FOR Ken Loach, the real meaning of the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day will be buried in official channels.

“For the Establishment it’s all about waving the flag, running Churchill speeches on replay,” he says.

“They care less that this was the day of our victory over fascism — after all, the Establishment was quite happy to co-operate with fascism in Spain.

“But the left should celebrate not only that fascism was defeated, which of course it was, but the achievements of 1945 that sprang from our victory. The huge collective effort to win the war turned into a huge collective effort to win the peace — the effort that led to the birth of the NHS, the welfare state.”

This is the story Loach told in his iconic film The Spirit of ‘45.

“So it’s a day to celebrate but also a day to remember what we’ve lost. Because 1945 also led to the creation of a national transport system, public ownership of water and energy, achievements that were later consciously destroyed by the very people who will be leading the cheering today.”

Popular histories of the war often present the postwar election of a Labour government as an anomaly. Echoing the election slogan of the Tories in 1945 — “Don’t let HIM down,” a reference to war leader Churchill — Britain is sometimes depicted as quixotically rejecting the heroic prime minister who led it to victory.

But the second world war was a people’s war and one which ended with a popular determination that things should never be the same again, Loach believes.

“That was clearly a response to the terrible depression of the 1930s, the labour movement defeats of the 1920s, especially the General Strike; the period of mass unemployment, dole queues, soup kitchens. The ’30s were a decade of poverty and defeat, one during which the Establishment appeased fascism and even Labour, as a party, was not very vocal against it.

“So there was a mood not to go back to the ’30s, but also because the war had been such a united effort, parts of the left’s programme seemed obvious next steps.

“Between 1939-45 the state had had to take control of industries and utilities in order to be efficient, Labour had been in government alongside the Conservatives. Parts of the blueprint were already in place.

“That helped but also led to some of the drawbacks of the ’45 government — that it left the bulk of the economy in private hands, and fed into the top-down model which public ownership took. But it was still a magnificent achievement.”

The Spirit of ’45 took on a special significance for the left during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of Labour, as it depicted the kind of radical reforming government many hoped he would lead. Has that moment passed?

“The election and the loss of Jeremy as leader are setbacks, undoubtedly. It should be obvious now that the biggest obstacle to progress is the right wing of the Labour Party — Jeremy and John McDonnell put forward a very moderate programme, and even before they had done that the grandees in Parliament said they weren’t having it — and set out to make sure it failed.

“Now the leaked documents from the internal investigation have shown us details of the way Jeremy was sabotaged inside Labour HQ, exposing behaviour that is disgusting beyond words.

“And the fact that there have been no suspensions tells you all you want to know about the direction of the new leadership.

“Why did we lose the election? Very often there is a split between people’s needs and public consciousness. Since

“Thatcher we have it drilled into us that we have to pursue individual rather than collective interests — we have TV programmes on how to start a business, how ruthless you have to be and so on. The idea of capitalism is very strong.

“Yet the reality of capitalism is very weak. It can’t deal with emergencies because it can’t plan. You can’t plan what you don’t own, and that’s becoming obvious in the current crisis.

“Some of us have long memories and we remember policies like In Place of Strife, where social democrats tried to control wages. But the lesson was that you can’t manage capitalism.

“We’re in a place now where there’s a big gap between what people need and what capitalism can provide — when it comes to the environment, secure work, homes or healthcare.

“A basic life of dignity and security is now what we used to call a “transitional demand” — because the system can’t provide it.

“Whether this health crisis, in which people are finding that they do have to come together, will be enough to prompt significant change I don’t know. But it should be a massive opportunity for us to demonstrate why radical policies are needed.

“We should always start with what people need, and when we come to how we get them what they need, the answers start looking quite radical. Not because we are nostalgic for the government of 1945. But because when we start from people’s needs we go on to look at the economic and political structures that could satisfy them.”