Loki

Then for Gateshead, I have another returning guest who I had an incredible chat with the la- Glasgow two years ago.

In Gateshead, I have Darren McGarvey.

Darren is similar enough career to me, I suppose.

He would've started off as a, a rapper in the YouTube era in the twenty tens, then became an author and a general political commentator.

He's what I'd describe as terrifyingly erudite.

Uh, we've got lots of really good interviews with really fascinating people.

I've put up one with Darren McGarvey on Friday, which I think is definitely worth your time.

So tons more content for you to enjoy.

Uh, we will see you all again soon.

My name is Laura Webster.

I'm the editor of the newspaper and we are very lucky to be joined today by the wonderful Darren McGarvey, an award-winning author, campaigner, musician, and many of you will know, involved in the independence campaign in 2014.

So thank you so much for coming in today, Darren.

Good to see you, Laura.

Yeah, good to meet you in person.

That's really interesting, especially about the kind of two-faced nature.

I think you've seen a good example of that in someone like Stephen Flynn, who at Westminster was seen as, as you said, quite ravel-rousing, very direct, and maybe is struggling a little bit with the transition to being a ministerial person who's having to defend the past mistakes or challenges that the Scottish Government has faced.

So much of your work obviously Darren focuses on poverty and the kind of consequences of deprivation and one of those things could definitely be Scotland's drug death crisis and just last week we've seen an 11% rise in drug deaths in Scotland, that's 1133 people who lost their lives to drugs last year.

It can actually help us locate where their agency is, and that distinction became one of the great threads of the conference for me.

I went to a debate provocatively titled This House Believes That Agency Is The Missing Variable In Mental Health, And That Ignoring It Is Holding Therapy Back, with Josh Dickson, Darren McGarvey, and Justine Hardy.

Agency is absolutely central to coaching, but I think we sometimes misunderstand what it means.

Agency isn't saying, "It's all up to you." That's just another burden to carry.

Next week, we've got some really interesting podcasts with some experts.

And yeah, I think Darren McGarvey is coming in next week to talk about it.

We're going to have some stuff in the Sunday National.

There's tons more because I know that this is an area that isn't really getting very much coverage, but it is something that people feel.

Have you got another book? And there's another book.

Stephen McCarthy is, uh, whoa, of Irish descent, and his Irish cousins gave me this book by, uh, Darren McGarvey, uh, The Social Distance Between Us.

It's, it's just great.

Uh, if you don't want my, uh, BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and he makes a number of great points, one of which is he is working class, so he makes the point that so much what's, is discussed or decided about the working class worldwide is by people that aren't in the working class-