Naga Munchetty confronts Kemi Badenoch for not wanting to watch Adolescence
Things got heated.
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Previous Page Next PageBBC Breakfast got heated this week as Naga Munchetty and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch clashed over the Netflix series Adolescence.
Despite only being released in March, the Stephen Graham drama has already ignited a national conversation about teenagers’ safety on the internet.
Starring newcomer Owen Cooper as 13-year-old Jamie Miller, it follows the story of a family whose world is turned upside down when Jamie is accused of murdering a fellow classmate.
After Jamie’s arrest, the four-part series looks at misogyny online, the widening social gap between adults and teenagers, and many other conditions that could contribute to such a situation.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer recently announced during a meeting with the show’s creators that Adolescence would be made free to watch in all British schools.
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But one person who won’t be watching, if her latest comments are anything to go by, is Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch.
‘Most of my time right now is spent visiting people in this country.’ (Picture: BBC)The Leader of the Opposition had initially been invited on by Naga, 50, and her co-host Charlie Stayt, 62, but the conversation soon turned to the Netflix drama.
When asked whether she’d tuned in yet, Kemi said: ‘No, no, I haven’t. I probably won’t. It’s a film on Netflix and most of my time right now is spent visiting [people] in this country.’
This echoed her previous statement, in which she said she ‘didn’t have the time to watch anything’ in her job and that Adolescence was a ‘fictional representation’ of serious issues.
Netflix series Adolescence will be shown for free in schools (Picture: Netflix)Naga corrected Kemi after she called it a ‘film,’ before arguing back that the series is ‘prompting conversations about toxic masculinity, smartphone use, young men feeling ignored, the idea of misogyny being increased in schools.’
After being asked again why she hadn’t shown an interest in viewing it, Kemi reiterated her stance: ‘Those are all important issues, and they’re all issues I’ve been talking about for a long time.
‘But for the same reason that I don’t need to watch Casualty to know what’s going on in the NHS, I don’t need to watch a Netflix drama to understand what’s going on [in schools]. It’s a fictional series, it’s not a documentary.
Naga Munchetty and Kemi Badenoch traded blows on Thursday morning (Picture: BBC) Kemi was pressed on her reluctance to watch the Netflix series (Picture: BBC)‘I’ve been talking about banning smartphones in schools. I was at a school in Evesham just yesterday talking to headteachers and students about [the issues they face].’
Naga responded by arguing that Adolescence has already ‘made more of an impact’ in school by bypassing politics and getting to the heart of the problem.
The conversation then turned back to political matters – but that short exchange left quite an impact on viewers, who had plenty to say about it.
