If you end up with this lot as neighbours, heaven help you
There are some programmes made with the sole intention of leaving the viewer frothing at the mouth with indignation and outrage.
How To Get A Council House (Channel 4) is one such example. The staggering sense of entitlement of some participants in last night’s episode was jaw-dropping at times.
Like emily and Chris, a young couple who thought it totally unreasonable that their landlord asked them to clear up dog mess and keep their home reasonably clean and tidy. Or Vasile, a young man from romania, who believed the UK had a duty to house him and seemed to hold the council responsible for everything that went wrong in his life.
This, the third series, is set in Portsmouth, the UK’s most crowded city. Add to the mix the fact that council house stock has been depleted by 50 per cent due to the right-to-buy scheme and it all adds up to a gigantic headache for housing officers.
With such demand and short supply, the council has introduced a new set of guidelines. One states that it has no duty to house anyone deemed to have made themselves intentionally homeless through not paying their rent or who has been guilty of anti-social behaviour.
This applied to Lauren and her boyfriend Luke, a thoroughly unpleasant young man who seemed here as racist as he was foul-mouthed and aggressive.
Being born in the UK was his passport to milking the system as far as he was concerned. heaven help the poor people who end up with him as their neighbour.
Another new council stipulation is that those in need of housing face a ‘one offer only’ policy. reject the accommodation you’re offered and you could find yourself on the street.
Not good news for single mum of four emma, who seemed to think she was at an upmarket estate agent rather than the council offices as she laid out her list of demands: she needed a garden, and the property had to be in a certain area and she didn’t want a flat on a high level as she had a fear of falling out of windows.
‘Keep the windows shut then,’ was the perfectly reasonable advice of one exasperated housing officer.
Then there was Gordon, a 61year- old ex-naval officer who had turned to drink following the death of his son.
Previously he had been a happily married man of 20 years, solvent and living in a comfortable home. When we met him on the programme he was sleeping rough in a public lavatory.
Despite officially having a ‘ low level of need’, he was eventually given a one-bedroom flat.
Unlike others in the show, he was overwhelmed with gratitude and hoped it was the first step to mending fences with his family.
Despite — or maybe because of — the hackles it raised, the programme was thoroughly compelling and watchable. Another splendid series, The
Met: Policing London (BBC1) came to an end last night, finishing on a particularly harrowing note with the death, due to neglect, of a four-month-old baby. The post mortem revealed that it had starved, weighing less at death than it did at birth.
The baby’s teenage mother had simply lost interest in its welfare after beginning an online relationship with a boy.
her days were spent chatting on her computer while her three children lived in squalor and filth. When the young woman was interviewed by police she sounded like a little girl and wept as she revealed her own horrendous story of being forced into an arranged marriage at the age of 13.
It was the last case of detective Jason Weald before retiring. No wonder he said: ‘ After 30 years, it’s a relief to be passing the heartbreak on to someone else.’
A lighter note came in the shape of engaging new recruit Tom hebblethwaite from rural North Yorkshire who couldn’t wait to make his first arrest. So long as he’s not still giving lost tourists the wrong directions.
At a time when the Metropolitan Police faces many criticisms, the BBC series has done well to show what a difficult and challenging job officers do.
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS is away.