A Question of Leadership

Shortly after Margaret Thatcher's election as prime minister, Ken Loach returned to documentary filmmaking, believing that the lengthy production process of feature films made them unsuitable for addressing current social issues. His trade union documentary *A Question of Leadership*, intended for national broadcast on ITV, was criticized by the Independent Broadcasting Authority for its overtly anti-government perspective. It was eventually shown a year later, exclusively in the Midlands (tx. 13/8/1981). Convinced that the newly launched Channel 4 would be more receptive to politically charged documentaries, Loach proposed the four-part series *Questions of Leadership* (1983), a broader examination of the trade union movement. However, after reviewing the completed programs' strong criticism of leading trade unionists, an uneasy Channel 4 reduced the series to two parts and considered pairing it with a "balancing" documentary by another filmmaker before ultimately canceling the broadcast altogether.