I used to look down on people who were obsessed with animal welfare seeing it as just an excuse for avoiding the real issues in society. In retirement, with a dog of our own at the very centre of our lives, I have had to reassess that view. Visiting shops, cafes and restaurants now passes for a social life. I map out my route based on what establishments are ‘dog friendly’. Of course some just lie. The cafe that proclaims it is ‘dog friendly’ but makes you sit outside in the cold and rain should be done under the Trade Descriptions Act.
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The phrase ‘use it or lose it’ is first attributed to tennis player Jimmy Connors. Since then it has been applied to a whole list of things. Do you remember the battle over out of town shopping? Councils used to use planning regulation to hold back the tide. They have had to bow to the inevitable as customers opted for easy parking and access to multiple shops under the one roof. The ‘polo effect’ left town centres empty as retail flourished around the perimeter. Even that is giving way to internet shopping. Brave campaigns are fought to keep swimming pools, libraries, post offices, bank branches and local cinemas open. Their most vocal supporters are often those who have long since stopped using them. I come into that category when it comes to newspapers. I have always loved newspapers. I grew up on the east coast with the Scotsman and Edinburgh Evening News during the week, The Pink News and Green Dispatch for Saturday sport and the Leith Gazette weekly. It took me years of living in the West of Scotland to get used to the Glasgow Herald. Before I retired I kept the local newsagent in business with about 20 papers a week. Now I hardly ever buy one, and when I do, I flinch at the price. Thanks to South Ayrshire’s subscription to the wonderful ‘Press Reader’ app, I have access to hundreds of publications for free everyday. I even get a weekly alert that my Scottish Review is there for me to read online, which it has been now for the past 15 years. As you will have gathered, I tend to side with change in these matters. It doesn’t read so well, but I’m more of a ‘lose it and move on’ person than ‘use it or loose it’ kind of guy. The one very big fly in the ointment is, of course, the impact of all this technological change on the jobs market. Jobs won’t entirely disappear; many are simply redefined. But people will likely lack new skillsets required for new roles and end up out of work anyway if we don’t do something radical to address this. Technology has created more jobs than it has wiped out - ‘The Luddite Fallacy’. The problem is these new jobs might not seem very real to those whose employment is threatened by change. They may not be in the right area or require the same skills or experience, or be on a par with existing terms and conditions. One thing is certain. Very few of us will be working the 15-hour week that, in 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted would be the norm for his grandchildren. Too many are doing several jobs, for far too many hours, just to make ends meet. We hear a lot these days about ‘just transition’ and ‘job diversification’, particularly in relation to tackling climate change and defence policy development . Too often this is playing catch up to change already well under way. The trade unions have a big challenge here to make sure that the economic transformation needed to create good jobs to replace those lost to technology, AI and robots, happens at least as quickly as the changes taking place. It’s easy for me to spout about the ‘Luddite Fallacy’. Change is hardly going to impact on me anymore, and I can afford to be optimistic and dismiss the ‘use it or lose it’ mantra. But we will only know we have managed the change well if the one occupation entirely eliminated by automation is the lift operator.
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CategoriesAuthorAlastair Osborne is always left, sometimes witty and totally Labour
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February 2024
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