Netflix hit Adolescence handed Kemi Badenoch an open goal when it comes to wounding Starmer - and she missed

1 April 2025, 19:31

By Natasha Clark

@NatashaC

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch says she doesn't have time to watch telly.

Of course, the job of Opposition leader is pretty busy, but it seems a little far-fetched to say she doesn't have time to see a show which is dominating our political discussion.

She told Nick Ferrari this morning: "I haven't watched it. I don't have time to watch anything these days, but I have read about it.

"I pay attention. But I'm not going to watch every single thing that everybody's watching on Netflix. I do know what they're watching and I know what it's about."

Even the Prime Minister's found time to watch it with his teenage kids, and says it was so powerful for him that everyone should tune in.

I caught it before it became one of Netflix's most watched shows this year, and it was blindly obvious from the start this was going to be a compelling tale that would stick with the viewer long beyond the length of four hour-long episodes.

Of course, politicians don't have the time to watch everything.

But you only have to remember the heartbreaking effect the ITV drama, the 'Mr Bates vs the Post Office' to see the influence that culture, and telly, can have on our politics.

However, Ms Badenoch played down its significance.

She described it as "a fictional representation of a story that is actually quite different", that it's "not the biggest thing that is happening in the world today" and claimed that there are "bigger problems, such as Islamic terrorism, and that kind of radicalisation".

This is puzzling to say the least. The issue of online safety and our young people is a huge political hot potato at the moment - not least within the Tory party itself.

Earlier this month LBC focused a whole day on covering the topic online safety for kids, and how phones are affecting our young people.

We heard from parents, kids, campaigners and politicians about the raging debate going on about how we handle social media.

Jack Thorne, who wrote the show with actor Stephen Graham, recently said the prime minister should "rather urgently" consider a smartphone ban in schools.

We know Australia has banned children under 16 from using social media, and the Tech Sec here, Peter Kyle, is looking at whether we should follow suit.

The Online Safety Act has kicked in, but already the chorus of voices calling on politicians to more is becoming deafening.

The Tory leader herself has been trying to ban smartphones in schools, so you'd expect a show exploring themes of childhood, responsibility, and nature vs nurture, to go hand-in-hand with the kind of party she's trying to create.

Politically, the missed opportunity to bash the prime minister over the head for not taking this issue seriously enough, feels a bit of an open goal.

Second, the role of the family and the state in matters of extreme violence, how to bring up our kids, and how to treat women and girls, are topics straight out of the Badenoch playbook.

A recent report from the Centre for Social Justice highlighted how boys growing up in Britain today are more likely now to own a smartphone than to live with their dad.

Speaking at the launch of her Tory leadership bid last summer, she said: "I believe in the family.

"The foundation of our society is not the individual; it is the family.

"Whether it's the family we're born into or the family we build.

"My family is everything to me.  It's everything to most of us.

"Sometimes government just doesn’t get family.

"We need to place them at the centre of our policies and our actions."

She can start with realising that the real reason why Adolescence resonated with so many thousands of us, is because it got to the core of what family is all about in 2025.

The first few hours of the drama raise the question of how far the parents were to blame for raising a child who would go on to commit such atrocity.

Was it the father's history of control and violence which rubbed off on his son?

Was it an anger management problem, or bullying that failed to be addressed?

The latter episodes cast doubt on the idea of one sole reason to blame, but the significance of the role of families and fathers is not to be underestimated.

In terms of importance, the cost of living, war in Ukraine, the threat from Russia, energy bills soaring again, the National Insurance rise, are all top of her in-tray, and rightly so.

She claims the terrorist threat is of higher significance. She's right in terms of how much time the security services take up with this, compared to lone teen boys in their bedrooms, who may go on to kill.

But to everyday voters on the street, to the families and parents she's desperately trying to win back from Labour's clutches, many of them will be far more worried about what their kids are seeing online than the threat of Islamic extremism.

As part of a wider society problem, misogyny is more of the threat here, and dismissing this drama as just a work of fiction misses the whole point.

Tate and other toxic male influencers are easy to dismiss as just a far-right sensation from the fringes of our politics.Stephen Graham's compelling script barely scratches the surface of the issues young people are grappling with in our schools - incel culture and Andrew Tate are just the tip of the iceberg.

There's a whole world online that parents, the police, and policy-makers can only dream of understanding.
As Starmer told a roundtable earlier this week, it shone a light "on misogyny, on online content, and this sense of children, particularly boys, getting drawn in to this world".

But his popularity and reach proves that these themes are far from the fringe.

To combat it, we have to talk about it, and to talk about it, was have to give it validation and discussion.

"It's much broader than that.The way the young boy, Jamie, in Adolescence, treated his female psychologist features language so utterly chilling, but words that all young women will be familiar with.

As a society, we need to be getting under the bonnet of why so many young men and boys feel drawn to these narratives, and not dismiss the very real issues they are facing.

The PM himself summed up the mountain we face here, saying: "There isn't an obvious policy response which will answer all of these questions.

"It's a cultural issue, and therefore we're going to have to look more broadly, work as a society on this, and discuss it, which is why I'm really pleased that Adolescence is now going to be shown in schools free because I do think young people should be watching it."

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Natasha Clark is LBC's Political Editor.

LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.

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