Episode
Frank Cottrell-Boyce fears Britain has lost its childhood
- Published
- Jun 17, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3165
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://www.newstatesman.com/podcasts
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-new-statesman-podcast-subscriber-only-edition-1939815/episodes/frank-cottrell-boyce-fears-britain-has-lost-its-childhood/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-new-statesman-podcast-subscriber-only-edition-1939815/frank-cottrell-boyce-fears-britain-has-lost-its-childhood.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
Children's laureate, screenwriter, author of Millions , architect of the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, and father of seven, Frank Cottrell-Boyce joins Oli Dugmore to discuss what childhood means in Britain today. Over two years visiting schools, prisons and asylum hotels, he found a country that has quietly stopped looking after its youngest citizens. He talks about the NEETs crisis, furniture poverty, what summer holidays now mean to children who dread them, and why the most radical thing you can do for a child is sit on a sofa and read to them.