Watch With Mothers

It might come as a bit of a shock, but rather than being self-righteous, shyster sprites that only inhabit the television, politicians are actually people.

Real, walking, talking people – just like us.

They eat, sleep and even fart out of their bottoms – in a completely human sort of way – and are able, however haphazardly, to communicate with the kind of scum-riddled feck-dregs who inhabit those ghastly tower-blocks that dirty the horizon on the edge of every town.

As if setting out to prove that this shocking fact is real, Channel 4 delivers Tower Block of Commons – essentially Boys & Girls Alone, set on a council estate, with MPs and the underclass playing the parts of the youngsters who carried that far, far, far superior show. The poverty-stricken inhabitants of the estates each agree to house one of the four representatives who agreed to take part in the show, and from there it is presumably hoped we’ll uncover some comedy gold, as well as a few moments of poignant pauper-porn, as cultures clash and parliamentary old-hands attempt to spin their way out of the uneducated criticisms they’ll receive from their hosts.

In practice, Question Time it most certainly isn’t.

Let’s take a look at the baby-kissers involved, and see how they got on.

Tim Loughton, the Tory MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, was sent to the Midlands, where his host on the Newtown estate was Natina – a savvy, admirable girl who works and provides for her daughter whilst sharing her flat with an additional three other family members. During his time in this first episode, the only real clash between guest and host was over the correct clothing required for estate-life. Whilst Loughton was dead-set on sporting his gardening shoes, Natina insisted he wore trainers – but after this initial face-off, Loughton got stuck in as far as he could, even handling the early-hours bashment shindig with something approaching dignity.

The only blot on his notebook was his furious meeting with a member of the public who rightly took him to account over the expenses scandal. Sadly, unfurnished with the technical knowledge required to call a ‘legitimate crook’ to task, Loughton was able to spin around and avoid the blows. Besides, a mob of hoodies came by eventually and broke the whole thing up. Ironically enough.

Labour MP for Great Grimsby, Austin Mitchell was so clearly ill at ease with his surroundings when he visited a Hull council estate that he looked like a bewildered English Bull Terrier gaping at a bowl of rotten dogfood throughout. Possibly because this kind of reaction is the norm for Austin, his wife Linda joined him for the ride and actively filled in the time he wasn’t making himself look an arse, doing it for him.

When speaking to their host, a methadone user who was trying to kick her habit, Linda recommended two glasses of NZ white wine. Later on, when it seemed she’d started to get to grips with what was going on and revealed her own post-pregnancy addiction to diazepam, Austin made light of it, joking that she’d bring about the end of his parliamentary career with junkie talk. Thus making both of them look as hopelessly out of touch as they were always going to prove themselves to be. This was only made worse when they decided to dine out round a mate’s place to escape the estate, leaving memories of the desolation behind them as they feasted on sweetmeats and guzzled fine wines, far away from the squalor of the hoi polloi.

Ian Duncan Smith sadly had to pull out of his dealings in an East London estate after day one due to family illness, which was fair enough. But still we got to see the Quiet Man of British Politics all hoodied up and being walked by an enormous, presumably savage dog. It’s a shame he had to go, because he seemed, against all odds, to be quite at home with his hostess, Charise, even when her friends asked him to blurt out the date he lost his virginity – and discuss whether or not he liked oral sex.

Finally, Mark Oaten – the Liberal Democrat MP for Winchester who you may remember from certain salacious NotW stories – visited a Dagenham estate and was housed by a lady called Selina whose triumverate of vices included The National Lottery, fags and endless cups of tea. Living in a flat riddled with mould, with fresh turds parked in the stairwell, Oaten seemed immediately to warm to her and probably coped best with the whole trauma, despite a shaky start where he was brought literally to the floor by a passing young ruffian mentioning ‘rent boys’ and ‘AIDS’ in a most unkind manner.

Having dealt with that, unlike the other oafs, Oaten started doing what politicians are meant to ruddy well do, and began dealing with the mould issue for Selina and starting a petition in a brave but probably doomed attempt to have the tower blocks where she lives demolished and replaced by something nicer.

As the show progressed it was certainly entertaining in the way these fish-out-of-water, docu-whatevers can be. It was well shot, perfectly edited and, on many occasions, laugh-out-loud funny. What it definitely wasn’t, however, was enlightening in any way, shape or form. There are three episodes left to run, but you can bet that from the miserly, one-week period they each donated to the housing estates, the politicians will neither learn a single thing fom the experience nor actually start to deal with the issues the kind of people they’re staying with have to face daily. Not, at least, to any serious degree.

Though Oaten – playing the nice-guy to an absolute tee – makes some superficial gestures towards helping Selina and though Loughton appears willing to engage with the people he meets, you can’t help but feel they’d be better off doing it from their offices rather than getting up to the usual non-parliamentary antics we know they indulge in over at Westminster.

Fiddling with receipts and browsing escort directories whilst writing lengthy pre-emptive responses in order to bullshit their way out of difficult questions. You know the kind of thing.

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