Corbyn’s stand-out policy announcement at the Fabian conference this afternoon will be a preposterous ban on businesses distributing dividends unless they agree to act against inequality. The Labour leader will say:

“Another proposal would be to bar or restrict companies from distributing dividends until they pay all their workers the living wage. Only profitable employers will be paying dividends, if they depend on cheap labour for those profits then I think there is a question over whether that is a business model to which we should be turning a blind eye. Too much of the proceeds of growth have accumulated to those at the top.”

Attempting to “bar or restrict companies from distributing dividends” until they do what the state wants is particularly communist even for Jezza. It is also completely impractical. This is what you get when your policy chief is a loony lefty glorified Twitter troll.

Corbyn will also attack the Tories for “balancing the books”, describing attempts to reduce the deficit as a “fake concern”.

“Their concept of fairness is of a very different order to ours. Fairness for only a few is not fairness, but privilege. Hidden among the fake concern for ‘balancing the books’, is the same hoary old Tory ideology – to shrink the state, to shrink fairness.”

Labour could go after Osborne for missing his deficit targets and completely failing to balance the books. Instead, Corbyn tells voters Osborne is balancing the books, and that this is a bad thing. Onwards comrades!