[Politics] Keir Starmer

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

you've missed what i was replying to, not the VAT, the suggestion to abolish all private schools. 600k pupils at £6700 (current cost per pupil) means potentially £4bn cost. minus those that leave the country, its a starting point.

Apologies. I don't want them abolished - but they should lose their tax advantages.

Also, they should follow the national curriculum. This means that private religious schools should not be allowed to teach that homosexuality is a sin, or that women are inferior, or any other twisted version of history that fits their particular narrative.

 

[dsr-burnley]

All they need to do is abolish their charitable status so they have to pay appropriate tax.

That would make very little difference. Charitable schools, by definition, are not profit-making.

The current issue is about whether provision of education should stop being exempt from VAT and become standard rated.

 

[beorhthelm]

Private schools are not just a form of educational privilege, but a way of socially segregating classes from a young age.
...

so no tangible benefits, just dogmas as part of the class struggle. people will find other ways to segragate if they wish too. lots of clubs and groups to be put on the abolish list.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

That would make very little difference. Charitable schools, by definition, are not profit-making.

The current issue is about whether provision of education should stop being exempt from VAT and become standard rated.

Eton had a surplus of £3.2million in its last financial year. It has been buying up land and wanting to build a village/small town (3000 homes)near Lewes.

Eton income rises to £62m; bursaries and scholarships cost it £5.7m

Eton College posted a surplus of £3.2m in its last financial year and income from school fees increased by nearly 4 per cent to £43.6m.

www.civilsociety.co.uk

Can Eton College justify creating a new town on an unspoilt corner of East Sussex? - Sussex Bylines

The founder of the ‘Don’t Urbanise the Downs’ campaign argues against Eton College building a new town on land it owns in Sussex.

sussexbylines.co.uk

 

[Stumpy Tim]

I went to state school, but I'm fortunate enough to be able to send my two children to private school. I am not against the end to charitable status for private schools, and neither am I in favour of it. I think it's a sign that Labour are on the side of the average person, but in reality it won't actually benefit anyone.

Firstly, the fees I pay (LOGS and Roedean) are nowhere near the £40k per child that I've seen mentioned here. Most schools have scholarships and bursaries and I am paying considerably less a year in total for both. Secondly, the reason these schools are charities is because of the work they do in the state sector - and there is regular contact with the parents about what they're doing in this area. In the need to cut costs due to the end of the charity status, these programmes will stop. So the full 20% won't be passed on to the parents, but state schools will suffer. Thirdly, once the Tories get back in power, they'll reduce education spending again - does anyone really trust them to pass on this alleged new funding into education?

Most importantly, private schools have this perception that they're all like Eton. This is utter nonsense of course. The vast majority of private schools are not elitist institutions funded by Toffs. Even at Roedean, the parents of my daughter's friends are mainly living in normal houses in suburban Brighton and Hove. Some don't own cars, most have two working parents. And for those who think private school kids don't mix with those in state school, you really have no idea. My kids do plenty of other activities outside of school, including volunteering, where they are friends with state school kids. Not to mention their cousins who they get on really well with.

 

[aolstudios]

Absolute hogwash.

I know of many working class parents making massive personal financial sacrifices to send their child/children to an independent school. Prices going up 20% will force many normal folk out of the market.

I DO hope Sir Kneel enjoyed his spell at Reigate Grammar School.

Reigate FEES

Reigate grammar had no fees when Starmer started there & although they introduced fees for some after that, he wasn't one of them.
But you knew that when you posted...

 

[Stumpy Tim]

I would abolish all private schools. 600,000 x £40,000 = £24,000,000,000. That would help with the solution.

Removing the tax break should just mean that these ludicrously overproviding perpetuators of privilege scale back their luxurious offer by 20%.

You do realise that isn't how it works? Ignoring the ludicrous suggestion that everyone pays £40,000 per child, people who do pay that amount aren't just going to put that money directly into state education. They'll keep the money and pay tax like everyone else.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Didn't the major 'privatisations' come after the 1983 election?

Yes. But it started in disguise and increased by degrees as part of one process. The 79 manifesto and what was being said by politicians in interview and in parliament did not map to the plan. The plan it seems was to flog of the family silver (as MacMillan put it - he was still around when Thatcher started her moves). It is clear from the 79 manifesto that the first targets were the newer profitable companies.

Yet at the same time the wider narrative was to flog off loss making industries, like the railways, and 'inefficient' industries like the GPO, so that business could 'transform' them (hand in hand with anti-union 'reforms' - some of which, like having anonymous strike ballots, were good as it happens). British Aerospace and other very early targets did not map to this narrative at all. We were being told two contradictory things, and the real agenda was revealed once the greed factor was found to be a vote winner. Buy your own council house at a knock down price, then flog it and go on holiday to the Costa del sol. 'Tell Sid'.

Ironically the inefficient railways weren't flogged till just before Major was booted out. The taxpayer bought loads of 'modern' trains to replace the slam door ones, and these were mothballed by Major so they could be 'revealed' after privatization, to make it look like privatization had instantly modernized the railway. Unfortunately, the new trains broke down easily and, on my line from Faversham, it was the start of the mess that has blighted us ever since - break downs, cancellations, coupled with service cuts that mean it takes 10 minutes longer to get into town than it did in 89 when I moved here. And there are often 'no working toilets'. And the new toilets still stink the place out (albeit less so than 20 years ago - progress!).

Lies.... cons..... short term profit from privatization paid for by long term harm to the nation.

Thatcher didn't have the desire to bring in needed controls on unions, which most of us would have accepted - she decided instead to create a toxic environment to destroy them - by painting them as traitors and then attacking them. Any fule can see that preserving Victorian industries just so that Yorkshire men in flat caps could live exactly the same lives as their grandparents is absurd. But there is no need to throw them all on the dole.

There was no need to keep attacking Scargill - just let him 'speak' and then ignore him. FFS. And letting The Sun run riot with its lies and manipulation, just because Murdoch thought Thatcher would do things to make him richer....it is no wonder people still hate Thatcher.

Those who made some money on privatization, and allowed this to fuel their confirmation biases are, I guess, the same people who 'Backed Boris', then instantly got 'Behind Truss', and who are now 'Supporting Sunak'. The sort of people that frankly I have no time for. None at all.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

That would make very little difference. Charitable schools, by definition, are not profit-making.

The current issue is about whether provision of education should stop being exempt from VAT and become standard rated.

Eton is a charitable school. Do you think it makes no money?

 

[dsr-burnley]

Eton is a charitable school. Do you think it makes no money?

"Non-profit making" in the charitable sense doesn't mean that it doesn't have a surplus. It means that that surplus has to remain in the charity and cannot be distributed as profit for shareholders or owners.

 

[Publius Ovidius]

so no tangible benefits, just dogmas as part of the class struggle. people will find other ways to segragate if they wish too. lots of clubs and groups to be put on the abolish list.

Yet one of the most left wing corbinite little red book carrier who is the most outspoken supporter of a class war, chose to send her child to a private school and when questioned as to why she did she said “ it was her choice and no one else’s” “ Hackney’s schools were appalling and not fit for her son”

“ I had to choose between my reputation, whatever reputation I have for consistency, and my son - and I chose my son.

"Obviously, inevitably, I have been very damaged by this. But as I say, I had to choose, in a way, between my own interests and my son's interests.”

Dianne Abbott

so one rule for one!

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

"Non-profit making" in the charitable sense doesn't mean that it doesn't have a surplus. It means that that surplus has to remain in the charity and cannot be distributed as profit for shareholders or owners.

But it still doesn't pay the tax that it should.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

"Non-profit making" in the charitable sense doesn't mean that it doesn't have a surplus. It means that that surplus has to remain in the charity and cannot be distributed as profit for shareholders or owners.

"Most private schools have charitable status, which means they are exempt from paying VAT on school fees."

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Yet one of the most left wing corbinite little red book carrier who is the most outspoken supporter of a class war, chose to send her child to a private school and when questioned as to why she did she said “ it was her choice and no one else’s” “ Hackney’s schools were appalling and not fit for her son”

“ I had to choose between my reputation, whatever reputation I have for consistency, and my son - and I chose my son.

"Obviously, inevitably, I have been very damaged by this. But as I say, I had to choose, in a way, between my own interests and my son's interests.”

Dianne Abbott

so one rule for one!

Diane Abbott is a hypocrite and not fit to be a minister.

Luckily, she never will be.

Sadly, the current cabinet is full of a different class of wrong-un.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

"Non-profit making" in the charitable sense doesn't mean that it doesn't have a surplus. It means that that surplus has to remain in the charity and cannot be distributed as profit for shareholders or owners.

You've ignored my post where I said Eton has £3.2 million profit in one year and buying land in Sussex. Why do they want to build 3000 homes? Where is that money going to go?

 

[Simster]

Diane Abbott is a hypocrite and not fit to be a minister.

Luckily, she never will be.

Sadly, the current cabinet is full of a different class of wrong-un.

What is hypocritical about sending your child private because local schools are crap?

 

[Machiavelli]

Grammar schools, on the other hand, were ways of getting children of different backgrounds to mix while at the same time providing an excellent education, as Keir Starmer found. (Though of course they too fell victim to the "levelling down" strategy of the sixties and seventies.)

Must say, you're doing remarkably well on this thread. First, there will be a brain drain (of children); next, 'levelling down'. What else of you got in store for us?

 

[dsr-burnley]

You've ignored my post where I said Eton has £3.2 million profit in one year and buying land in Sussex. Why do they want to build 3000 homes? Where is that money going to go?

The profit goes back into the charity to be spent on charitable purposes. It can't be taken out by any owners or shareholders.

 

[dsr-burnley]

Must say, you're doing remarkably well on this thread. First, there will be a brain drain (of children); next, 'levelling down'. What else of you got in store for us?

I'm clearly doing better than you. I haven't mentioned a brain drain. Are you sure you read it correctly?

 

[Machiavelli]

I'm clearly doing better than you. I haven't mentioned a brain drain. Are you sure you read it correctly?

Yes, you didn't mention a brain drain and, yes, I read it correctly. You said that, if private schools were ended in the UK, there would be a mass exodus abroad: a brain drain for kids, I'll call it.
If this and notions like 'levelling down' are your contribution to this thread, we can leave it up to others to work out who is doing better.