The WhatsApp Message Scandal & What Adolescence REALLY Teaches Us

Police Overreach in the UK is CHILLING

If ever you needed a prime example of the siloed camps into which we’ve separated, study the reaction to Netflix’s runaway success Adolescence. A cinematographic triumph, the series and its cultural relevance split us like nothing before.

One side of the culture war lamented that it replaced its black muse with a caucasian. The other - including Prime Minister Keir Starmer - viewed this fiction as a documentary that should form the basis of a national inquiry into the danger of good-looking, charismatic and intelligent white boys from loving two-parent families.

But while Adolescence was causing a political storm, echoes of its tense first episode rebounded down the corridors of a police station in North London, where my recent Heretics guest Maxie Allen and his partner Rosalind were confined for 11 hours.

In Douglas Murray’s new book On Democracies and Death Cults - out soon - he explains how trauma and post-traumatic stress are more harmful when a victim isn’t expecting it.

Douglas Murray

Just like the brilliant opening moments of the TV show, Maxie and Rosalind were going about their daily tasks on what should have been an uneventful day when six police officers turned up unexpectedly, leading them to think their older daughter at school was dead. Cops then attempted to put Rosalind in handcuffs in front of their three-year-old daughter.

How enjoyable you find Adolescence depends on your politics.

Exhilarated were those who get a kick out of vilifying a white boy as part of a growing self-flagellating culture. I found it tiresome, unrealistic and self-important. Like any human, white boys are susceptible to radicalisation. You can find a recent example in my hometown of Bushey, where ex-soldier Kyle Clifford killed his ex-girlfriend, her sister and her mother with a crossbow. He is a monster.

That the series portends, however, to boldly tackle an “under-reported” theme (toxic masculinity) while quietly swapping out a black boy for a white one - in a country that needs to come to terms with its high crime among ethnic minorities and immigrants - feels fake and cowardly.

For the past 15 years, TV shows like Loose Women have beamed into our living rooms their lamentations about toxic masculinity and the fact that boys don’t cry enough. They don’t - however - discuss the rise in crime, particularly of a sexual nature, among migrants. An audacious series might have focussed on that, as well as the failure to condemn and prevent Islamic grooming gangs.

On second viewing, the strength of Adolescence lies in its opening scene.

He wets himself in the opening scene of Adolescence when cops bust in

All filmed in one shot, the immediacy of the style draws us in and we get a glimpse of what it might be like for our own life to be turned upside down by unexpected police invasion. Unlike its divisive (yet bland) “white boys are toxic and should cry more” message, the fear of governmental or police overreach should be bipartisan.

In peace time, we find it hard to imagine the government turning authoritarian. But history shows us that it happens slowly, then quickly. Another issue is that we are constantly fighting yesterday’s war. This means that we in the West expect authoritarianism to come in the guise of the Nazis. Our radars are primed for signs of white supremacy.

Even to posit that growing Islamism and multiculturalism might be the problem makes you the problem, which is precisely why we are so powerless to stop this creeping authoritarianism. Nobody wants to be associated with the villains of yesterday’s war. So we keep quiet and show the same movie - in this instance, Adolescence - on repeat. Eighty years on, Adolescence’s child protagonist is the modern incarnation of the Nazi.

Meanwhile, politicians congratulate one another over new “safety” laws (Online Safety Act) to prevent little boys turning into Nazis and incels. Keir Starmer’s Labour government is busy introducing new, stricter Islamophobia laws of which even Non-Muslims can be victims! He insisted they will look into creating blasphemy laws, while first-cousin marriage has been - if not encouraged - permitted.

Since Axel Rudakubana stabbed and murdered innocent children, Starmer has been desperate to blame this not on multiculturalism but “the internet”, introducing safety laws that allow police to reach into your private lives.

Americans are religiously aware of such authoritarianism. This is why they fight for the right to bear arms. I don’t wish for guns to spread to these shores (although, reading Murray’s book about the October 7th attack in Israel, I am more open to the idea). But a nation’s people must always be vigilant to government overreach - and Brits are asleep at the wheel.

All of this might evoke in you feelings of unfairness and irritation about the national focus on Adolescence. Wait, then, til you read what the private WhatsApp messages leading to Maxie and Rosalinds’ arrests actually contained!:

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