Brown shifts the agenda

 

A day of more economic bad news:

Property sales at 31 year low:

Saving rates at a record low; and

UK manufacturing falls by 12.8%.

 

 

Now Brown shifts the agenda.  He announces plans to shorten teacher training to six months.  It provides a good headline until you read the small print:

Education unions are to be consulted over the next few weeks on the details of the programmes, which have yet to be finalised.

Mary Bousted of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers:

We have fought very hard to make this a graduate profession and I have grave doubts that you can accelerate teacher training like this.

and then what we all know about Brown’s announcements:

I'm becoming very worried about the plethora of different gimmicks and initiatives the government is coming out with - this looks very much like back-of-the-fag-packet stuff.

Expect much more of this.  Brown’s options on the economy are starting to run out.  He will therefore shift the agenda in an attempt to paint the recession in a positive way by announcing initiative and gimmick after initiative.

It is all clever New Labour spin that will deflect the bad news with no positive results.