Does Michael Gove need spelling lessons?

The conference is over but the mystery continues: are the Tories trying to help hardworking people or hard-working people? This, I assure you, has been the talk of the town, which is covered in slogans about ‘hardworking people’.

Mr Steerpike was unsure; so, having left his trusty copy of Chambers in London, he asked the education secretary, who he found skulking in the media centre after the PM’s speech, to adjudicate. Michael Gove was an unequivocal; an error had been made. ‘Austerity! We cannot even afford a hyphen,’ he quipped.

Your correspondent thought that settled it. ‘You can trust Gove with spelling,’ he believed. But, alas, on returning home Mr S found that Chambers says… ‘hardworking’. Please, no one tell the Guardian.

PS: Mr Gove and his team were spotted on the train back down from Manchester. ‘The struggle continues,’ the wannabe Tory leader told me. From First Class.