SINCE Ken Loach began directing in 1964, he has been invited to Cannes may times, winning the Palme D’Or twice with The Wind That Shakes the Barley in 2006, and 10 years later with the trenchant and timely I, Daniel Blake.

I caught the debut of his latest, Sorry We Missed You, a powerful, visceral, and passionately lucid film that probes Britain, giving a masterful depiction of a modern working-class family.

Ricky, Abby and their two children are a lovely family who care for each other. Ricky wants a better future for them and decides to sell his wife’s car to buy a van and work as a freelance driver for a big company. However, the conditions of his contract are strict, with all burdens placed on him alone, never shared by his employer.

Speaking to the press post-premier here at Cannes, Loach explained his motivation for making the piece and why, like I, Daniel Blake, it is set in Newcastle.

“It’s an area that had our old, lost industries, coal mines and shipbuilding. New industries are coming in, like Amazon or Ebay, but the situation is not promising. There is wealth, but also there’s a lot of poverty. The majority are struggling to have a decent life.

“It’s a microcosm of Britain. Our country is now leading in an extreme inequality. The owner of Amazon is one of the richest men in the world, and hundreds of thousand of drivers are now working for them. I said: let’s try to make a story, about these workers that have zero hours contracts, working for these huge companies.”

“I am interested in the whole issue of how working-class conditions have changed from when I was young and now that I am old. In the past, if you had a skill or a craft, that would be your job for life and you could bring up a family on that wage.

“We have seen inexorable change from then, we’ve gone from security to insecurity, where people can be fired without a day’s notice, when people are on contracts but their employers make no commitments to how much work they will get or how much they will earn. Ricky in the film takes all the risk, while the employer is in the fortunate position, and takes no risk.

“This is the perfect situation for the big companies. The worker has to run himself into the ground, with a strict boss that wants him to go to work with cracked ribs. Here it’s not capitalism failing but is capitalism working as it always will.

“Here it is how capitalism reflects into family relationships. We started talking about this story two years ago and it’s even more important now. It’s almost as big as climate change – and they are connected: it is a question of inequality. Three days ago, I saw Angus Deaton who teaches at Princeton, a Nobel laureate in economics, saying Britain is following the same path of the United States to extreme inequality.

“In Britain what you see is a massive concentration of wealth and massive exploitation. One day I went to see an Amazon driver, it was just remarkable to hear, moment by moment, how long they had to wait in the holding carpark, and all the little tricks. His skin was grey, and his eyes red. He was absolutely exhausted.

“The driver in the movie is one of hundreds of thousands of drivers in the world. It was like a little drop, going into the river. At the end of the estuary was Jeff Bezos’s big sea, soaking up all the profit. And that’s exactly what’s been happening everywhere. We have less and less time to spend with our loved ones, which is absolutely bonkers, but it’s the logical consequences of the market. It’s happening in the whole of Britain – and Greece, Portugal, Spain...

“We could have some change for the better if we intervene and stop this exploitation. It is shocking the way in which the European Union has dealt with these problems. They will continue until we make structural changes, because as long as corporations are fighting it out for supremacy in the economy unmoderated, by providing the best service they can or goods for the lowest price – how do they get the lowest price? By cutting wages. If we believe in the free market, things will never change.

“The only bright spot on the horizon in the last few years we’ve had, is the left leadership in the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. They promise to cut back the power of capital.

“The Labour Party has become the biggest party in Europe. Over half a million members from less than 200,000 has the potential for success, to lead the European left. Because we need some international solidarity too. This level of inequality is actually dangerous. When we look at the concentration of wealth I think it makes workers very, very vulnerable.”

‘There is no I in team’: Ken Loach responds to the article

Dear Morning Star

Thanks for Rita di Santo’s generous piece about our film Sorry We Missed You. But there’s one big omission: the writer.  Paul Laverty wrote the story, the characters and did the research. 

We have always worked together as equals, friends and comrades. We never speak of ‘my film’ but ‘ours’.  And that includes the producer Rebecca O’Brien and all the talented people we work with. So I am sure you understand how painful it is for them, and Paul in particular, not to be recognised. 

The original idea grew between us. The comments about Angus Deaton were made by Paul, and Paul met the driver in the lorry park.

The film industry is notorious for big egos and for failing to recognise the writer. Yet the writer’s is perhaps the greater contribution.  He or she starts with a blank sheet of paper, the director has something with which to work. In our case, although with separate roles, we work together throughout.

As footballers say, ‘there is no I in the team!’  And as in politics, the best work in films is done collectively.

Yours in solidarity,

Ken Loach