Ken Loach

Those in power always try to distort reality, to suit their needs and keep things safe.

The European Union is an institution that is in the interest of big business, not the European people. So it's understandable that some people thought we should leave.

Jeremy Corbyn's election was the most hopeful thing since the Labour Party began. He's the first Labour leader who's ever stood on the picket line along with workers.

Preparation is really important for actors; they need to know who they are, where they're from, and the experiences up to the point that we make the film.

It seems to me the big weakness in most films is the writing. You can learn directing, but you can't learn writing.

There's a heresy which is perpetuated by film school that to be a great director you have to write your own stuff.

Jimmy's Hall' is set in Ireland in the '30s and everything that went under the camera we had to generate.

If we believe in the free market, then that leads to the big corporations taking power, that leads to this competition to lower wages, and that leads to precarious work.

When I was young, you were told that if you had a skill, you would find a job for life and you could bring up a family on the wage.

We have what we call 'fake left' politicians, like Ed Miliband and those who went before him.

History is for all of us to discuss. All history is our common heritage to discuss and analyze. The founding of the state of Israel, for example, based on ethnic cleansing is there for us all to discuss.

I've been going to Labour party meeting for over 50 years.

You always feel a degree of insecurity about getting through a film.

If change is to come, it must come from the working class. That's why telling their story is important. That's why knowing our history is important.

There has been no more principled opposition to racism than Jeremy Corbyn: he was getting arrested for protesting against Apartheid when the rest of them were doing deals and calling Nelson Mandela a terrorist.

Iain Duncan Smith and his regime, they wanted to make the poor suffer and then humiliated them by telling them that their poverty was their own fault and, to demonstrate that, if you're not up to mark then you're sanctioned and the money stops.

It's a great privilege to make a film, to have it shown, and for people to see it.

What the Labour movement is about is a broad mass of people actively engaged in a democratic process.

The Holocaust is as real a historical event as World War II itself and not to be challenged.

There's so much control, so many executive producers, so many people looking over their shoulder, so many people trying to second-guess the boss. The space for writers and directors and actors to be creative is zilch.