Ken Loach was amusing and angry when discussing the British Board of Film Classification’s attitude to his new film, The Angels’ Share, playing here in competition. The classifiers asked Loach to remove several uses of the c-word in order to secure a 15 cert. “We were allowed seven c**ts,” he said. “But only two of them could be aggressive c**ts.”

Paul Laverty, writer of the Glasgow-set comedy, also got stuck into the BBFC.

“‘You wee c**t’ is often a term of endearment,” he said. “But they transpose it as if it were on a public address system at the Royal Opera. They take it out of context. They have an obsession with that word.”

Laverty became more heated as the conversation progressed. “There are many films they have given a 15 certificate to that I think are full of pornographic violence or racism or cruelty that is not fit for 15-year-olds, and they show that with no problem at all, so I think there is tremendous hypocrisy.”

The Angels’ Share, which received solid reviews, concerns a group of unemployed Glaswegians who hatch a scheme to steal several bottles of a valuable malt whiskey.

“The British middle-class is obsessed by what they call ‘bad language’,” Loach continued. “The odd oath, like a word that goes back to Chaucer’s time, they will ask you to cut. But the manipulative and deceitful language of politics they use themselves.”