Embracing the chaos
Published in the Western Mail on September 18th 2017 The metaphor of the perfect storm has become overused, but it is difficult to think of a better one to describe the potentially calamitous confluence of a Hard Brexit and the disruptive destruction of automation. And that’s the context in to which the Welsh Government will this week launch its long-awaited new economic strategy. But as Rahm Emanuel - Obama’s colourful Chief of Staff at the time of the 2008 slump - famously said, you should never let a serious crisis to go to waste. Chaos offers an opportunity to do things previously unthought of. Both automation and Brexit will transform our communities. The choice we have is whether we try and shape these forces to support people who have been largely left behind by globalisation, or whether we try to struggle on to preserve the status quo. In the past our obsession with following conventional templates has meant we’ve fixated on roads, business parks and attracting foreig