I have just returned home from seeing the Ken Loach film – I, Daniel Blake. I came out feeling just like I had when I first saw Kathy Come Home way back in the sixties. The tears were there.
Ken is now 80 years old. Nobody is making films of such emotional intensity about real social situations and justice. Where is the next Ken Loach to stand up for the underdog?
This shows how political decisions are translated into callous, uncaring stupidities. Real people are caught up in the bureaucracy that dehumanises both the people who administer the system and the people caught up in it. Instead of treating people with human compassion they are reduced to numbers and points. The system dehumanises.
For anyone who supports people being forced off benefits, and the imposition of a system of deterrence, this film should be mandatory.
I am sure there are people who do not deserve to be on benefits. I am sure there are people who make a career of it. But in any civilised country the scale by which a society should be judged is the compassion with which they deal with the poor and disadvantaged. They are not numbers or points – they are people!
They should not be humiliated. They should be assessed as human beings and treated with dignity. There is real hardship.
This draconian, inhuman system is abhorrent. Ken Loach called it ‘conscious cruelty’.
Go and see the film and make your own mind up.
He was on Question Time last week and had more to say than the professional politicians on the panel combined.
I saw him. I think he is amazing. He is the conscience of the nation – such compassion and intellect.
That looks awesome. Awful, isn’t it, how it’s the same all over. That phrase “conscious cruelty” is a good description of our programs.
There seems such a double standard. People rarely get as worked up about the rich scamming millions off in tax dodges or insider deals but when it comes to the poor they want them hammered.
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
This is real.
Will check it out.
A sobering film Bumba!