On TV

The Great British Loser (C4)

BRITAIN is in the grip of an allergy epidemic. More than 15 million of us have an allergy of one kind or another, and it's getting worse. Forty years ago, just four per cent of children had eczema. Now, that figure is 24 per cent. Four out of every ten children has either asthma, eczema or hay fever. Britain has the highest rate of allergies in Europe.

Allergic to Everything followed four of the worst affected. These were people who didn't just start sneezing near cats. They were people with reactions so severe against such a range of common substances that it restricted their lives to an almost unbearable extent.

One of them was Euan, an eight-year-old who had a violent reaction to a rusk when he was 18 months. Ever since, his mum has kept a close eye on what he eats. Particularly threatening are Wotsits. "I wish I could just grow out of allergies because I want to be able to eat everything like Wotsits," he said.

Four-year-old Georgia had to be covered in cream and wrapped in bandages to try to stop her scratching the eczema which covered virtually her entire body. Mum Clare was struggling to cope, not least because she had to wait years for Georgia to have an allergy test.

Most heartbreaking of all was five-month-old James, whose tiny body seemed to be nothing but a bleeding rash. The sight of him in hospital scratching his arms was truly pitiful.

While there are many theories about the rise in allergies - overuse of antibiotics, childhood immunisations, food additives, pollution, children too clean - they are still just theories. Nor is there much help on offer. The NHS can boast just eight specialist child allergy consultants. Germany has 500.

But when help does arrive, it can transform these lives. Georgia's skin clears up remarkably after a few days in hospital, with the help of stronger steroids and creams, and mum Clare benefits from the break. Hospital works wonders on James too. But it is on Euan that medical help has the most dramatic effect.

Tests show Euan has grown out of his allergies, but the news has a downside. For mum Theresa, everything she has done to protect her son over the previous eight years had been thrown up in the air, and she is left feeling guilty at having restricted his lifestyle.

And far from feeling liberated, the loss of his safety harness left Euan adrift. "I don't want my life to change because I liked it how it was. Everyone called me Careful Clogs and I liked being Careful Clogs because I'm always careful," he said. It made you hope a film crew would catch up with him in a few years' time to find out how he coped with life after allergies.

Michael Portillo has obviously long since decided there was no point getting defensive about his defeat in the 1997 general election. It has been voted third most popular TV moment of all time, so he probably couldn't have tried to ignore it anyway. The only solution was to embrace it, and this he did in The Great British Loser.

From being a nation which idolised triumph and success, Britain has become fixated on failure, he argued. From Eddie the Eagle to Barry out of EastEnders, Britain loves a loser. Even our favourite comedians - from Harold Steptoe to David Brent - are rarely life's gifted characters.

It may be taken as a sign of a mature society that we have evolved the ability not to take ourselves too seriously, but Portillo sees it as a flaw, with its corresponding desire to bring the truly successful down to our level. He may be right, and at least it gave him the opportunity to repeat what sounds like his phrase of the moment: "From hero to zero".