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Gordon Brown will today stage a series of high-profile meetings followed by a week of regional trips in a fresh attempt to convince the public that his government is trying to mitigate the consequences of the credit crunch.
The prime minister will attend a meeting of the Regional Economic Council, jointly chaired by Alistair Darling, the chancellor, and Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, to review economic reports from across Britain and briefings on action being taken to tackle job losses.
John Denham, the innovation, universities and skills secretary, will also outline plans to teach workers new skills, including an agreement with the car maker Nissan to retrain workers at its Sunderland plant while they are still employed by the firm.
Brown then plans to embark on a whistle-stop tour of Britain, with trips to the north-west, the Midlands, Wales and the West Country, visiting factories and talking to business leaders. The cabinet is also due to meet in Liverpool later in the week to discuss the economic situation.
About 25,000 Woolworths workers will lose their jobs this week, and around 100,000 jobs are being lost each month, a pace that is expected to rise even further this year. Brown is holding a "jobs summit" with ministers and business leaders next Monday at which he will lay out more detailed plans to use public sector leverage to keep the economy moving.
With a general election due by May next year, the challenge for the government is to take steps immediately to create jobs, rather than bring forward by a year or two infrastructure projects originally planned for years ahead.
The government will be helped in its efforts to revitalise the economy this week. The Bank of England is widely expected to slash interest rates by as much as one percentage point, to an all-time low.
Brown's determination to be seen to be taking action will be combined with an attack today on the Tories from Yvette Cooper, Treasury chief secretary. Labour was stung by attacks from David Cameron and George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, last week accusing the government of having failed to tackle the recession in the UK, which the Tories say is now the worst in the western world. Cooper will counter Tory allegations that the Treasury is being profligate in borrowing more cash to create jobs and increase public spending and has failed to persuade banks to increase lending.
She will say: "Instead of helping people when they need it, David Cameron's Conservatives would turn their backs. Under pressure, the Conservatives are returning to the worst of Thatcherism.
"The Tories are repeating their mistakes of the past: if a timely fiscal stimulus of similar scale had been applied at the beginning of the 1990s recession, around 300,000 fewer jobs might have been lost."
Her attack is based on a Labour report which says that Tory plans, such as freezing council tax, would hit vital public services, while planned efficiency gains on top of the government's commitment to save £30bn would mean higher job cuts. The paper also says the Tory plan to underwrite every bank loan would be unsustainable.
Cooper's comments are backed by the joint general secretary of the country's largest trade union. Derek Simpson, of Unite, said: "Creating jobs while investing in Britain's infrastructure demonstrates that Labour are prepared to be bold and proactive. Under David Cameron the recession would last until Doomsday."
The Conservative leader plans to counter-attack today with a speech outlining Britain's economic future under the Tories and reiterating his warning about Labour landing the country in debt.
He will announce an initiative for "green collar" jobs and say that the Conservatives are studying a plan to give state aid to burgeoning green industries and create a market known as the Green Footsie to allow people to invest in green companies.
Cameron's intervention comes as a survey of more than 100 green technology companies by the Environmental Industries Commission, a trade body, found that Tory policies on the environment were six times more popular than Labour's.
The survey found only 7% of companies polled believe that Labour has the best policies for promoting industry growth, against 33% backing for Conservative policies and 19% for the Liberal Democrats' policies. Some 84% said Labour was not doing enough to support the industry.
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