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Anybody catch this? It was pretty entertaining fare. Tories Tim Loughton and Ian Duncan-Smith, Labour's Austin Mitchell and golden showering Liberal Mark Oaten were all sent to live in an Inner-city tower block. They have to give up all their links to their current life and live with their hosts for eight days. They may have seen it as an opportunity to ingratiate themselves with the people after the expenses scandal, but they were so far out of their comfort zone it was hurting. IDS only lasted a day after his wife was diagnosed with cancer, but we still got to see his host dress him in a hooded Nike top, and patronise his host by describing the Houses of Parliament as "the big building with the clock on top", sadly she was still none the wiser though.
Loughton was sent from his Sussex constituency to live in a mostly black neighbourhood in Newtown in Birmingham. His host made the most of the opportunity and used him to skivvy in the flat and babysit her 3 year old while she went out. He took a bit of an earbashing outside a shop with regard to expenses, and also provided the most preposterous image in the show by bumping and grinding in a Birmingham club with his 23 year old host dressed in a check shirt and moleskin trousers.
Oaten started off really badly. On his first day, having already struggled to fill in a lottery ticket, he walking through the tower block with his host when he was confronted by a gang of teenage lads. Showing a remarkable knowledge of current affairs, one lad said "Weren't you the one who got caught with the rent boys?", "Yes, I got stung by the News of the World." replied Oaten, hoping he might endear himself to them and gain some sympathy for his indiscretions, this bubble was soon pricked when one of the boys shouted "You've got Aids." as he departed. next shot we saw was Oaten, distraught, face down on the grass outside the tower block. "If this is what he's like after a day, he'll want a bloody noose by the time the weeks over." observed his host. The politician had come out by the end of the week though, he was taking pictures of the mould growing on his hosts bathroom wall and putting a petition together with her to have the flats flattened. Hopefully they are all rehoused before this happens.
Anybody thinking old Labour MP Austin Mitchell was going to come across as a man of the people is going to be sadly disappointed, he just came across as a smug twat. He refused to live with his host, instead insisting his wife come with him and they stay in a separate flat. He ridiculed the drug problem in the estate while his wife, supposedly empathising with his hosts attempts to come off heroin with a methadone prescription, told her "When I feel like that, I have a glass of New Zealand white." At the end, while his fellow empees were gauging opinion on demolition or getting freaky with their young host, Austin phoned some local friends in Hull and went round for a dinner party. He's just not getting it, is he?
Anybody catch this? It was pretty entertaining fare. Tories Tim Loughton and Ian Duncan-Smith, Labour's Austin Mitchell and golden showering Liberal Mark Oaten were all sent to live in an Inner-city tower block. They have to give up all their links to their current life and live with their hosts for eight days. They may have seen it as an opportunity to ingratiate themselves with the people after the expenses scandal, but they were so far out of their comfort zone it was hurting. IDS only lasted a day after his wife was diagnosed with cancer, but we still got to see his host dress him in a hooded Nike top, and patronise his host by describing the Houses of Parliament as "the big building with the clock on top", sadly she was still none the wiser though.
Loughton was sent from his Sussex constituency to live in a mostly black neighbourhood in Newtown in Birmingham. His host made the most of the opportunity and used him to skivvy in the flat and babysit her 3 year old while she went out. He took a bit of an earbashing outside a shop with regard to expenses, and also provided the most preposterous image in the show by bumping and grinding in a Birmingham club with his 23 year old host dressed in a check shirt and moleskin trousers.
Oaten started off really badly. On his first day, having already struggled to fill in a lottery ticket, he walking through the tower block with his host when he was confronted by a gang of teenage lads. Showing a remarkable knowledge of current affairs, one lad said "Weren't you the one who got caught with the rent boys?", "Yes, I got stung by the News of the World." replied Oaten, hoping he might endear himself to them and gain some sympathy for his indiscretions, this bubble was soon pricked when one of the boys shouted "You've got Aids." as he departed. next shot we saw was Oaten, distraught, face down on the grass outside the tower block. "If this is what he's like after a day, he'll want a bloody noose by the time the weeks over." observed his host. The politician had come out by the end of the week though, he was taking pictures of the mould growing on his hosts bathroom wall and putting a petition together with her to have the flats flattened. Hopefully they are all rehoused before this happens.
Anybody thinking old Labour MP Austin Mitchell was going to come across as a man of the people is going to be sadly disappointed, he just came across as a smug twat. He refused to live with his host, instead insisting his wife come with him and they stay in a separate flat. He ridiculed the drug problem in the estate while his wife, supposedly empathising with his hosts attempts to come off heroin with a methadone prescription, told her "When I feel like that, I have a glass of New Zealand white." At the end, while his fellow empees were gauging opinion on demolition or getting freaky with their young host, Austin phoned some local friends in Hull and went round for a dinner party. He's just not getting it, is he?
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