CONSERVATIVE peer Michelle Mone has reacted in her usual style to criticism over her daughter appearing in a new Channel 4 programme Born Famous.

The programme will feature Bethany Mone and other famous offspring as they live in “deprived” communities for a week, to show “the life they would have lived had their parents not found fame”.

SNP MP Alison Thewliss – who has spearheaded the campaign to scrap cuts to tax credits and the so-called “rape clause” – tweeted: “Utterly despicable exploitation of a kind, close-knit community. No area deserves “poverty safari” treatment, but particularly cruel of @MichelleMone to use East End roots to pick on Bridgeton, which has seen change led by local people, supported @clydegateway. @bridgeton_cc.”

READ MORE: Michelle Mone's daughter blasted over 'poverty safari' TV show appearance

Michelle Mone responded by calling Thewliss a “moron” rather than engage with the point she was making. Of course, Mone famously used her first vote in the Lords to oppose the delay to cut tax credits: the same punitive policy that has since edged so many families into poverty.

There has been understandable anger at the decision to make the programme, at a time when the UK Government is cutting social security to the bone. To truly capture the devastating impact of these decisions, what is needed is in-depth analysis, not light-hearted entertainment dressed up as insight.

Poverty isn’t a simulation experience. During her week of filming, Bethany Mone may well get a glimpse into the lives of others: but no more than that. Despite the premise of the programme, she won’t “live” it.

It is those in a position to effect change – politicians like Mone – who should be forced to engage in the real-life consequences of their votes, not their children.

The homogenous and mythical caricature of low-income and working-class families – perpetuated by the media and programmes like Born Famous – facilitates the hostile environment that allows brutal cuts to be implemented against them.

We are told of the shirker and the scrounger: whole communities and experiences, diverse and unique, merged as one by the common thread of low income and poverty. The richness of working-class culture is ignored and dismissed in favour of exploitive programmes that speak over the voices of those living it.

The lived reality of any group is ill-served by being viewed through the eyes and perspective of those outside of it.

After hearing about the programme, I imagined how the rich daughter of a celebrity would have viewed my working-class childhood or that of my friends. What would she have learned or thought she had learned?

My earliest and most vivid memories are of the year before I started school. Had a camera crew been present, they would have tagged along with me and my mum as we walked to one of her two jobs; as a home help and a cleaner.

I remember the heady scent of lemon disinfectant as my mum mopped the floor – us chatting as I explored the toys in a big cupboard, packed away ready for community groups to enjoy. Of laughing as I bounced across the wet floor on a spacehopper and the joy of having my mum all to myself.

Later, going into the elderly woman’s house that my mum cared for and watching her cook, clean and share stories with her friend, who had dementia.

Hearing them sing Show Me the Way to Go Home with the same vigour as if it was a brand-new duet, and not a routine collaboration that they went through every day as my mum helped the lady into bed.

Me looking at dusty bottles of holy water on the shelves, wondering if they were magic.

Afterwards, we’d go to the butchers next door and he would lift me up on the counter to sing a song. Delighted, because my efforts were always rewarded with a carton of orange juice. Me and my mum, walking home together to make dinner and get ready for my brothers coming home from school.

I know how I remember those days, but what would a rich kid see? The sweat on my mum’s brow? The laughter in her eyes? Something else?

After facing criticism for her tax-credits vote back in 2015, Michelle Mone tweeted: “If you really want something, really work hard, don’t look for excuses, be proactive, have a can-do attitude and you will succeed.”

The problem with millionaires who preach ideas about hardwork and success, is that many can only see both in others who have acquired wealth. With the benefit of age and through having a daughter of my own, I can only now fully understand how hardworking and successful my own mum was. She raised six children in circumstances that I know I never could. She participated in and enriched her own community.

In another world, where success wasn’t measured in pounds and low-income families weren’t exploited for entertainment, working-class women like my mum and yours would be celebrated for their resourcefulness, determination and intelligence. At the very least, their lives wouldn’t be made even harder though the callous votes of millionaire peers.

Lady Mone insists that those who have raised concerns about Born Rich will “owe us a big apology” after the show has aired.

No. First in line for an apology are the those hit the hardest by cuts to welfare: those low-income families, single-parent families, people with disabilities, carers and those who are shamefully underpaid for work that should be valued.

To truly address inequality and its impact on communities we need political action, not shallow and exploitative TV programmes.