SKINT:

I have been asked several times this week, for my opinion on the TV show, Skint. Initially, I of course jumped to the defence of working class people on council estates, stating that programmes such as this play into the hands of the ignorant viewer, while encouraging middle class journalists for newspapers like the Daily Mail to accuse everyone living on these estates of being scum. This was my natural stance before even seeing the show. Sadly, my knee jerk reaction was accurate and the opinion of most people who watched thinks that the participants are scum.

They may well be right. I caught the last five minutes of an episode quite accidently and had to agree, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. I suspect however, that that is the point. Set on the Westcliff estate in Scunthorpe, the programme focuses on about twelve families from the 2000 families which live there. Presumably, they auditioned or at the very least chose these families for their shock value. The programme sets out to do nothing to help families stuck in poverty, just sensationalise and stigmatise. There will, no doubt be many families living on the very same estate, who have jobs, morals and a sense of how to conduct one’s self in public. These are not the qualities the TV executives were looking for to pull in the viewers. Programmes such as this purposely choose people who are likely to shock, people who are vulnerable and preferably unaccustomed to having a TV crew follow them; people who will play up for the cameras and are happy to sell their souls for 15 minutes of fame. If you tell a bunch of uneducated, desperate people that they are going to be the stars of a TV show if the show off a little bit, the results will inevitably, be a car crash.

That said, these are of course, real people. There are real people who do not want a job. There are real people who swear too much and too loudly. There are real people who go out during the day wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown. There are real people on real council estates who behave appallingly. They are not the norm. As much the Mail would love us all to believe that council estates up and down the country are littered with families like these, scrounging off the hard working tax payer, taking drugs and having too many kids (probably out of wedlock), the fact is that the majority of people on the majority of estates are not like that. Someone said to me, “obviously, you will say they’re the minority”… They are the minority. They in no way represent me or many of the people I know and have known all my life who live on council estates. That however, does not make it OK.

It isn’t enough to glamourize this lifestyle for a TV show, these people need help. I heard people say their benefits should be stopped. I have heard people say they should be forced to get a job – if there are no jobs where they live they should move. I have heard people say that they should be given vouchers and no money.

I fail to see how any of these solutions would help the desperados being accused or those supposedly paying the bill for them. In many cases, taking away the little money they have would force even more into crime and drugs. It would push many into depression and mental illness and physical hardship. There is no one size fits all solution to this problem because different people will respond differently to different incentives. While some may well say oh well I’ve had a good run – now I’ll get a job, others would be absolutely incapable of getting a job without expert help. There will be people who have never had a job, whose parent have never had a job. There will be some whose Grandparents never had a job. It would be foolish to think that simply saying to those people that benefits will be stopped, would push them into employment.

There needs to be investment in areas of significant poverty and unemployment. There needs to be agencies to guide these people, educate and train these people. There should also be initiatives and incentives to businesses to invest in these areas. One big employer on an estate like that could turn the lives of thousands of people around but why would a business want to employ people like those on Skint?

Demonising, punishing and stigmatising will not improve the lives of these people nor will it make them want to improve. It will alienate them even further. The unemployed, uneducated and uncouth are represented by no one. There are few or no journalists from similar backgrounds and fewer still politicians. Although working class has become a dirty phrase, working class is no longer the lowest class. A new lesser class has been created by the media, running wild on our streets like stray dogs, causing mayhem and offence to the public at large.

Newspapers and TV producers are supposed to report the news not make it. There is a growing trend of finding the lowest possible level of acceptable behaviour and catapulting it to fame on our screens and in our tabloids. STOP! Stop putting these people on TV. Why not make a programme about helping these people to train to be able to access the jobs market or a programme about how the fortunes of a poor family have been turned around by interventions and encourage others to do likewise. The reason is that programmes like that do not attract the same audience or the same sensational gossip and outrage. The very poorest in society are being exploited and encouraged to be morally bankrupt by TV producers for sake of good telly.