After a year of political crises, with the expenses scandal, financial meltdown, rising unemployment and threatened cuts in public spending, a group of MPs experience the reality of life for many people up and down the country.

In this new four-part series the MPs leave Westminster and their comfortable homes to live for eight days and nights in tower blocks on different council estates in some of Britain's most deprived neighbourhoods. They will be living alongside and meeting a wide range of residents on the estates and coming face-to-face with issues that affect their lives: including gangs, immigration, drug addiction, poverty, crime, housing and unemployment.

Liberal Democrat Mark Oaten experiences the dire housing conditions of Goresbrook Village in Barking and meets the residents disenchanted with mainstream politicians who have turned to the BNP. But he's upset when verbally attacked by local youths.

Conservative Tim Loughton finds out first-hand what some residents really think of politicians on the gang-divided Newtown estate in Birmingham.

Austin Mitchell and his wife Linda are shocked by poor living conditions and a drug problem on the Orchard Park estate in Hull.

And former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith learns a thing or two on the Carpenters estate in Stratford, East London.

How do the MPs cope with such dramatically different living conditions? And will their experiences change their views on poverty, social exclusion, or how to find political solutions for the people and problems they meet?