VETERAN filmmaker Ken Loach has said Labour must "stay on the front foot" if it is to form the next Government.

The 81-year-old director, who will speak at Durham Miners’ Gala for the first time next month, said the General Election campaign had given Jeremy Corbyn a good chance of becoming the next Prime Minister.

The two men will be sharing a platform on Durham Racecourse on Saturday, July 8 when an estimated 200,000 will be in the city for the Big Meeting.

Mr Loach, a committed socialist said: “We have had a step up but not won yet.

“If we celebrate too much we will lose the advantage.

“We have got to stay on the front foot. We have got to learn lessons about why we did not win the election.”

The snap election called in April resulted in a hung parliament but recent polls, which initially showed Labour were 20 points behind, show the party in front of the Tories.

Mr Loach said: “It’s a huge achievement for Jeremy Corbyn, for him, as an individual, after being decried for so many people.

“He has grown in stature in the public’s minds in the last few months and he is filling the shoes very well now.

“As well as his own personality, the ideas that are being put forward are beginning to match up to the scale of the problem.”

Mr Loach, who won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival for his film, I, Daniel Blake, which examined the impact of austerity and benefits sanctions on people in poverty, said the manifesto Labour put forward was ‘good start’.

He said: “I would like it go further. We have got to promote public ownership to the commanding heights of the economy now.

“What we are seeing is big multinational companies who will do a bit of everything: healthcare, provide trains, look after old people and children with health issues and collect rubbish.

“What we are seeing as a result of their dominance is there is more and more outsourcing and more and more agency work.

“There is more and more low pay, zero hours contracts and that whole shift in our economy to casual insecure work in jobs where you cannot sustain a family.

“We have to turn that back and the Labour manifesto makes a good start for that.”

Prime Minster Theresa May yesterday signed a deal with Northern Irish party the DUP to secure their backing for a Conservative minority government.

Asked whether Mrs May can survive this period of instability, Mr Loach said: “It depends how Tories see their class interests. The Tories have a much stronger sense of class loyalty than some Labour MPs so I think they will do what is in their best interests.

“I should think they want to keep her on for a bit so she attracts all of the bad publicity associated with the things that have happened recently, the tragic things and the election which was down to down her and the Brexit negotiations.

“I think they will want to pin all of that on her and have someone come in without all of that baggage.

“When they will do that goodness knows.”