Theresa May has admitted she cares so much that she has not been bothered to watch the film ' I, Daniel Blake'.
This comes after Tory deputy chairman James Cleverly was accused of lacking "any sort of humility" over online comments he made about the film. He faced a barrage of criticism on social media after saying Ken Loach's Bafta winning drama was "not a documentary " and " a work of fiction."
The MP for Braintree later posted a lengthy rebuttal, saying that the welfare system is "far from perfect" the film is a "political polemic" that is unfair on Job Centrre workers.
The twitter row erupted as it emerged thre next pase of the Governments flagship welfare reform will be overhauled following widespread criticism of its planned roll out.
The BBC'S Andrew Marr mistakenly referred to the film as "I, Daniel Craig" but quickly corrected himsef, asking May if she had seen the film when it was broadcast.
She said " I didn't, no. "
He went on to ask her why she was delaying Universal Credit roll out. May replied. "Throughout the introduction of Universal Credit, we've been very clear that we would roll it out as a steady process, learn as we were going along.
"We've done that. We've made changes to Universal Credit as we've been going along. We'll be saying more about the future in the coming weeks."
But she insisted it would be rolled out by 2020 as originally intended.
The film focused on the Kafkaesque ordeals of a 59-year old widowed carpenter who puts up with health allowance benefits after suffering a heart attack, and is an indictment of an entire social system in which Britain’s most vulnerable are being thrown overboard by a cold and cost-conscious bureaucracy that received its marching orders from the combined forces of New Labour and the Tories.
Daniel Blake has worked as a joiner most of his life in Newcastle. Now, for the first time ever, he needs help from the State. He crosses paths with single mother Katie and her two young children, Daisy and Dylan. Katie’s only chance to escape a one-roomed homeless hostel in London has been to accept a flat in a city she doesn’t know, some 300 miles away.
Daniel and Katie find themselves in no-man’s land, caught on the barbed wire of welfare bureaucracy as played out against the rhetoric of ‘striver and skiver’ in modern-day Britain.
The movie's writer Paul Laverty has said the research team was stunned at how people with mental health issues and disabilities were targeted by the welfare cuts.He said people interviewed within the Department for Work and Pensions told them "they were humiliated at how they were forced to treat the public. There is nothing accidental about it."
The actress who played the young single mother, Katie -- Hayley Squires, who Daniel's character befriends, when the film originally came out slammed anti-welfare "propaganda" that she said has turned working class people against each other. "Normal people are led to believe that this amount of people are on benefits and are therefore scroungers, and this amount of people are going to work to pay so that they can scrounge." "They've left us to argue among ourselves so they can keep doing what they are doing."
I, Daniel Blake represents clearly our Governments utter betrayal of people in need, who just want some simple sustenance in order to survive, it exposes what is happening in job centres up and down the country. Sadly the Conservatives ideological destruction of our society continues, people on a daily basis are being screwed by the Tories, in complete denial of peoples need for dignity and respect..I look forward to the day, when we say enough is enough. Sadly as Universal Credit is rolled out there will be many more Daniel Blakes among us, unless this cruel policy is stopped and scrapped and we get the bloody Tory's out. Otherwise the human cost will be one of further misery and pain for many of the most vulnerable across the land, claimants pushed to the edge because of Theresa May and the Tory's conscious cruelty.
