The coalition’s new idea for more debt

How best to help British business? More debt, of course — varieties of this answer come time and time again from this government. This time it’s Lord Young proposing £2,500 loans for young people, copying a successful model of the Prince’s Trust. The latter point should give reassurance, as the Trust has quite a striking success rate.

But what would really help business grow is to abolish regulation on firms with 200 employees or fewer, to cut payroll tax — the ‘jobs tax’ as Cameron called it before he increased it — or cut corporation tax to the 15 per cent that (as Ben Brogan revealed) Steve Hilton proposed before he quit. You can’t really get a substitute for this supply side reform.

Clegg proposes giving borrowed money in regional development, Osborne proposes sub-prime loans for companies (what could possibly go wrong?) and now Young proposes microloans for people who don’t inspire the confidence of their bank manager.