Some ideas for avoiding mass unemployment ; and a first move toward a federal Britain.

I hope that nobody (except for the Panglossian Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, and perhaps his colleagues) need convincing that the world faces an extremely severe economic crisis. The British economy has already been weakened by the self-inflicted wounds of needless austerity and self-deluded Brexit. Here are my tentative suggestions for overcoming the very real probability of mass unemployment:

The following are emergency short-term ideas:

1.) Extend the furlough scheme, but combine it with targeted re-training grants, to encourage workers to move in to sectors of the economy which will be encouraged to grow.

2.) A significant increase in benefits for the unemployed. This will help to sustain consumer demand. Of course, this entails abandonment of the cruel and inhumane fiction that such benefits encourage the 'workshy.' The policy implication of this is that Universal Credit, which has inflicted so much needless misery on so many of the most vulnerable, will have to be abolished, and replaced by benefits which avoid punishment of the poor for being poor. As the economist J. K. Galbraith said many years ago in 'The Culture of Contentment' (1992), there are a number of people in any society, who, for whatever reason, will not be able to work, and one can ascertain the quality of a society by its treatment of its most vulnerable members.

3.) As the virus is still very much a threat (whatever the government may assert) local authorities and local directors of public health urgently need to take control of testing and contact tracing in their area, and need to have access to all the data resulting from this activity. Only then can local companies plan properly, and only then will local authorities be able to respond promptly to virus outbreaks. The absurd and dangerous debacle of Leicester, in which central government attempted to make decisions for Leicester without consulting the local authority, must never be allowed to happen again. Local authorities must have the powers and resources to take decisions, in consultation with central government. But local government must be in the 'driving seat', in this, as in so many other areas. This would be a first tentative move toward decentralised government.

4.) There should be immediate help for young people facing unemployment, in the form of guaranteed high-quality training (through further education colleges and high quality apprenticeships). This should be accompanied by the reintroduction of educational maintenance grants and a substantial increase in funding for further education colleges.

The following are medium and long-term ideas. Together these form a coherent strategy for economic development involving local partnerships and the return of powers to local authorities of which they have been deprived, step by step, over the past seventy years.

First, local authorities and metropolitan mayors should devise plans for local economic development to central government. When these had been agreed, local authorities would be given the powers and resources to implement these plans. These plans would have to include a significant element of a 'Green New Deal', to encourage the development of environmental technologies, and projects such as mass home insulation.

Second, in order to finance these plans, the Business Investment Bank should be given a substantial injection of capital. Regional and local branches of the BIB should be instituted, and would work closely with local and metropolitan authorities to implement these plans. Regional assemblies would monitor the progress of these.

Third, there would be a new constitution for local authorities, which would entrench their new powers in law. Substantial new powers and resources over social housing plans and public health would be added, together with powers for municipal ownership of, or municipal stakes, in public utilities. This would be a substantial step toward a decentralised, and perhaps, in time, a federal, Britain, and would give them further powers to influence economic development in their areas.

Those companies in receipt of loans would have to fulfill targets on environmental sustainability and workforce diversity. Trade union recognition would be mandatory. Those companies above a certain size would have to include worker representatives on their boards.

Fourth, even though we are due to leave the European Union, we would still have access to the funds of the European Investment Bank, as former prime minister Gordon Brown pointed out in 'The Observer' last week.

As far as the international dimension is concerned, the government should abandon the ridiculous self-delusion of 'Global Britain' and aim to become a good global citizen, in co-operation with others. Our responsibility does not stop with funding a vaccine and other medicines, important though that is. We need to ensure, working with the EU, that the International Monetary Fund ensures permanent cancellation of debts for the poorest countries, and with the World Bank to ensure that there is a flow of funds to the poorest for economic reconstruction. The prospect facing the vast majority of the world's population is not just bleak, it is horrifying.

These measures would amount to the beginnings of a global New Deal. Johnson's proposals for new school and hospital construction (although such buildings may well be needed) are irrelevant to this purpose, and do not answer to the urgency of this crisis. (I admit, although, that it may well be welcome to those construction companies who are major donors to the Conservative Party). He may delude himself that he is emulating Franklin Roosevelt. Johnson's description of himself as a historian (at least, of anything which is not ancient history) may well be one of his many delusions.

It may well be objected that we cannot afford to do this. we can, for the following reasons: First, the costs of not doing anything are far greater. Second, investment of the environmental industries of the future will reap enormous rewards in the future. Third, interest rates are low, and have no prospect of increasing in the foreseeable future. Fourth, Britain has accumulated massive borrowings in the past, and it has manged to cope with them (we have had other, unrelated economic problems). Fifth, if other countries were practising 'global Keynesianism', and therefore also borrowing, there would be no nation state which currency speculators could favour, because they would all be in the same position, more or less. Sixth, the world could take John Maynard Keynes' proposal off its dusty shelf for the International Monetary Fund to penalise those countries which had accumuakted surpluses and redistribute them. This would be the first step to a global currency, which would eliminate currency speculators. Seventh, taxation has to be examined again, not just as a revenue raising activity, although this will be essential. It has to promote certain social goals. A land tax could, if designed properly, encourage property developers to build social housing. Corporation tax could encourage companies to develop their workforces, and to develop policies of environmental and community responsibility.

These ideas, unlike Johnson's, would be truly (to use an over-used word), 'transformative.'