DIRECTOR Ken Loach has delivered a devastating knock-back to Tim Farron after the Lib Dem leader said he had been “energised” by the film-maker’s work. Mr Farron revealed yesterday that he had been inspired to enter politics after watching Cathy Come Home as a teenager.

The groundbreaking TV docu-drama showed how a family can be made homeless through no fault of their own. In his party conference speech, Mr Farron told activists the programme had “lit a flame in me.”

He said: “It made me angry, it energised me, it made me want to get up and get involved. And so I did, and I haven’t stopped.”

First broadcast on the BBC in 1966, Cathy Come Home had a huge impact and sparked the establishment of housing charity Shelter. 

Mr Farron said yesterday that “not nearly enough has changed” since he watched a rerun as a 14-year-old. Pledging his party to a target of building 300,000 homes a year, he said communities were still “picking up the pieces of Mrs Thatcher’s destruction of council housing.”

“We will not allow David Cameron to destroy that work too,” he vowed.But he also used the speech to launch a passionate defence of his party’s decision to prop up a Tory government for the last five years. Mr Farron claimed: “We paid a heavy price for our time in government but we did right by our country.” 

Mr Loach, who directed Cathy Come Home, made clear that he did not share a mutual admiration of Mr Farron’s work. 

He told the Star: “It’s a pity we didn’t inspire Tim Farron to be a real radical.

“Defending the coalition government is a betrayal of ordinary people. “Homelessness gets worse and worse and the answer lies in houses built by local authorities like Nye Bevan did in the 1940s.” Labour accused Tim Farron of attempting to “rewrite history” over the the Lib Dems’ time in coalition with the Tories. 

Shadow minister Jonathan Ashworth said: “The party leader may have changed but you still can’t trust the Lib Dems. 

“Only Labour will offer the true alternative to the Tories that families across the country need.”