Metro, Thursday 27 August 2026
Prime minister Andy Burnham has urged businesses to follow the example of Sainsbury's, which has announced 10,000 work experience opportunities for young people, after touring the supermarket's Nine Elms branch with London mayor Sadiq Khan. There are now one million young people not in education, employment or training. Burnham said education reform is required, but called for "employers to step forward and offer those work placements too." He praised Sainsbury's as "one of the biggest British brands out there," saying its offer was "exactly what we need," and asked other businesses to do the same.
Ten thousand placements against a million young people locked out of work, education and training is one per cent of the problem, offered as the template for solving all of it. Burnham's own words do the substitution for him: "exactly what we need" describes a single retailer's voluntary gesture as though scale, not kind, were the only thing missing.
A minister receives attention for announcing a programme. Few receive equivalent attention for maintaining one.The Performance of Obedience, Ch. 14
This entry treats a single retailer's voluntary placement scheme, praised by the prime minister as exactly what is needed, as an illustration of the manuscript's account of announcement standing in for the harder, slower work of delivery.