Poverty tourism

Oct 18 2009 by Ian Robson, Sunday Sun

THERE’S nothing more condescending than a bunch of wealthy celebrities pretending to be poor.

It’s happening again this week in the ITV1 series Seven Days on the Breadline.

Four celebrities – all of them fabulously well-off – swap their luxurious lifestyles to spend a week with the great unwashed.

No doubt the intentions behind the series are honourable, but it smells of poverty tourism.

At the end of the week the celebs go back to their pampered lives while the families who welcomed them into their homes find nothing has changed.

Just what do Spice Girl Mel B, clothes horse Trinny Woodall, former rugby player Austin Healy and actor Keith Allen know about the everyday lives of the families in Leeds?

Trinny, in particular, comes from a background which has little to do with the reality most of us have to face.

She had a privileged upbringing, attending boarding schools in Kensington, France and Germany and circulates in the upper echelons of London society.

Mel B lives the LA life now, Keith Allen thinks a bottle of Champagne will make a difference to his hosts, and Austin Healy is used to an idyllic life in the country.

I remember how the late Tory MP Piers Merchant did something similar in Newcastle years ago.

He had claimed it was easy to live on benefits at a time when millions struggled to find work.

He swapped homes for a week with two art students living in Scotswood. The stunt backfired when he saw for himself the reality of life on the dole.

Now, as then, the economy is down the toilet, so it was time to give Merchant’s stunt a glossy makeover.

And now, as then, it won’t make any difference to the big picture . . . the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.