Labour's jobs promise: the wrong sort of command economy | Simon Jenkins

The policy is too general – jobs need to be created away from the overheated south in the still-depressed Midlands and north

The old songs are the best, but it's how you sing them. Labour's proposal to "give jobs" to all unemployed young people recalls the command economies of the 1940s and 1960s. So too is the old Labour idea of paying for it by hitting the rich until the pips squeak.

This time there is a sting in the tail: if young people refuse the offer of work they will sacrifice benefit....