Ken Loach

My mum was a peacemaker, and in personal things I tend to do that, because I can't deal with personal conflict. I find that horrible.

If you're a politician, you can see there might be times when, to secure the greater good, you have to take a backwards step. That is a matter of tactics.

Bath was dusty and a little shabby when we moved here. It did look its age and you felt its history in its streets and buildings and little alleyways. The sense of the past was palpable. There were some bad modern buildings but there was a patina of age.

People talk about Thatcherism all the time. I felt it was important to record the memories of those almost written out of history who upheld the spirit of '45.

There has been no more principled opposition to racism than Jeremy Corbyn: he was getting arrested for protesting against Apartheid when the rest of them were doing deals and calling Nelson Mandela a terrorist.

It's time to put back on the agenda the importance of public ownership and public good, the value of working together collaboratively, not in competition.

If we believe in the free market, then that leads to the big corporations taking power, that leads to this competition to lower wages, and that leads to precarious work.

The old Craven Cottage stadium at Fulham, before they built the river stand; that was a great place to watch football. When the football wasn't very good, people used to turn around and watch the boats on the river.

We made 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley' about the war of independence and the civil war, which were the pivotal moments of Irish history, really. 'Jimmy's Hall' would seem to be a smaller story 10 years later.

We have to defend the migrant workers and give them our support and demand that they have the rights that workers here have from day one, but absolutely hate the system that forces people to leave their country, leave their homes, leave their families, to go somewhere else to be exploited.

If you have a society where a large section believe they are not part of the political discourse, that is a situation for trouble.

If you think back to the great French directors it's difficult to think of British film-makers who are comparable.