And they kept trying to compare their situation with the McCanns where really there were very few comparisons.
That is the one thing in that programme that got my alarm bells ringing. The mother seemed to be saying "My little girl's gone missing just like theirs but I haven't got loads of money like they have so I'm worse off but they got a fund set up and loads of money to help with the search"
I didn't like the way she seemed to be resentful towards the McCanns. It was almost as if she was trying to manipulate the public and imply that because they are poor, no one will give them any money.
If you say you had suspicions about the case in the early days, some people automatically jump on you and accuse you of 'poor-baiting' and making assumptions about them because of their status.
I feel sorry for the kids. I feel sorry for all kids that have to be dragged from pillar to post whilst one or other of their parents make their way through half a dozen relationships of complicated proportions, adding a few more kids along the way and picking up step children here and there.
I am totally sick of these chain-smoking, inarticulate, base-ball-cap-wearing, job-shunning, disability-inventing baby machines who are the plague of our modern society and who are responsible for almost turning me into a card-holding member of the Tory Party.
I'm sorry, but now I've said it. And I sincerely hope that I have not stereotyped and branded a whole generation of innocent people - but somehow I doubt it.
