I was thinking about the reasons for wanting the money earlier, mainly the IVF. It seemed mad to me that out of, what, 23? contestants, at least 3 wanted to use the money for that - and it's possible there were others who weren't comfortable bringing it up on national tv. I know it's a selective sample due to the ages of the contestants (i.e. if you had a wider age spread there would be fewer people in the 'wanting babies') category, and, as the pp said you don't know the whole story, people might think that it gave them a better chance of being picked than just 'I'd like to go on a nice holiday!',
But even given that, it's a startling statistic - nearly 1 in 7 of the contestants. Does it say something about the UK that medical treatment is so unaffordable that people are going on a gameshow to obtain it? I would hate for us to become like the US. I know IVF funding is a bit of a postcode lottery, and the NHS can't fund everything, but given how much angst there seems to be about the birthrate decreasing, you'd think giving people who seem to all be, on the face of it, ideal candidates (in terms of age, in apparently stable relationships and careers, UK nationals for everyone angsting about immigration, etc.) as much support as possible would be a good thing to spend money on?
And then I thought about some of the other reasons - Alexander wanting to buy a flat, Frankie and Freddie wanting money to help for university - again, not saying anything is right or wrong, but 30, or even 20 years ago a civil servant in a fairly high up position would have been able to afford a flat by their late thirties, and decently bright teenagers would have been able to just go to uni without them/their parents worrying about being tens/hundreds of thousands in debt.
Not sure exactly what I'm trying to say really, basically just musing if it's a reflection of the decreased QoL for the UK in that things previously fairly easily achievable are now much harder to obtain/out of reach....