Brendan Barber: Britain needs Olympic approach to economy Brendan Barber said the Olympics proved that the private sector isn't always best and the market doesn't always deliver. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA Britain should replicate the success of London 2012 by picking industrial "winners" and embarking on an Olympics-level infrastructure spree, according to the leader of the Trades Union Congress. Brendan Barber said the success of athletes such as Mo Farah, Bradley Wiggins and Jessica Ennis showed that targeted funding could work if directed at sections of the UK economy. Speaking at the annual TUC conference in Brighton, Barber said the Olympics proved the "market doesn't always deliver" and vindicated the state's role in the British economy. "It's right to celebrate the Olympics, but it's even more important to learn from them, for the central lessons of this summer - that private isn't always best and the market doesn't always deliver - surely need to shape future policy," he said. We can't muddle through greening our economy - we need investment, planning and an Olympic-style national crusade. We won't build up industrial strength unless we work out what we do best as a country, whether it's cars, pharmaceuticals, or the creative industries, and help them do even better. Barber said the rest of the UK also needed an Olympic-style infrastructure boost, not just in terms of transport and energy but in new schools, council housing and a state-run banking system. The TUC leader criticised the chancellor, George Osborne, for offering "even more of the same" by refusing to rein in deficit reduction plans, with the target for eliminating the deficit already slipping by two years from 2015 to 2017. It was Einstein who said that insanity is doing the same thing over again and over again and expecting different results. Sadly that's not something this government comprehends. The TUC is expected to pass a motion calling on the organisation, which represents more than 6 million trade unionists, to co-ordinate strikes over pay, jobs and pensions. However, Barber praised Vince Cable, the business secretary, for "resisting the full Beecroft bundle," referring to reforms proposed by the venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft, which included making it easier to sack under-performing staff. Speaking at the weekend, Cable said there was already job insecurity in the UK and "we don't want to add to it." Barber added: "Frankly if the prime minister really believed in sacking under-performing workers, then why is George Osborne still in a job?" Barber said the UK was now becoming a country of "stratospheric inequality" with more than one in five adults under the age of 25 out of work. It's time to stop talking about the risk of a lost generation; they're with us now. He said the TUC's warning of social unrest in 2009 had been followed two years later by the London riots. I do worry desperately about the country we are becoming. What we are staring in the face is many years of stagnation. Our own lost decades. Barber ended his speech by warning that Britain was at a crossroads and "deserves better than this," with the trade union movement preparing to flag its alternative vision at the Future That Works mass march on 20 October in London. He said: "In one direction is decline, depression and despair. In the other is recovery, regeneration and renewal.