Well, yes Polly, let us learn from the past then

Polly Toynbee tells us that things are terrible - they are - and that something must be done. We’re not so sure about that, great fans as we are of the Reaganesque “Don’t just do something, stand there!”

However, there is at least some truth in this:

Young people face a jobless future – unless ministers learn from the past

Polly Toynbee

Polly then goes on to insist that government must train everyone, create jobs and subsidise jobs. As the Blair administration did which is her choice of the past from which to take a lesson.

This does, of course, run into the problem of train in what, jobs doing what, subsidise which jobs? The idea that people good at kissing babies - which is still how politicians gain power despite the social distancing rules - know where the labour of the nation should be directed is not one that passes, unlike dry and smiling babies, the smell test. Entertaining though Boris undoubtedly is, fervent and ambitious though many of his colleagues are, the thought that they know how many plumbers the nation needs doesn’t pass intellectual muster.

Thus, if support there must be then we should hark back to an earlier age, that of the Youth Training Scheme, or maybe that little further back to YOPpers. Yes, lots of mush about training and employment but the stand out feature was that it was possible to design your own path. Which many did, taking the subsidy, possibly paltry as it was, to start up on their own. Even, just to explore possibilities for a time - to self-educate about the world.

That is, to misuse a phrase, to allow the skills, enthusiasm and energy of the young to fructify among the populace, rather than being directed and thus stultified by government.

Or, as we often say, if subsidy is needed then subsidise people, not things. Sure, learn lessons from the past - but do try to pick the ones that worked Polly.