he has made 27 films, he has won the biggest prize at cannes twice, and yet his films are the very opposite of escapism. our top story. his latest is an unrelenting, a senior police officer in hong kong has warned that the unrest has bleak take on the exploitation of workers in the brought the territory to "the brink so—called gig economy. if entertainment isn't of total breakdown". in the latest clashes between police his mission, what is? and pro—democracy protesters, ken loach, welcome to hardtalk. the violence spread to a university campus. tear gas, rubber bullets thanks very much. and a water cannon were used a pleasure to be here. against the demonstrators. around five years ago, raging bushfires have damaged properties across parts i seem to recall, there was some of australia and briefly spread talk of you maybe not making movies to suburbs of sydney. the catastrophic day feared for very much longer if at all. by forcasters has largely been yet here you sit having avoided but 7a uncontained just made another movie, fires are still burning sorry we missed you, in new south wales. before that you made i, daniel blake, which won a huge prize at cannes. so can we take it that your passion for filmmaking burns as bright as ever? and these pictures are getting a lot of attention on bbc.com. well, it does, because it's a huge privilege to do that. a meteor has been sighted, blazing through the night and there are so many sky over the us state of missouri. stories to tell. did you come close to quitting? footage was captured well, at the time, on security cameras as it it was a slightly misjudged remark. made its dramatic appearance. i mean, i was up to my knees and an irish bog, my feet were wet, and i thought i can't go on doing this much longer. but, you know, you come out, you get dry, the people around that's all. stay with bbc world news. you are terrific fun and creative and a joy to be with and you think, i mean, i was up to my knees and an irish bog, my feet were wet, now on bbc news, it's hardtalk.

welcome to hardtalk. and i thought i can't go on doing this much longer. but, you know, you come out, you get dry, the people around you are terrific fun and creative and a joy to be with and you think, i'm stephen sackur. well, why not, you know, for many filmmakers keep pressing on. and filmgoers movies are about escapism but since then that one remark and entertainment. look at the listings in your local cinema and you'll see what i mean. but not so for my guest today. has rather dogged me. one of the most lauded and durable directors in the uk film industry — 00:01:21,395 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 ken loach. but try to distil for me what gets you out of bed and onto the set every morning now. fundamentally is it about a love for the art, for the craft of filmmaking, or is it because of the political passions that drive you? both, both. and we do our best not to make bleakfilms. so i disagree with you... you heard my introduction. i heard, yes. and i think that was a little unfair. because bleak is not... because anything that tries to explore our relationships, how we live together, the mothers, fathers, partners, kids is not bleak, because relationships are full

of warmth and contradiction and affection and disagreements and struggles. and that's the essence of humanity. and that's not bleak. well, i take your point. but let's just focus then on the movie that you're just releasing — sorry we missed you. because ijust happen to be lucky enough to see it in a prerelease screening. and i'll tell, honestly, that it's a film where i came out of the cinema feeling heavier than when i went in. you know, it brought a dark, sad, depressed mood upon me because of what i'd seen. and is that not something that you sort of want, ina way? um, well, not exactly that. but, stephen, this is a story

of the lives lived by hundreds of thousands of people in our country. there will be couriers in the bbc now delivering or collecting who are working under those conditions. and if they are youngsters and full of energy it'll probably work for them. if they're family men orfamily men and women, with obligations, with kids to bring up, then they know the stress of bogus self—employment or zero hours bring. all right, well, let us then, for those who haven't seen the movie, which is the great mass of the population, it will be released soon. let's just be clear that about this story because it focuses on one family, one particular man, ricky turner, his wife abby, and their two kids.

now, ricky was in the construction trade, he lostjobs, he couldn't get work. he decided, despite building up heavy debt, to buy a van and become a parcel delivery man working for a big company which basically employs these people, nominally self—employed, but driving them with ruthless efficiency in terms of their service contract. it's called the gig economy. did you set out to try to tell the world that this gig economy is exploitative and wrong? well, it's certainly exploitative and it's a product of the free market system. you know, constant drive to lower labour costs. so if you can avoid paying holiday pay, you can avoid paying sick pay, you put all the responsibility of things go wrong on driver and you call them self—employed delivering a service, rather than employee, you can cut labour costs. so it's a product of the so—called free market. and his wife abby is a care worker going and looking after the most vulnerable people, the old people in our society, gets them out of bed, gives them their medicines,

washes them, you know, in an impossibly short space of time. zero hours contract, no travel time paid. so both are exploited, both exploited in insecurejob. but both wanted those jobs. and surely the point is... crosstalk. well, want, um.. they wanted a secure... they need to earn money. whether they want those jobs under those conditions, knowing what they know about them is something else. they wanted a secure job, like you do, like most of us. yeah, but this is about, i suppose, your style and the way you make movies and knit your stories together. would it be fair to call you a polemicist in the sense that there is one overarching message which drives the movie? no, no. if it's a polemic then it's a thinnerfilm. i mean, it's about sons and fathers. it's about, um, brothers and sisters. where one brother goes off the rails and this puts this young sister in a situation where she has to be the peacemaker. it's about exhaustion...

all that is true and it's beautifully done, but... crosstalk. so it's not about the polemic then. well, except that the reason, you know, in the terms of the film, the reasons why this family is under so much stress, always in the end, comes back to the exploitative working conditions, the fact that the parents cannot be at home, they have to work until 9:00, 10:00, 11:00pm at night, that the kids essentially are having to look after themselves so much of the time. there is a framework to it, which — you don't like the word bleak — and i — let's use a different word, but it's depressing, it's grim for these people. well, it's your world it's the world you live in. it's the world that passes you by every time you come into the bbc. as i say, it's our world. we're in the middle of it. and everybody lives of their lives in social context. and i think if i were to make a general criticism of cinema, particularly of all the — whether it's compared to writing or theatre or poetry or music or whatever —

cinema often shows characters with no visible means of support. and yet work and family are the two areas where we live our lives. and the experiences of work absolutely affect your life. and i'm sure, we've never met before, but as a generalisation, i'm sure your work has affected your family life and the history of your family connections. no doubt about that. and so therefore the connection between work and family

is absolutely central to how we live. sure. i suppose my point, and i used that word polemic before, but this is not a film, and maybe critics say this about many of your films, it's not a film of the greys, of the complexities, it is a film largely of black and white. for example, we don't see one self—employed gig economy worker in the film who is positive about the way they're working. but you said to me during the beginning of this conversation, you know, there are young people for whom this works pretty well and they like it. and the surveys show there are a significant number of people on even zero hours contracts who are happy with that style of working. they don't appear. this is the story of one family. i mean, paul laverty who wrote the script, he's a wonderful writer and i'm hugely fortunate to be able to work alongside him. you've worked with him a lot over many films. a quarter of a century. he's a fantastic writer and he did the majority of the research. and you speak, i mean, he would travel to drivers. i mean, he saw them, he bought a sandwich when he went round with one driver. it was still there at the end of a 12—hour shift. you mean he hadn't

had time to eat it? he hadn't had time to eat it. i mean the — he had a bottle in the back of the van because the controlling scanner in his van didn't give him time to go to the lavatory so he had to urinate into a bottle. now, i mean, this is the reality of hundreds of thousands of people's lives and i think to say, oh, well, you should have had this character in and you should have had that character in — that's trivial, to be honest. i mean, let'sjust hear these people's stories, you know. it's not like a bbc panorama programme where you'd expect to hear both sides of the argument. unlike the one that was a vicious attack onjeremy corbyn. this isn't a panorama programme. this is a story of a family. it's interesting that so many of your films focus on families and individuals who are, you know, one way or the other at the bottom or close to the bottom of the pile. well, they're the working class. and that's the phrase that comes up again and again in the decades of your work, that you feel you're making films about the working class. has your notion of what the working class is changed over 50 years of filmmaking ? um, well, the central defining characteristic of those who sell their labour without a stake in the profits. i mean, that is as far as a simple definition. are they, put it this way,

do you feel they're oppressed in the same ways today that they were when you set out? when you made kes, for example, a film we all know. no, i mean, there are many differences between now and the 1960s when we made kes. i think the word oppression needs definition. because the point of our economy is that people invest in order to extract surplus value from the people who give the labour in order to turn it into profit. i mean, that's how the system works, isn't it? it's about profit from investment, right. yes? yeah. yeah, it is. if it's not profitable it doesn't get investment. so that's what it's about. so, i mean, what you're doing is a critique of capitalism? you don't need to be grudging. it's the basic fact of the system. that's the motor. as somebody said — greed is good. and that's how it works. some people would say that's exploitation. now you can call that oppression or you can call it exploitation, or you can call it a necessary profit motive to make industry work. but it is, nevertheless, the worker doesn't get the value of his labour. that's the essence of the system. now, that's changed obviously and the working class has changed in many ways...

and that's what i'm interested in — the change. because, again, in the films you make, but let's focus on the most recent one, sorry we missed you, the workers in it are pretty homogeneous. it's set in the northeast, newcastle, the workers that we learn about, not just the family, but the people around them, are all local people. there are no immigrants really featured in the film at all,

which these days in the uk economy, amongst working—class people, is unusual, and ijust wonder if you accept that the homogeneity of the working class is not what it was, it's changed? sure. i wouldn't dispute the fact that we've had immigrant workers and immigrant families that have been here many, many years and would no longer see themselves as immigrants. and if you look you will see there are black workers in the film as well as white workers... and questions of identity are really important now. not just class. and maybe the brexit debate that the united kingdom has been tying itself in knots over for the last three years is a reflection of that. you are raising all kinds of different questions now. i mean, let's just stick with one. i'm happy to deal with them, but it's like throwing sand in your face when you say that.

brexit is a whole other issue, an argument between two sections of the right, changes from 60s to now, misses the thatcher period when critical dangers occurred. your own background is fascinating because you were raised by what you've described as a tory working—class dad who wanted to better himself and wanted you to better yourself. and, um, i'm not sure i'd use that word. i think he just wanted, he just wanted a secure life, really, for himself and for me. but, interestingly, thanks to your gifts, academic and other, you went to grammar school, you went to oxford, you trained in the law. i mean, you, actually, were a great example of upward social mobility. and so i — when we talk about the working class and your thoughts on it over a 50—year span, it seems to me you are looking at the working class from roots which were quite working—class, but where you've actually moved somewhere very different. and ijust wonder how much you feel you know about today's working class. well, again, you use phrases i have to challenge. "upward social mobility," that was the problem with grammar schools, because i was in a medium—sized industrial town in the midlands. there was virtually no middle class. and there was a selection system at age 11, where 60 boys...

i'm a grammar school boy, too. good, good, 0k. 60 boys come out of a population of 70,000 people. 60 boys only, at age 11, were told you may go to university. the rest were told, you're finished at 16. now, that's a price. the point of the developing society is that everyone moves up. iget it... but again, my question was... you were separated off at 11, and then you went to oxford university. the elite. i9, i went to national service, plunged into a barracks of 22 lads from all over the country and i learned more... fair point, you did military service, but you then went to oxford... and i learned a hell of a lot there, as much as i did in the dreaming spires. butjust if you would address my point, how easy is it, to be sure that you have the authentic pulse of today's working people when by definition, you are a successful, middle—class person?

are you a journalist? iam. so how do you stay in touch? i stay in touch by reporting, by visiting, by trying to see what is happening around me. exactly, you're a good journalist. so i do the same. but — but your role is somewhat different. so i do the same. but you tell fictional stories. you're trying to make points. you burn with passion, as we've discussed from the very beginning of this interview. but you're challenging my — and the people i work with — ability to connect and listen to people. i'm saying to you, that's a talent that i should share withjournalists, and the key to staying in touch is listening, is recognising our common humanity, is understanding the choices they have. it's just being with people, and if you can't empathise and understand, then you can't work.

how do writers write? how does anyone engage with the world around them? you have to listen, you have to understand. you have to be in their position. you have to have known enough of the world to recognise that you're not an anthropologist. you are someone who stands in solidarity. and i think obviously, if you can do that, you can do it. if you can't do it, you can't. and do you think the way you have chosen to make movies, a very specific way, a lot of people say "i can tell within two minutes whether i'm watching a ken loach film or not," is that a very important part of... i don't know if the word is authenticity, but the genuineness of what you do? because you very rarely use big—name actors. you often use actors who have hardly acted on screen at all before. and interestingly, in this latest

film, the amazing lead part is played by a guy who, for years, was a plumber working in the service economy. and he's your lead actor. how important is that element in what you do? well, you just try to be authentic, really. and find people who the audience will care about. the actors in the film have got to be able to make a fictional situation believable and credible. they have got to bring it to life. now, that's acting. by anybody‘s definition, that's acting. and they are bloody good actors, right? but you... so i don't patronise them, calling them non—actors or any of that. but finding authenticity is important, because you want to be able to communicate to the audience, hey, these people could really be doing thisjob. they know how to do it. there's a truth in what they're

doing, because the work, the actual physical work, is part of the story. so you don't have to do it with back projection and all the tricks of the film business to pretend they are driving, or pretend they are a character or something, they are actually doing it. that connection to the work is part of what the film is about. your relationship with the wider movie industry fascinates me, because you're the sort of antithesis of everything that many people think of in the movie business. and it strikes me that when you have on your big awards at cannes, you go off there onto the red carpet, you hobnob with the a—listers and the celebs and the the studio moguls... (laughter) i don't hobnob with anyone! where did you get that idea? ok, i'm exaggerating. you are exaggerating. my question is based on the sort of disconnect, in a way. you adore your industry, you adore making films, but it seems you have nothing in common with so much of what your industry is about. that's fairly true, yes. the interesting thing... the interesting thing

is the screenings, the people who know the stories of the films, their own lives. and you have terrific conversations and share the enjoyment, if there is an enjoyment to the film, or share what has come up on screen, and they tell their stories, and that's brilliant. i mean, that's the reward, really, of doing it. and not parties and putting on a black tie. but presumably bums on seats is also a reward. you care about drawing an audience for your films. absolutely, and the films have always been financially viable and successful, otherwise, you know, if we did two films that lost money on the trot, we'd be out. it interests me that right now, some of the greatest filmmakers of the sort of hollywood scene of the last 50 years, martin scorsese, stephen spielberg, they're all slagging off the franchise movies, the superhero movies, saying that they're extremely — sort of corrosive to the movie business.

but in the end, they're the films that win huge audiences right around the world. do you have a problem with those purely entertainment, escapist—driven movies? well, i think on the list of priorities to be concerned about, that comes down fairly low. because there are such big issues that people face. but if you care about the cinema, you want the cinema to... well, an analogy i have tried to use before, the cinema should be like a library. you should have all the diversity of a library in it. because films and images and sound arejust a medium, and you can do anything. you can tell documentaries, you can capture reality, you could tell fictional stories. all kinds, all kinds. so the problem with cinema is it is the equivalent of a small shelf of airport novels. and compared to what it could be, and also, the films that are made across the world but we never see, the problem within the cinema, it is notjust the superhero films, i mean, i don't know, i never see them.

but it's the use of the medium, and enabling people to enjoy the rich diversity of which it's capable, and the rich diversity of films that are already being made. and we never see them. and you're a part of what diversity there is, and you have been for 50 years. does it matter to you that your films, in some way or other, have made a difference? because they're clearly movies with messages. and do you care about the degree to which those messages have moved people and changed people? yes, "message" sounds like something you can reduce to a couple of sentences. you can't. i hope you can't. i know, certainly the complexity of paul's writing, you can't reduce

to two sentences. so it matters that, yes, people are touched. it matters that they are engaged emotionally and also intellectually, or in their ideas. because otherwise we failed. so if they are engaged, and then, what happens when they leave the cinema, it's up to them. if they feel, hey, i can do something about this, and i need to be in my union, i need to get involved in this community, i need to support this action, or i can be involved in, you know, in the extreme, in a political party, that's great. but first of all, it's just reaching out and saying, hey, this is happening, what do you think? and i don't get the impression from our conversation that you have any intention of declaring another retirement from filmmaking? well, it's like football. when you get old, you've got to take each game as it comes, really. ken loach, we'll have you back after the next movie. thank you so much

for being on hardtalk. 0k, alright, stephen. thank you. hello once again. after so much wet weather in recent weeks, it looks as though wednesday for much of the british isles is going to start at least on a drier, brighter, colder note, although there's no disguising the fact there is in fact another set of fronts to bring some rain to western areas later in the day. but it's a cold, crisp start, a frosty one for many northern parts

of the british isles. a run of showers over the north sea through south—west scotland to the north of england. but as you see, even on into the afternoon, many central and eastern areas will end up with a dry, sunny but not overly warm day. temperatures down into single figures. where we will see a significant change through the afternoon is rain getting into northern ireland, wales and the south—west of england. and just be advised that, in the more intense bursts over the moors of the south—west and the brecon beacons, you could well end up with a covering of snow. here we are on into thursday. that same band of weather's still producing an awful lot of rain across the southern counties, and as the day progresses, so this more southern feature is joined by a more northern feature. and that's the concern, because the rain looks set to return to some of the flood—affected areas. there are already met office warnings out and available on our website. from thursday on into friday, the big area of low pressure still close by over the near continent, and it's still a north to north—easterly feed off a cold north sea that will generate an awful lot of cloud across the greater part of england,

wales, maybe the southern parts of scotland too. and enough about the cloud for there to be the odd bit and piece of rain. the best of the sunshine across much of northern and western scotland, through northern ireland, the western side of wales, maybe down into the west country as well. but again, it is a cold, and underneath those weather fronts a miserable, dank sort of day. here we are at the start of the weekend. what's changed ? really, not very much at all. the low pressure ever closer towards the south—eastern quarter. still the onshore feed into the eastern side of the british isles, still the suggestion of enough cloud for there to be bits and pieces of rain falling from that. no great intensity, but of course, any rain into some areas is really not very welcome at all. here we are as far ahead as sunday. no signs of mild air creeping its way towards british isles, so sunday is another dank, chilly sort of day. the best of the sunshine perhaps behind a more westerly feature here, out into parts of northern ireland, and still that stripe of thicker cloud all the way from

the north—east of england down through wales, the midlands and on towards the south—west. and again, single figures are the order of the day. so further rain to come, some hill snow, often windy, and a bit cold too.

i'm mariko 0i in singapore, the headlines: in hong kong, police warn that the rule of law is ‘on the brink of total collapse' as the violence intensifies. conditions are about as bad as they can get across much of eastern australia as ferocious bushfires reach sydney's suburbs. i'm maryam moshiri in london. also in the programme: australia's highest court agrees to give cardinal george pell a final chance to challenge his child sexual abuse conviction. and this is one of the most polluted rivers in the philippines — we meet the 13—year—old boy who scavenges for plastic