PR Week Echo Columns

Another week, another challenge for Gordon Brown's first 100 days in charge. Pay staging rules, brought in when he was Chancellor, brought prison officers out on strike for the first time in their union's 68 year history. Brown was applauded by most commentators for refusing to back down on public sector pay staging, but received clear warnings that he might be facing a "winter of mounting discontent" (Times, 31 Aug) following the TUC conference later this month. Clashes between the unions and the Labour Government seem destined to continue to play a large part in the Prime Minister's term in office. A snap autumn election might serve to deflect some of the flak.

The prison officers' lot was portrayed more sympathetically by journalists than readers responding via websites. They are "undervalued and overstretched" according to James Sturke (Guardian, 29 Aug), but a reader's comment following The Sun's leader column showed little sympathy: "it's hardly rocket science walking around locking people up" (30 Aug). The Prison Officers' Association, despite making all the right noises, was accused of disregarding the court injunction "for publicity rather than strategic purposes" (Guardian, 3 Sept), but with more Government talks already planned the lid is being kept on a potentially explosive situation.