I, Daniel Blake, the new film from Ken Loach, is about a woodworker who would work but can’t. After a severe heart attack, Daniel has been advised by his doctor to take a break from manual labour for the good of his health.

The 59-year-old widower should be eligible for Employment and Support Allowance to tide him over. But the authorities think otherwise, and shunt him on to Jobseeker’s Allowance, where the thumb-felt certainties of carpentry are supplanted by vague talk of clients and service users, and box-ticking rituals that have less to do with finding work than unlocking the next monthly payment.