Brown’s get-out plan

Is this the sound of Brown changing his story?  Seems to me he’s deploying a slightly different version of his “I’m trying to get other world leaders to follow my lead” theme.  Here’s what he said in a BBC interview earlier, explaining why the fruits of his financial labours will only start showing up in the medium term:

“What we need now – as I said this morning – is other countries to do similar things [to our bailout package], because this is a global financial system.”

It’s a subtle but significant shift.  The implication being that if other countries don’t do “whatever it takes”, then our bailout may not have the effect our Dear Leader expects it to.  It’s his get-out-of-jail-free card – only it may not work like that.  If the success of our bailout was and is conditional on the actions of other countries, then taxpayers may not look too kindly on Brown stumping up £400 billion of their money without getting other world leaders on board beforehand.