I've just been watching When Michael Portillo became a single mum.
It was a bit of a disappointment really, leaving me at the end saying, "So what...". I'm not quite sure what the point of it was. Was it to illustrate that there are poor people and they struggle to make ends meet? Was it to see whether a reasonably intelligent man, with a sharp awareness of his public image could get by for a week? I don't think it proved very much. The family selected were solidly respectable - clean, lively, bright children, with a mother who has two jobs, and, one felt from the sub-text, the result of a relationship breakdown rather than of random sprogging. The mother was nothing like the cow on last week's Wife Swap.
I'm sure my younger self would have ranted on at great length about the inequalities in society, and I am still concerned about inequality. But this family is not living in dire poverty, and, ultimately, there has to be a certain amount of inequality, to ensure that there are incentives and rewards for learning to do skilled work. And children are expensive. If people choose to have four children - as three separate friends of mine have - have to understand, as these friends do, that money will be tight. But there's no great moral to be drawn from this programme.
I could be cynical and say that in portraying Portillo as quite personable, and prepared to be shown up, it probably hasn't done his image any harm.
