IRONICALLY, due to council cutbacks in the funding of local bus services, I first got to watch the Ken Loach film, I, Daniel Blake – which seeks to present a critical view of austerity and the UK’s benefits system – at my village film club.

Loach manages to portray his put-upon working class hero as exactly the type of ignorant “Leave” voter so beloved of the liberal left; too dense for his own good and the author of his own misfortune.

Blake, a skilled carpenter unable to find permanent work, is also a woodworker of rare talent.

The carefully-crafted wooden wind chimes that he fashions whilst burning the midnight oil are things of beauty and adored by a single-mother’s children.

A utility provider’s letter of “final demand” obliges him to sell the entire contents of his mean flat leaving him with only the precious tools of his trade and... one last, magnificent example of his wind chime work.

The buyer of his goods shows a keen interest in purchasing it and any more that he can provide. Blake declines the offer maybe, we learn, because he is in the process of completing an impressive and ornate floor-standing bookcase to house the prized books of his single-mother friend.

We are asked to believe that it has never occurred to Blake that his salvation, literally, is in his own hands.

His home-made artisan work is so desirable that it would fly off the shelves and provide him, surely, with a far better life than he at the moment finds himself living, but apparently, deep down, he’s as thick as a plank.

How stupid can you get?

It’s not as if he has given up the unequal struggle, the final scenes tell us that.

Loach appears to have lost the plot with Daniel Blake which undeservedly has gained him a cupboard load of awards including that of Best British Bafta from his usual sympathetic, fawning admirers. Britain’s got talent – but it needs to be fresher, younger, and more sympathetic and accurate than this.

Roger Gough

Stroud UKIP