Freedom of speech

And pricking consciences and raising awareness. That must have worked or we wouldn't still be talking about it and using it as a benchmark.

Cathy come Home wasn't about influencing votes - it was about influencing housing policy. Policy can be influenced whichever party is in power.

The film was shown in 1966, there was a Labour government, at the next election 1970 Ted Heath got in , so didn't help labour

( I bet he has really seen the film)

mcem X post

I'm surprised that he didn't see the film. I think that smacks of arrogance - there are not many films ( if any others) that are based on a person's experience of the benefits system and if it was an area where I was a top official, I'd have wanted to watch it, just to see what the 'opposition' were saying. An area of work I'm involved in is sometimes used in TV dramas and I always watch out of interest to see how accurate it is < sigh even allowing for dramatic licence> and to see what sort of message is being put out there and influencing maybe popular conceptions. As for the influence of films in general - over my lifetime I've read, watched and listened to many works of fiction that I feel have had an important truth within them - maybe about the human condition, human nature and relationships. Think of the Greek tradegies, many of Shakespeare's plays - I've learned from them and they've given something we should perhaps think about a human face . Top of my head - Grapes of Wrath, Middlemarch, Boys from the Blackstuff, Cathy come Home, Death of a Salesman, Kes. And just recently on GN some of us discussed how Unforgotten had so movingly expressed the life long pain and suffering that results from child sexual abuse.

Sorry - Cathy not Carol!

Carol come home made a difference!

These films do not make a jot of difference to the way people vote, imo. Let us see who wins Stoke-on-Trent, shall we.

Please do not try to patronise me, you fail miserably GG2

I know you don't get it Annie et al but you may eventually.

So at PMQ Paul Flynn should ask May her opinion on the death of Daniel Blake ?

It is a Select Committee's job to report to the nation via Parliament. This man (Devereux) is still speaking Whitehall Mandarin speak. If you want to know why people are voting against the status quo just listen to him. Yes, watching a film is populist but that at least makes contact with the people who vote. His experience, as he reports it, makes him appear to be in a government ivory tower.

He may have to remain impartial but he does have to report what he is doing on behalf of the current government. What he has done, by ignoring the aspect he was asked to comment on, was to represent a government that feels it is above the people who use the service. It doesn't bother me. If the current politicians and their servants keep doing this I imagine some of the EU governments will not be the only ones worrying about getting in to power next time.

Ankers
Paul Flynn is a Labour MP (a quite elderly one, 81 I think, with lots of experience).
Sir Robert Devereux is not an MP, he is a civil servant in charge of Social Security.

Sir Robert was in front of the Select Committee was questioned by Paul Flynn who seemed to think it was a prerequisite of a busy civil servant's life to watch a fictional (but good) film made by renowned director Ken Loach whose films have a social conscience with a left-wing bias.

Civil servants are supposed to remain impartial and carry out the instructions of the Government of the day, Labour, Conservative, Coalition or whatever.

So it was a pretty silly question to ask Devereux if he 'thought he should see it'.

But he is talking to Paul Flynn?

I agree that people are waking up to the arrogance Ankers but, as a cypher for government - currently the Conservatives - I see the arrogance coming from Devereux. His reply ...

"... but I have visited many more Jobcentres than I suspect you or the filmmaker have and since I have pride in the colleagues I work with, I know something about what they actually do. I will just choose to differ on whether or not this is an entirely accurate representation. It is a film."

... is just the sort that makes people feel they do not count. He has no interest whatsoever in how it feels to be those demeaned by the service they are given. Of course people can understand the words used be what is incomprehensible is the way in which he answered - why would he do it in that way? The people on the receiving end of these services are not conducting an academic study and the film may well mean a great deal more to them. Devereux not only has no intention of thinking about them while he tries to put down someone speaking on their behalf but he obviously just doesn't get or intend to understand the world they live in.

Q282 Paul Flynn: I spoke to the man who made the film and he did say that much of the information in the film was supplied by people who work in your Department.

Sir Robert Devereux: Yes, he may well have said that. I have 75,000 staff so maybe a little bit of local knowledge might be allowed to be introduced to the conversation."

I am surprised at Paul Flynn. He obviously didn't think that RL has a patch on fiction.
If it wasn't so patronising it would be hilarious!

Thankfully, I think more and more people are waking up to those who use arrogance as a way to get people around to their way of thinking.

Just going by the comments on here, how arrogant of Paul Flynn! To think that his piece of fiction is more the reality than someone who is actually involved in the work!

To borrow a phrase my mother uses, but I dont hear very often elsewhere, "this sort of thing gets my goat!"

Yes, perhaps Dennis Skinner is the thinking mans Dennis Skinner.

Good grief, this was said , perhaps some will understand why I found Paul Flynn described as the thinking man's Dennis Skinner so amusing.

Interesting POGS and as you and ab say, why base any decision upon the contents of a film?Sounds as if Sir Robert Devereaux knows what he is talking about.
Just because he is a Sir does not mean that he is unaware of social poverty/deprivation.

GGMk2

'Mr Devereux immediately answered in a way that is almost incoherent to those having to make use of the system which, in itself, is pretty incoherent.'

I saw absolutely nothing incoherent in his answers to be honest. What/where is he being incoherent?.

Paul Flynn: Mr Devereux, have you seen the film, “I, Daniel Blake”?

Sir Robert Devereux: I have not.

Q280 Paul Flynn: Don’t you think you should?

Sir Robert Devereux: I am in two minds about whether I should.

Paul Flynn: As just an average MP, I thought it gave an accurate portrayal of the good work of civil servants, the ones who are kind and conscientious, but also the other side, the results of what happens with policy. It portrayed what all MPs, I believe, see in our daily surgeries, the suffering and tragedy that result from the decisions made by your Department. I think you would find it educational to see the film.

Sir Robert Devereux: I spend two days a week on the road, sitting with colleagues, sitting with claimants, listening to telephones. With the greatest of respect, a fictional story is unlikely to improve on my knowledge of how the system operates.

Q281 Paul Flynn: I think you would find it of rare quality and it gives a different point of view, but I would urge you to see it. It is worth an hour of your time.

Sir Robert Devereux: I have colleagues who have seen it and they have the same view, that the way in which some of the work coaches come across is entirely as they would expect and the portrayal of the Jobcentre manager—I have not met one who remotely gets anywhere close to it.

Paul Flynn: It is an entirely accurate report

Sir Robert Devereux: So you say, but I have visited many more Jobcentres than I suspect you or the filmmaker have and since I have pride in the colleagues I work with, I know something about what they actually do. I will just choose to differ on whether or not this is an entirely accurate representation. It is a film.

Q282 Paul Flynn: I spoke to the man who made the film and he did say that much of the information in the film was supplied by people who work in your Department.

Sir Robert Devereux: Yes, he may well have said that. I have 75,000 staff so maybe a little bit of local knowledge might be allowed to be introduced to the conversation."

But the film is how the writer sees it, many may agree with what has been written but it is a work of fiction and one man's views. Surely a member of a select committee should keep to facts not rely on a work of fiction

A large number of the population will see the film POGS and it will help form their opinion just as Cathy Come Home helped form a generations opinion on homelessness and how the benefit system of later sixties worked.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask the question " Mr Devereux, have you seen the film, “I, Daniel Blake”? It is partly asking 'do you see the system as those within in can see it?' Mr Devereux immediately answered in a way that is almost incoherent to those having to make use of the system which, in itself, is pretty incoherent.

If we are to understand how freedom of speech - of which we have a plethora currently - and see how it could actually mean we communicate with one another then we actually need, not to see the other persons point of view, but to understand why they have formed it.