No such thing as bad publicity

I trust this will be an informed and educational piece of work :-

http://www.channel5.com/shows/on-benefits-proud/episodes/on-benefits-proud

From the highs of Civilisation and the The Ascent of Man to the low of live bingo on TV AM, this programme sits very close to the latter (a new low even).  Bet it’ll be fronted by that bloke from Saints and Scroungers who used to flog 2nd hand motors on Channel 4 (actually, that wasn’t a bad programme).

Oh no…not the ‘benefit that pays for the Sky TV package’ myth. Wonder how many other cliches they can manage to cram into the first episode?

Hours spent in trying to re-educate Joe Public at community talks destroyed at a stroke. Back to the drawiing board..

Sooooo!  Who tuned in then?

I didn’t catch the whole thing, but what I saw was predictably slanted so as to invite resentment towards the benefit claimants paraded onscreen. I didn’t see any mention of conditionality for claimants - e.g. being “on the sick” was presented as an option which apparently doesn’t require any limiting health conditions. Work/benefits were presented as a binary choice.. I suspect that some of the partners and non-deps mentioned to be “on benefits” were actually also working, but this was not made clear. The only welfare reform feature I recall was the benefit cap, applied to a single parent in London.

The tone of the programme was summed up by the closing words, to the effect of “Next week’s episode: Shoplifting & Proud”. So, claiming benefits is clearly on a level with theft, as something which should attract shame and not pride.

Laughably, one participant’s partner who declined to be filmed was slighted for being “camera-shy”. So we learn that benefit claimants must either be shameless, or else avoiding their shame; there is just no in-between.

Never watched it Nevip.

Richard Desmonds Daily express newspaper makes it quite clear what they think of the whole benefits malarkey, and as he owns Channel 5 then the whole damned thing was just going to be as predictable as hell.

Rubbish TV from a Rubbish channel.

Pointless programme, propaganda value apart.  I had no problem with most of the participants.  However, I was irritated by the woman from Liverpool (who incidentally lives a couple of streets away from where I used to live) who delighted in telling the viewers that she wouldn’t take a job unless after paying all her bills, etc, she was left with a weekly disposable income of £500 (perhaps she was playing to the camera, perhaps not) and then criticized her 19 year old daughter for taking a job paying £40 a day plus commission.  Makes you proud to be a scouser.