“AGITATE, educate, organise.” Following the election, that classic slogan rings more true than ever as the left picks itself up, dusts itself down and gets on with the  job of resisting the Tory onslaught, in which the most vulnerable are bearing the brunt.

That’s why a film such as Sink, which points up the harsh realities of working-class life in one of the richest cities in the world is more relevant than ever. 

And it’s why the London Morning Star Readers and Supporters Group is presenting a special screening of it on January 30, followed by a Q&A with its director Mark Gillis.

The film, set in south-east London, has had excellent reviews, including in this paper. It tells the story of skilled manual worker Micky Mason who, after losing his job, is forced to work zero-hours jobs before being made unemployed again.

Faced with a seemingly hopeless situation, he descends into drug-running to survive. It’s a course of action completely out of character but the only way he can see of keeping his family together.

That bleak scenario is all too real for thousands, yet Sink has its warm and tender moments and doses of humour in what’s a sensitive portrait of masculinity and three generations of men dealing with losing control over their lives.

It’s about people trying to find their way through and its impact is up there with Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake and his recent Sorry We Missed You.

“I live in the area where the film is set and where there are pockets of people leading very challenged lives,” Gillis told the Star last year. “There are also the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf looming, seemingly at the end of the road.

“So you have people whose lives have been changed beyond recognition living in the shadow of the institutions directly responsible. They committed fraud on an industrial scale yet nobody has been prosecuted.

“If people who benefited so hugely from the system can do that with impunity, can we condemn somebody for doing whatever’s necessary to stay afloat?”

An acute question, which could provoke lively debate and maybe some action points on January 30.

The Sink screening takes place at 7pm on January 30 at Marx Memorial Library, 37A Clerkenwell Green, Farringdon, London EC1R 0DU, tickets £10 (£5 concessions) from mstar.link/SinkTickets. The DVD of Sink, price £9, is available from vivaverve.com and for download and streaming on Amazon tinyurl.com/y2oaf7ov and iTunes tinyurl.com/y264wead.