On Sunday, as he accepted a Bafta for I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach said his film told the truth about a callous Britain. “The most vulnerable and poorest are treated by the Government with a callous brutality that is disgraceful,” he said, “a brutality that extends to keeping out refugee children we promised to help, and that’s a disgrace too.”

A cause can be a worthy one even if it is supported by millionaire film directors. And Loach’s comments were only the most high-profile example of the widespread anger at the Government’s U-turn on accepting refugee children. Cardinal Nichols has described it as “shocking”. Lord Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, used the same word in a Guardian article.