Stephen Twigg snaps back

Much of the talk down in Brighton is of the coming shadow Cabinet reshuffle. One person frequently tipped for the chop is Stephen Twigg, the shadow Education secretary. There’s much chatter that he might be replaced by Liz Kendall.

But judging by his interview in today’s Evening Standard, Twigg won’t go quietly. He declares that he’s not going to try to change the fact that most secondary schools are now academies and that ‘if further schools want to convert that’s fine by me.’

This is Twigg telling those on the Labour left who are opposed to academies to get their tanks off his lawn. He’s also making clear that if he’s education secretary after the next election, Labour won’t spend its time trying to reverse Gove’s changes.

But one thing that remains very unclear is what Labour means when it says that it won’t support free schools in places where there is a surplus of schools places.