PROTESTERS from across the UK gathered outside the offices of the production company behind Channel 4’s cynical ‘Benefits Street’ at 3pm yesterday, to protest against the show’s misrepresentation of poverty in modern Britain.
The protesters included people from the area of Birmingham where the programme was filmed.
They accused Love Productions, the makers of the show, of misrepresenting the issue of poverty in modern Britain in a ‘cynical grab for ratings’.
Unite community coordinator, Pilgrim Tucker, said: ‘Benefits Street is the latest in a long line of exploitative television shows that misrepresent communities, in a cynical grab for ratings.
‘Love Productions and Channel 4 have served up yet another exploitative, heavily edited, hatchet job of a show.
‘Rather than shine a spotlight on the millions of families that are really struggling, as a result of the recession and government austerity, they have sought out vulnerable desperate people and served them up for entertainment.
‘In reality, almost 50 per cent of social security spending is actually used to support pensioners and 20 per cent tops up the income of poorly paid people in work, through family and income support and tax credits.
‘In contrast, just three per cent is used to support people who are looking for work.
‘So we have organised this protest to show the makers of Benefits Street that we are not going to allow them to get away with the gross misrepresentation of working class communities.’
Jack Tafari, a Unite member said: ‘I don’t like the way Channel 4 is tarring benefit recipients with the same brush.
‘Squatting has been criminalised, council housing is being demolished, they are only building housing for the very wealthy.
‘We need a general strike. I was a council worker. We all have to come out together, this programme must be taken off the air immediately.
‘Why don’t they do a documentary about people being evicted from their homes because of the bedroom tax and disabled people being evicted because of benefit cuts.’
