We need a better way to manage an economic storm

Inside Business: There must be an alternative to the government’s Thatcherite fantasy of disaster capitalism

The UK economy is at a crossroads with robots and climate change set to have a huge impact on jobs like this one (Getty)

There are a number of ways of dealing with the economic hurricane being whipped up right now by robots and the march of tech, climate change, and potentially the most reactionary and stupid form of Brexit you could imagine. Thanks BoJo!

Option one has been the default of governments of varying hues: you pretend to care, claim to have a strategy, manage decline. It amounts to hoping it will all work out if you hand out some disposable brollies to the people suffering the worst effects of the storm.

Option two is the current fantasy favourite of a hard-right Conservative Party. You shove everyone outside in T-shirts and jeans and see who’s left standing when the gale has blown itself out while watching from a comfy home fortified by your offshore investments. It’s our old pal disaster capitalism, a neo-Thatcherite dystopian horror show.

The TUC, in conjunction with the New Economics Foundation, has put together a framework for option three: work together to build a shelter and spread prosperity through doing that in its report “How Industrial Change can be Managed to Deliver Better Jobs”.

It might not seem like it from the less than snappy title but this counts as the height of radicalism in Britain, where option one, with occasional forays into option two, has been applied to previous disruptions leaving us with one of the most unequal societies in Europe, sharply divided between the formerly industrial north and the prosperous, service-led south, angry and ill at ease with itself.

However, when you consider that Oxford Economics a couple of weeks ago warned that robots will eat 1.8 manufacturing jobs for every industrial model installed, plus a good number of low-skilled service sector posts, combined with the increasingly clear and frightening consequences of a rapidly heating planet, it’s surely worth thinking about.

The report looks at three examples of where difficult transitions have been managed rather more effectively than Britain has pulled off the trick: Bilbao, in the heart of Spain’s Basque country, the Dutch city of Eindhoven, and Iceland.

All of them have faced difficult situations. The first had to deal with industrial change, the fall-out from the Franco years, and a devastating flood. The second had 60 per cent of its jobs provided by Philips and DAF, and like many “company towns” started to feel the heat as the Eighties offshoring boom got under way and production was moved overseas.

More people will be familiar with Iceland, given the impact the collapse of its banks had here. It was horribly overexposed to the financial sector and the results were devastating.

All three now look a lot happier than they did when they were in the midst of their troubles.

The report seeks to cherry-pick the best ideas from how they got there. It calls for a new model in which the state, unions and the market are brought together to manage change. It favours devolved decision making, and offering people more participation in it so they feel they have a stake. It also stresses the need for a social safety net so people feel secure in the areas in which they choose to live, investment in training and enhancing people’s skills so they are able to taken advantage of the new roles that will emerge from the coming change.

Reading that, I can see why some people might ask whether this isn’t just a case of calling for cuddles and hugs, asking whether the world be nicer if everyone was just nicer to everyone else.

Well, wouldn’t it? And what’s wrong with hugs.

But seriously, that’s the case. I refer you to the examples which show that, yes, there is a better way.

Britain is currently in a sticky spot. The report points to a potential route out, and a far better one than blowing everything up, which appears to be the option favoured by the new, unelected, Conservative administration that we’re about to get lumbered with. Given the dismal record of the alternatives, it might just be worth rolling the dice with it.