In the autumn of 2005, Tony Blair gave one of his most unhinged and fascinating speeches as prime minister. “I hear people say we have to stop and debate globalisation,” he said. “You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer.” He went on: “The character of this changing world is indifferent to tradition. Unforgiving of frailty … It has no custom and practice. It is replete with opportunities, but they only go to those swift to adapt, slow to complain, open, willing and able to change.”

In the hall, his characteristically messianic delivery ensured this argument landed, but anyone listening from one of the UK’s deindustrialised areas must have received it as yet another punch in the face. For decades, change and adaptation were what they had been living through and reeling from – but where were the rewards? Where, indeed, was any real sign of even the beginnings of the 21st-century prosperity Blair seemed to be offering?

Back then, even if it was the defining condition of whole swathes of the country, no one in a position of power really talked about deindustrialisation. Margaret Thatcher’s governments had already blitzed the relevant parts of the UK economy; as Labour politicians must, some of them paid lip service to an industrial revival, but nothing like that happened.

Crudely put, New Labour’s basic economic idea was to turbocharge the financial sector and use the resulting tax take to fund increased government spending and new jobs in the public sector, while most private-sector workers – who were encouraged to be “flexible” – were concentrated in services. Labour’s old industrial heartlands saw lots of money spent on new schools, hospitals and roads, but their lowly economic status remained mostly unchanged. The numbers eventually spoke volumes: while Blair and Gordon Brown were in power, manufacturing fell from a share of........

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