Blue rinsed love in

Here’s your update from the blue-rinsed love-in in Birmingham. Speaking as a school governor - of an inner city secondary depending on Building Schools for the Future money - it looks like Michael Gove has committed a schoolboy error by announcing 5,000 schools without costing them properly. The schools - based on the Swedish model - would be completely experimental and cost billions of pounds, probably taken from Labour's ongoing Building Schools for the Future programme to rebuild or refurbish every school in England. Schools Minister Andrew Adonis has said: "Michael Gove calls for 'straight talk' but it's time the Tories came clean about the true cost of their Swedish model. He needs to tell us what he would cut to pay for these 5,000 schools. Until he can answer this question, their 'free' schools are just fantasy schools compared to our 1,200 real academies and new or rebuilt schools nationwide."Labour has set up more than 130 new academies, built or rebuilt more than 1,200 schools, and employed 40,000 extra teachers, raising standards nationwide. "Nearly 300 extra academies are also planned and funded, and we are supporting parents who want to set up their own schools, creating a new generation of co-operative trust schools [like Elm Green, the first parent-promoted school, which happens to be in Lambeth]."When the Tories first proposed a few hundred new "Swedish style" schools they conceded they would have to cut £4.5 billion from our school building programme to pay for the capital costs. But the 5,000 schools the Tories are now talking about would cost many billions more. "Where is this money going to come from and how are they going to deal with the impact on existing schools?" Finally, we had to smile when we heard that Cameron was thinking about calling for a 'National Government' to help Gordon through this global crisis.Cameron is a man who has no business experience beyond (a) being a PR man for a TV company – a man the respected City journalist Jeff Randall said he "wouldn’t trust my daughter’s pocket money with” – and (b) advising Norman Lamont during the Black Wednesday debacle when interest rates went from 10% to 15% IN A DAY and £27 BILLION was flushed down the Treasury toilets trying to prop up the pound to keep it in the ERM. Thousands of decent, hard-working people ended up being plunged into negative equity and having their homes - their HOMES - repossessed. Thanks Dave, but I think we’ll pass.So let's get out there and turf these Tories off what we know must remain a Labour government's territory - providing better, fairer education and safeguarding the economy through the current turbulence.Please don't forget to register your email at www.gofourth.co.ukAnd take a look at www.labour.org.uk if you want more on some of the other reality-lite, cost-heavy Tory policy announcements from Birmingham.