The idea of Tower Block Of Commons is that four MPs leave behind their comfie homes and lives for eight days and nights to live in council tower blocks and estates in some of Britain's most deprived neighbourhoods. In doing so they come face-to-face with issues including gang life, immigration, drug addiction, poverty, crime and unemployment. One would imagine that the point is to give the MPs an insight into the lives of the people that they would otherwise not interact with. It’s one thing to hear stories of poverty. It’s quite another to experience them.
The eight days the MPs spent on the estates were broken up in four stints in which they would spend two days with a different family (more often than not sleeping on a sofa). This week was the third episode so by now the politicians had acquainted themselves with their surroundings. Iain Duncan Smith was probably the biggest name attached to the series but he left on the first day after receiving news that his wife had developed cancer.
So we were left with:
Liberal Democrat Mark Oaten who was sent to Goresbrook Village in Barking. Mark has the most selacious backstory of all the MPs. He was touted as a potential leader of the Lib Dems until he got caught in a car with some male prostitutes. His first day on the estate saw some youths pass remarks about rent boys as Mark passed them in a corridor. A few minutes later Oaten was lying face-down on a nearby green having a bit of a cry while his host sat in her flat having a fag.
When Oaten had finished feeling sorry for himself he noticed the flats were incredibly run down. His host who told him there was a lapsed campaign to get the flats knocked down and the area redeveloped. Oaten took this task on and began to revive the campaign.
The second episode saw Oaten organize a meeting about the redevelopment and clash with his hosts. Mark didn’t like his host spending £40 of her family’s shopping budget on smokes. She didn’t like Oaten’s involvement in the recent expenses scandal. They agreed to disagree.
This week Mark started putting up posters informing locals about the meeting, which council promptly took down. He then starts flyering post boxes. Initially only 30 people turn up but when more arrive they relocate to the local pub. Mark sees his job as organising, not running because he knows he’ll be leaving. Things get a bit dramatic when a local councillor from the BNP turns up. This doesn’t go down well with residents and it all turns into a shouting match until the councillor leaves.
The next day the police turn up in numbers at the flats because an argument between 2 families has caused major turbulance. It happens about 3 times a month apperently.
Mark talks to the local kids like they’re middle calss, even going so far as to call one of them “poppit”. He hugs one young girl but I had to ask myself would he do that if there was no camera?
Mark’s host for the two days of this episode are Mark and Alan, a gay couple, married for 2 years, living in a flood damaged flat. They don’t bring friends over apparently. We don’t see much of the lads. Either something incredibly controversial happened, absolutely nothing controversial happened, or Oaten barely saw them because he was too caught up with his campaign. In any case there was no mention of rent boys or Oaten’s wife and two kids.
The prostitution scandal has been mentioned during the series but its absense from this particular episode raises questions about Oaten’s character. Also his involvement in the expenses row was a little bit glossed over.
Oaten pulls back a lot of credibilty by being honest at the end of this episode though, when he looks straight into the camera and says “I couldn’t live here”. Honesty is the best policy.
Conservative Tim Loughton is a bit more media savvy when engaging with the gang-divided Newtown estate in Birmingham, and throws himself into the area with a more confidence. He did have an easier ride initially. His first night was spent babysitting for a young single mother. His second was spent at a rave with said single mother. Nothing too taxing there.
The second set of housemates for the shadow children’s minister was family of four living in a one bedroom flat. Loughton’s biggest task is having a heart to heart (in front of the camera) with the father of the family after finding a hash pipe, eventually reducing his host to tears.
This week was a tad harsher. Tim met his new landlord, 43 year old Adrian, who lives in constant fear since having knife pulled on him, and keeps a stick in every room. Loughton sees his oppurtunity to show off his passion for poor folks to the camera and seizes it with gusto. He talks to a family who’s son was shot dead, then a former gang member who now works for community anti-gang group. Its’s hard to get gang members to talk to camera but Tim’s previous interviewee sorts it. Loughton talks to gang member who tells him that loayalty is all important and that people are violent because that’s “just the way people are actin’ nowadays”, before calling for activities for young people. It’s never explained if the interviews were set up by Tim or the production company. It all just comes across as documentary being made by Loughton, as opposed to about him.
The next day he goes looking for activities for local young people and finds only a football pitch behind fence, with no access for kids from the block. He is then brought to center where a recording studio is apparently available to kids from the surrounding area and makes an awful attempt at rapping before declaring rap “a piece of piss”.
Loughton puts himself around and talks to more residents than any of the other MPs. You can ask the question: is he a) Engaging with residents of council estates and getting an understanding of how these places work? or, b) Posturing for the cameras? The answer will not be televised.
Conservative Nadine Dorries was drafted in to replace Iain Duncan Smith in the second week. She set about endearing herself to her host family by cooking dinner and it all looked to be going very well until she sneakily pulled a £50 note out of her bra when going to bed (the MPs were supposed to hand over their money and mobiles). This proved the preconception held by the hosts that MPs are all underhanded. Dorries claims the money was for the children of the family but only when confronted. Everything gets kind of smoothed over and she leaves after her two-day stint on vaguely positive terms.
In this week’s episode she shacks up with 69 year old widow, Ruth, who is unhappy with a Somalian Mosque that has opened across the road from her house. The Mosque used to be a veterens center that she and her husband wold frequent. Nadine meets the leader of Mosque (Khalid) who tells her that he and his people cleared junkies out of the building after it had fallen into disrepair. Nadine picks up a sense of racial tension in the area and sets up BBQ (would it be politically incorrect to suggest that only a woman would suggest a party to quash racial tensions? Somebody get a giant grill to the West Bank).
The next day Khalid is unhappy with Nadine from previous day’s interview, and tells her that he was very hurt and nearly in tears. Nadine realises that if one side doesn’t turn up then she’s made things worse by ramping up tensions. The BBQ goes well but not brilliant, around seven or eight non-muslim residents (out of a few hundred) turn up but the producers make it look like a big success. At least Khalid and Ruth have a chat, and organise a bbq for next week.
The biggest character of all the MPs comes in the form of Labour backbencher Austin Mitchel who is sent to Hull. Mitchel does his best to undermine the stereotype of Labour being the party of the people by refusing to play by the rules. He insisted having his own flat and having his wife live with him and never really engaged with the purpose of the show – MPs experiencing the hardships of council estate life. The first night saw Mitchel leave the estate he was delegated by the producers to go to a dinner party.
The next day Austin was shocked to realise that his guide (as opposed to his host) revealed herself to be on a methadone scheme. Austin couldn’t comprehend why she turned to drugs and tries to play it off with bad jokes and poor singing. He has a similar reaction when wife reveals that she was once addicted to perscription drugs (a fact of which he was unaware).
His second set of guides were a family living on welfare who piss Austin off by quizzing him on the prices of day to day comodities. They then leave him to mind the kids. He very quickly realises that he’s out of his depth and calls for his wife to come save him. This man thinks he should have been Prime Minister.
Austin’s third guide is an employee at a youth center which is shut down during his time with her. He spends time with the kids in the center and joins them for a spot of community service but doesn’t really engage with them. He tries to help by pulling some strings with the local media but he gives the impression that he won’t investigate how many of these centers he can help once the eight days are over. He just seems to want to survive the whole experience and doesn’t act as if he’s learning anything.
Mitchel has called the producers of the show bastards in a very bitter statement on his website. He seems to think that the producers were out to make all the MPs look bad but if you don’t play by the rules you can’t expect a free ride. He seemed to think he was going to get deified just for turning up.
The concept of MPs spending time in the opposite extreme of the society they’ve created is a great one. Every public representative should be forced to spend a week in the company of the people who don’t have a secure family to guide them through life. These are the people who need the government more than anyone. The problem is the cameras. The MPs act up and this as a campaign tool.
This shouldn’t be a TV show, it should be political policy (innit).
