Brown Academies?

The media have jumped on Gordon Brown's suggestions that he would "continue to support and finance" academy school as evidence that education policy will continue in the same way under a Brown government. I am not sure that follows, however.

The statement is distinctly lukewarm when compared to Tony Blair's messianic zeal for the unproven, expensive wastes of public money. After all, what is Mr Brown's alternative? To refuse to finance the schools? To withdraw all funding from them.

I'm not hugely hopeful about the direction of education under Mr Brown, but don't see his comments to The World At One as being particularly troublesome. I can even bring myself to hope that they indicate a slight change in emphasis...