Tower Block of Commons

A friend in Winchester advised me to watch this programme as it features our MP Mark Oaten. I appreciate that Oaten is standing down but I can't understand why any MP would put himself forward for such exposure. Anyway, for the sake of publicity, four MPs agreed to live for one week in some of the worst high rise council estates in the country. Oaten went to Dagenham, Tim Loughton (Con) to Birmingham and Iain Duncan Smith to Stratford, East London. These three were staying with residents, sleeping on a sofa or a mattress. The fourth, the Labour MP Austin Mitchell, said he'd only take part if he and his wife were given a flat in a block (in Hull) for a week as he didn't want to live with any member of the public.

It was disastrous publicity for all of them. We saw Oaten blubbing when youths taunted him about rent boys. We suffered the embarrassment of IDS turning up in a suit. We cringed when Tim Loughton seemed more concerned about his own appearance than the living conditions of his hostess. The worst though was Mitchell who got his lunch delivered, presumably because he feared going out of the flat alone and who actually left the estate to escape for dinner with friends. He made no effort to help the people there and spent the whole time gawping at the existence of drug addicts. After all his years in power, it made me sick.