NADINE DORRIES PROVES THAT THE UNEMPLOYED NEED £114 A WEEK TO LIVE

I'VE ALWAYS had mixed feelings about politicians who take part in experiments involving living like ordinary people do.

In a way it does no harm for them to see the dilapidated housing, the poor public transport and the rotting infrastructure that is so much a part of millions of Britons’ lives. On the other hand, it can’t possibly give a real feeling of what it is like to live like that.

Sure, it will be unpleasant having to cope with living in a tower block for a week, of having to listen to next door’s music competing with downstairs’ telly blaring and upstairs’ baby screaming. It will be a real hardship going to the shops knowing that the £64.30 that you have in your pocket is going to have to last 7 days, and buying the very cheapest of everything from food to washing powder, from toothpaste to toilet paper. If it runs out before the next payment... you go without.

However, the “experimenter” can only get a taste of the misery and hopelessness that the real “job-seeker” lives with all the time. He or she knows that come the end of the experiment there is a comfortable centrally-heated house in a nice part of town, a first class meal in a nice restaurant, and possibly a couple of weeks in the sun to wash away all discomfort.

So I was less than impressed when I read about the Channel Four reality television show where 5 MPs live with families on a council estate. This is even less realistic than other attempts. They are surrounded all day by film crew....

But, after all that we have heard about MPs’ dishonesty over the last year, I would have thought that at least they would have learned a lesson and have tried not to cheat.

Wrong!

Nadine Dorries, MP for Mid Bedfordshire, after spending only one night on the project, broke the rules by hiding a £50 note down her bra. Of course she maintains, as we would expect, “no wrong doing”.

"I did have money in my bra," she admitted to the Telegraph. However, she added: "I was staying with children, and it being two weeks before Christmas, I wasn't going to leave my family without leaving some Christmas presents behind for the children, so I popped £50 where any self respecting female who knows how to get what she wants would – down my top.”

I don’t know how long she was going to be staying with the family, but I suspect that she would have left by Christmas. So, if she wanted to get something for the kids she could have done it after filming had finished.

Additionally, Mrs Norris, £50 between four kids and the mother equals fairly niggardly gifts from someone on your salary, if you don’t mind my saying so...No. I don’t believe you. You couldn’t face being in the situation of an unemployed person for one week without back up. You insulted the experiment; you insulted the poor people you were supposedly trying to find out about, and you cheated.

Well, you’re an MP so we shouldn’t be surprised about that. Your party leader might be interested to know that, as well as being a cheat, you have just admitted that you think that it is impossible to live on the money that the government pays the unemployed, of which there are rather a lot. I wonder if he will be happy to know that you think that they require an extra £50 a week to live on.

Stupid woman.