Kemi Badenoch slapped down BBC Breakfast’s Naga Munchetty this morning, as the pair rowed about Netflix’s Adolescence series. Ms Badenoch has previously said she has not watched the hit programme, insisting it is a fictional show and she had already been campaigning on many of its core themes prior to broadcast.

Appearing on the Breakfast sofa this morning, co-host Charlie Stayt asked yet again whether the Conservative Party leader has yet managed to watch the show. The Essex MP said she still hasn’t, and confessed she probably never will given “most of my time right now is spent visiting the country”. In a 14-word swipe, she said: "I don’t need to watch Casualty to know what’s going on in the NHS."

Ms Munchetty jumped in to argue: “It’s a four-part series on Netflix and everyone is talking about it. It’s prompting conversations about toxic masculinity, smart phone use, young men feeling that they’re being ignored, the idea of mysoginy increasing in school - why would you not want to know what people are talking about?”

Ms Badenoch immediately hit back: “I think those are all important issues, and those are issues that I’ve been talking about for a long time. But in the same way I don’t need to watch Casualty to know what’s going on in the NHS, I don’t need to watch a specific Netflix drama to know what’s going on. It’s a fictional series! It’s not a documentary.”

She went on to point out she’s been actively campaigning to ban smartphones in schools, going out just yesterday to meet with headmasters and pupils to tackle the issue that is causing disruption for children and teachers.

Ms Munchetty doubled down, arguing that the series has “made much more of an impact than any politician has in terms of what people are talking about right now”.

She said she was confused about why Ms Badenoch doesn’t “want to know how this has made an impact.”

Ms Badenoch argued: “I can read what people are saying about it, I look at research - this is something I have been looking at for a long time.”

She also argued that she is bothered about the fact that the Government seems more interested in this fictional series than the real scandal of Asian grooming gangs and the rape of young white girls and boys.

“Just yesterday we had Labour telling us they’re not going to be investigating the rape gang scandal - something that happened all across the country, that’s real, that’s happening right now.

“We’re not talking about that, we’re talking about a fictional documentary.”