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Jeremy Corbyn has backed calls to axe “poverty porn” TV shows like Benefits Street.

The Labour leader said stereotypes of “scroungers” give the Government an excuse to ignore council estates and victims of tragedies like the Grenfell Tower blaze.

During a Q&A on Tory attacks on social housing, film-maker Paul Sng said: “You could lobby Ofcom.

"If TV stereotyped people with disabilities or people of colour the way they do working-class people it wouldn’t be allowed. So let’s make ‘poverty porn’ history.”

(Image: Channel 4) (Image: Barcroft Media)

Mr Corbyn replied: “You’re right. And the demonisation of communities makes it easier for politicians to make decisions damaging to those communities.

"Look at the underfunding of Grenfell.”

A Labour source confirmed Mr Corbyn wants to “see fewer” of the shows.

(Image: Evening Gazette)

But he stopped short of writing to Ofcom or calling for a ban after the session in West London, which took in a screening of the documentary Dispossession.

Channel 4’s 2014 Birmingham documentary Benefits Street made a star of Deirdre “White Dee” Kelly, who went on Celebrity Big Brother.