Britains Hiidden Hungry on BBC1

[Darkesteyes]

Tonight at 10.35.
Its about people who have had to use food banks. I just thought id flag it up on here for anyone who would be interested in watching it.
Ive only just spotted it in the TV guide.

I thought it was interesting and fairly representative of the entire welfare system: run by well-meaning but clueless incompetents, catering for mostly deserving people but attracting one or two greedy low lifes happy to abuse the system.

Was Darren the man who had lost his job and couldnt buy any presents for his sons birthday? The presenter gave him some money. I had to deal with something in RL after that and missed the rest of it.

he was a con man. It wasn't his son's birthday, there had been no six week wait for benefits, they'd gone straight into his account, he was working illegally while claiming, he had a history of petty crime, and he was taking food from the food bank on a weekly basis with no voucher.

Anyone else notice Kelly's four - or was it five - dogs?

If you can't feed your kids then presumably you can't feed your dogs either.

Yes that man who claimed it was his ds's birthday, was a liar. The journo went to the register of births and the ds's bithday had been two months prior to the date Darren claimed it was.

Kelly had worked prior to the baby, she probably got the dogs when she could afford them.

not sure about kelly - triggered a few alarm bells for me.

Oh what a bastard, I think I`ll try and watch it on i-player, the young girl was quite an amazing woman wasnt she. The programme leaves you so conflicted as the food banks are fantastic, yet on the other hand we shouldnt need them, and you just think, one little turn in life and that could be you.

They showed footage of Darren in the outside fresh food area asking for and getting extra's and as it was to be the ds's birrhday the next day they kept him a huge cake aside.

I wonder who the cult church is behind the food bank.

What alarm bells was Kelly ringing?

Imvho the only genuine person on that programme was Charlotte.

Really? Charlotte was amazing. I thought the family with five children were genuine, the parents were broken by the end.

I thought Charlotte was wonderful.

I also thought the family with five kids seemed very genuine. Like the reporter I was also struck by the dramatic change in Sandra's appearance.

She was so glam and groomed and together at the start of it - and looked totally broken by the end of filming. Very sad.

I was a bit confused by Kelly.

Felt uneasy about Darren, felt sorry for him at first and actually said 'awww' when he went to the cashpoint to see if his benefits had gone in and it showed him being overdrawn still. But he soon became a bit of an arse and his pally pally-ness with Gavin was odd.

I was very cross that Gavin questioned Sandra's genuine vouchers yet gave Darren food without vouchers. Gavin, manager or not, should not be allowed to show favouritism like this. And in this case he got it horribly wrong! I hope he feels ashamed of himself. (he did come across as one of those 'arent'-I-wonderful' people who are a bit up themselves which did not do him any favours in the programme really)

I found the whole programme got a bit uncomfortable once the church became featured so prominently. Why did Kelly have to go to the happy clappy church? Why did they have to constantly refer to 'the poor' in that derogative manner. I understand that religious groups do an awful lot of good, but in this case it made for uncomfortable viewing adn did not do them any favours.

Likewise Gavin - showing him at the church setting singing and swaying and performing for the cameras whilst Kelly was cringing alongside him did (imo) not do Gavin or the charity any favours. Why was it included?

Charlotte was incredible, what a mature attitude. She will go far and deserves to!

too many unanswered questions for me.

Charlotte was utterly amazing, there should be much more help and support for young adults leaving the care system.

Darren was a total con artist, had an uneasy feeling about him from the start.

I can't understand why Kelly left her job. She said she would be better off and wanted to look after the baby herself, but surely with tax credits she would have been financially better off returning to work, especially with a mortgage to pay? (I don't think mortgage support via IS kicks in for a number of months, so she would immediately build up huge arrears?) I would have liked them to show the figures. What were the father(s) of her children contributing in maintenance? (ie why were they letting their children starve?)

For Sandra's family - they only touched on the fact that her husband appeared to have given up a job to go on a three year course so he could become a justice support worker (or something like that) Where was their planning about how they would manage financially as a family over that period? They seemed to have set themselves up a "nice" life with a "nice" house before that happened, did they really think they would be able to maintain that standard of living on benefits for three or more years? Again it would have been good to show the figures about what income they had before and after.

I wish they had concentrated more on the family they showed briefly at the end. They said they were stop-start on benefits-casual jobs - these are the families who often struggle most as it takes too long to get benefits reinstated. In the end many decide it's easier not to bother with temporary jobs and stay on benefits so at least they know what money is coming in. I can empathise with that when you have kids to feed and clothe. It is something we need to sort out though, we shouldn't be disincentivising people who are trying to support themselves.

Mm I don't want to be judgemental but I noticed Kelly's 4 or 5 dogs and they didn't look underfed! Not sure what this programme was trying to achieve. We weren't given enough info about Kelly. Really annoyed they made Darren the whole focus of the programme and then turned out he was acon man, and this is what con men do, they are very pleasant and plausible and that's why people believe them. I noticed he'd got a T shirt with something about god written on it - Oh I'm one of them now!

However I think it sent out the wrong message because now a lot of folk will think everybody who is using these foodbanks is a con like Darren. I didn't get that thing about Darren being centre stage and the mayor coming in - it was wierd. I am wondering if the whole thing was "staged" just to make good TV as surely Darren wouldn't have given his permission for the programme to go out with him being found out to be a benefit cheat and con man. I think a lot of stuff goes on behind the scenes for good Tele that we don't know anything about.

Charlotte was sweet but again I noticed she had nice clothes and make up and I wonder if her contribution was "staged" too, as we never really saw where she lived and if she was getting no money at all how did she survive, and she certainly did survive. I think there might have been an element of truth in Charlotte's story but I think she was chosen as someone who would be good for the TV programme.

Charlotte lived with her boyfriend, we saw her flat and fridge contents.

Thanks for this thread. I fell asleep and forgot to watch when I woke up. Off to watch on iplayer.

Just started watching it because someone mentioned something about a con.

Straight away this looks to me like it helps Tory policy and talk of strivers and squeezed middle.

Charlotte says something like there is nothing for her (benefits wise) because she is 21 and has no kids, and says something like someone in a benefit agency tells her to have a child.

Sandra says that she ended up in this situation because she chose to work and that that was her mistake, if she had stayed on benefits she wouldn't be in this situation.

Then people say that someone seems to be a con.

It's probably not even worth watching the rest, because it almost offers an open goal to people who argue that the "strivers" and squeezed middle are falling through the gaps by trying to do the right thing, which is the Tory argument that the gap between strivers and scroungers needs to be narrowed for fairness.

Oh and now there is the typical BBC choice of a Christian evangelical sect. convert etc etc which is guaranteed to get lots of viewers frothing at the mouth and be anti.

Are there any longterm benefit claimants on this programme at the Christian foodbank or is it only strivers at the foodbank?

Message seems to be strivers have it hard, longterm benefit claimants don't have to go to the Christian foodbank.

Sandra says something like I lost everything by choosing to go to work being lazy would help my situation.

Central Office must be loving this.

The programme maker says something like he spent 6 months researching or making this at the foodbank. Out of all of that 6 months, the footage and clips that he chooses are significant, since they give the final underlying message of the programme.

Narrator says something like Darren is behaving with a sense of entitlemnet - Tory buzzword alert!

and he says that he is committing benefit fraud - Tory open goal.

Narrator says he thinks Darren targetted teh foodbank because "the system was easy to manipulate" - Tories need to tighten it up alert!

Narrator sums up "the system is too easily abused". Darren was a con man, and this programme helps Tory arguments about benefits, strivers and scroungers.