Benefits Street doesn't portray a negative image of the poor - it just shows the feckless for who they really are.
23rd January 2014
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Years ago, on my way to school each morning, I passed a road similar to that of James Turner St, the subject of Channel 4’s controversial ‘Benefits Street’.
I saw pungent smelling rubbish piled high in the middle of the road, whilst dirt-strewn children ran around punching one another; I can recall, in horror, witnessing a mother, fag in hand, slapping her young son in the face for dropping his lunchbox on the floor.
I was left gobsmacked when a drug dealer offered my friend and I strange looking substances when we were waiting for a bus. Teenage gangs regularly plagued the streets swearing obscenities at whoever passed whilst swigging beer and boasting about their casual drug-taking.
Of course, there are many streets across Britain that is similar to the one I have mentioned above. James Turner St is another shocking example, showcasing the immoral antics of the feckless, work-shy scroungers that inhabit the inner city slums of Birmingham.
The “stars” of the show, including local alcoholic/drug dealer/addict Fungi and ‘White Dee’, the so-called mother of the street, both admit to not working. Well actually, they don’t want to find a job either. Why go out and graft for a living when they can sit on their doorsteps smoking a pack of Bensons?
Now, before everybody shouts at me for being a ‘cruel, nasty Tory’ with extremist views, let’s make something very, very clear. I grew up in South Staffordshire in a working class family; my father, although now a manager, started out as a cleaner earning a pittance, scrubbing floors and toilets for twenty years before eventually working his way to the top. My mother worked in many secretarial jobs before settling for a receptionist post three years ago for a small car firm. I grew up understanding that you must work if you want to eat, live or enjoy the good things in life. I now work for a marketing firm in a junior role and yes, pay my bills and rent on time before even daring to buy a big screen television or swanky new sofa.
Channel 4 has received a mere 800 complaints regarding what the lefty critics call an ‘exploitation’ of those living on James Turner St.
Owen Jones, a regular contributor to the Independent, practically foamed at the mouth at the thought of ‘White Dee’ and Fungi being portrayed for who they really were. He blamed what he called ‘rich producers’ making money from the show, sobbed at how society is gleeful at the phoney war between rich and poor- and finally, the nasty rich bankers who avoid tax. He whined on Twitter to his left-wing followers about how benefit fraud made up only a fraction of the welfare bill.
Hang on one moment. ‘White Dee’ is entitled to her child benefit, housing benefit and sickness payments (she’s ‘depressed', you see); Fungi is entitled to his incapacity benefit to pay for his drink, his drugs and shoplifting habits.
Jones and Guardian contributor Polly Toynbee screamed from the rooftops that this kind of show merely played into the hands of the Tories and other right-wingers.

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