Bickering big beasts’ sideshow is Tory skills highlight

“You have put words in my mouth that I absolutely did not say,” Amanda Spielman told David Willetts.

During a no-drama conference offering slim pickings on education and skills policy, this was more like it.

Spielman, the former Ofsted chief inspector who was quietly made a shadow work and pensions minister over the summer, had just delivered a damning judgment on universities from a panel called: “What should the Conservative plan be for tertiary education?” Too many students were getting little economic benefit from their degrees, some were bored and lonely, and student debt “hangs like an enormous sword over young people’s heads”, she claimed.