seat acting like the driver was my personal chauffeur.
Arriving home, I tottered into the neighbour’s fence and nearly fell over it. Then I felt my way to my front door and spent so long trying to unlock it that my lift nearly got out of the car to help me. Falling into the house, I crashed through the furniture. The then-Mrs Mike was still up; she had to go to hospital for a minor operation in the morning and couldn’t eat, so I made a bacon sandwich and ate it at her. Then I crashed around the bathroom for a while before going to bed where I sat motionless on my side of it for something like an hour before getting in and falling asleep. This lasted around an hour and a half before I leaped up and threw up.
I know this because people who were around me at the time told me about it the following day. When I woke up, I had no idea that anything untoward had happened; in fact I had no memory of the previous evening at all. I wondered why Mrs Mike was glowering at me, and uncommunicative, all the way to the hospital, but she didn’t tell me until after her procedure, in the hospital canteen. These revelations about my behaviour at home filled me with fear about what I had done while I was out, so I contacted a friend who told me the rest.
Next time I went to the pub where I misbehaved, I was given a long lecture about how to avoid being spiked by my favourite barmaid (who hadn’t been there at the time and was not amused).
But nobody who was around me at the time had noticed anything going into my drink in the other pub, and nobody in that one had thought for a moment that I was anything other than extremely far gone on drink.
Talking to another friend, who works as a chef in a hotel, I confessed that I couldn’t understand why anybody would bother drugging my drink. He just said: “Funsies” – that whoever had done it just wanted to laugh at whatever I did afterwards.
Ironically, because I went somewhere else, they probably didn’t get to see it.
My question now is: would any of the measures now being proposed have made a difference?
I don’t think so.
It is extremely difficult to distinguish someone who has been spiked from someone who is just extremely inebriated.
And if you were out with a friend who was that far gone, wouldn’t you make sure they were properly looked-after and got home in one piece? If not, what kind of friend are you?
So forgive me if I’m sceptical about this Labour initiative.
Keir Starmer’s comment that it is “personal” for him is laughable. He says it a lot and it means nothing.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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