I don't want my taxes wasted on commie film directors like Ken Loach

A report by the former Culture Secretary, Chris Smith (who I was at university with, but who was certainly not a friend) into British film funding policy is to be released next week. According to Will Gompertz, the BBC’s Arts Correspondent (he of the interestingly  eccentric hairdo) suggests that Smith will (as he always has done, to be fair) recommend backing individuals with commercially successful track records.

Hallelujah!

According to Gompertz –quoting an unnamed source – “the government wants to see money invested in movies people want to see, not luvvies who are your mates”.

Hallelujah once again!

On the Today Programme this morning, that ghastly old Commie ratbag, Ken Loach, treated us to the sort of performance which makes one rejoice that the proletarian revolution which threatened to engulf Britain in the 1970s was narrowly averted.

You can listen to the unpleasant old scrote here. If you're like me, and his voice gives you the creeps, just read on.

First, Loach claimed that Will Gompertz had got the story all wrong, implying that the reporter had simply swallowed David Cameron's deliberately slanted version of the report findings. Loach, you see, has talked to some of his leftie pals in the industry (that could be just about anyone working in British films), and they’ve assured their old mucker that there’s nothing to be worried about – he’ll be able to keep on producing his anti-semitic, anti-British, Marxist trash using my tax money, no worries!

The old blister then launched a charm offensive aimed at the government he’s hoping will go on funding his dreary turkeys: “I certainly wouldn’t trust Cameron’s dressing up in his Tory language about ‘mainstream’ and ‘entrepreneurs’”, he sneered. So that’s the Tory Party, the Prime Minister, the average taxpayer (we’re the hated “mainstream”, I presume) and those revolting “entrepreneurs” who createso much of the country’s wealth dismissed with utter contempt. If that doesn’t ensure Ken’s next yawn-inducing Marxist polemic gets a major donation, I don’t know what will!

“The second thing they could do is turn to Europe. The last Tory government pulled us out of Eurimages, a European organisation which supports distribution, supports co-production. That’s hugely valuable to British films. We need a European co-production fund. There’s all kinds of things we could do to release the potential of cinema. Cameron’s Tory version of this review which he has leaked himself will do very little…” At which point Loach was, mercifully, cut off.

That’s two more sideswipes at the Tories, and another mention of David Cameron without any christian name, honorific, job title, or even a sobriquet – not even "Tory Scum"! Cheque’s probably in the post already.

Of course Loach wants a European co-production fund – that would ensure that a collection of bien-pensant Euro-luvvies could decide which fellow-traveller was to be gifted my tax money. No wonder lefties love Europe so much!

Anyway, being “successful” (you could hear his lip curling) is obviously vulgar. “"People don't go into films to be entrepreneurs, they go into it - like people who write books or make radio programmes - to be creative, to be original, to have wit." Or to beat those of us who are forced to subsidise their commercially unsuccessful films over the head with the large-print version of Das Kapital while hectoring us in the style of a North Korean political re-education camp commandant until we break down and admit that what Britain really needs is to be turned into a socialist utopia run by Trade Unionists, where people like Ken Loach will actually be taken seriously. 

But the bit I enjoyed most was this: “Success can come at all levels if you make a modestly priced film that’s big on ideas and does quite well, then you get some money back to make more.”

Yeah, Ken. Big on ideas. What sort of ideas would those be, then? I expect you’d be happy for money to be spent on films which were pro-Israeli, pro-small government, pro-private property, pro-business, anti-welfare? Thought so!

The problem with the word “ideas” when used by the Left is that it's a synonym for “approved socialist dogma”. The only tiny fly in this dirigiste ointment, of course, is that the majority of those expected to provide the funding Loach and his ilk regard as theirs by right – because Ken and his pals hold the correct, enlightened views, you see - aren’t left-wing, and therefore think Loach’s ideas amount to a steaming pile of ordure. 

Actually, I’m being jolly unfair to poor Ken. After all, Kes was a terrific film and a commercial success. But that was 40 years ago. Still, it hasn't all been downhill since then. 2009’s Looking For Eric made a profit. £12,000 in total.

Whatever recommendations are contained in Chris Smith’s report, the government should turn round and tell the communist cell that is the British film industry that, when it comes to taxpayer subsidies, it can go and piss up a rope. Either that, or start making films that don't automatically start with the assumption that this country has never done anything right .