Starmer is literally worse than Hitler.Couple of other points to make:
Labour’s VAT plans blamed for fall in private school entries
Enrolments are expected to drop even further this September as parents are deterred by higher fees, which could rise by up to 20%
The number of children joining private schools has dropped by the largest proportion in more than a decade, new figures reveal.
Enrolments at independent schools this academic year have fallen by 2.7 per cent, according to a report by the Independent Schools Council (ISC), the largest annual drop since it began collecting data on new starters in 2011.
The body, which represents almost 1,400 private schools, said Labour’s pledge to remove the VAT exemption for fees deterred parents from committing to private education this year and predicted numbers would drop further this autumn. Experts say the policy could lead some schools to close.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/private-school-students-fees-closing-down-labour-vat-plans-06ndtdr9q
Just macho ridiculous crap. I had a case earlier this year. A woman who had been abused for years was giving evidence in a High Court case. I played the recording of a call he had made to her (whilst on bail) threatening her. She just could not stop shaking, she was literally as white as a sheet but she kept going. If you want to know what genuine courage looks like, ask her.Shows how little he knows. Women have - and show time and again - courage."...we've got to recover genuine courage. This seems to me there's only one virtue and again it's the whole attack (and women here will forgive me) on the classic masculine virtues, of which courage is the central one.I have a sneaking regard for the older, Christian (usually Anglican) conservatives like Peter Hitchens. I genuinely don't agree with them (sometimes vehemently), but I like listening to them because they know how to give structured lectures instead of "content". In that vein, here's David Starkey."...one of the things we have to have confidence about, finally (and again there's a logical reason for this if I am right) [is] that essentially freedom - that is the right of people to think act create make money in their own ways - is the actual foundation of human progress.
"Revolution and Restoration", Dr David Starkey, New Culture Forum 2024 Conference, YouTube, 54mins, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVa27KpH--U
(it's too long for a quick AI summary, apologies)
We need to leave people to be free. They will make mistakes but finally I suppose - and I may now be exhibiting absurd naivete - they will get it right..."
We have forgotten this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVa27KpH--U&t=2177 (approx)
Every other virtue is useless without courage. It is why I repudiate with passion the word "victim". I hate that word.
We're turning ourselves into a supine culture of victimhood and it's contemptable and it will reap the rewards which contempt deserves. But that courage has got to say the unsayable..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVa27KpH--U&t=2289 (approx)
That completely ignores the whole point of VAT which is that it is supposed to be levied on non essentials. It is a tax on disposable income rather than on necessities.The logic of VAT as it is currently is flawed and should be decomplicated. At the moment it seriously matters whether a Jaffa cake is a cake (no VAT) or a biscuit (VAT applies). That's just an introduction to the absurdities.Beyond the fact VAT may or may not destroy private schools, why should you not pay VAT on it? I am slightly baffled at the logic.Why do we not pay VAT on university fees? Why do we encourage certain behaviours through taxation and discourage others? Parents who educate their children privately are paying for other kids to be educated via the state, reducing the burden on the state, and paying to educate their kids (usually to a higher standard, a net good for the country) at the same time. The downside is the class based stigma, privilege and the way it turns some professions into a closed shop. Then again, the same could be said for Oxford and Cambridge. In which case, why not add VAT to studying there, but not to other universities?
My view is that we should be making state education so good private schools are irrelevant.
VAT should apply, at a much lower rate, to everything. There is no good reason for complex exemptions. All it does is distort markets, gives a lever to politicians to court favour, and make a living for accountants and lawyers while making smaller businesses a bit more complicated.
A higher rate could apply to pearls, diamonds, private jets and yachts.
There are two levels of PP - CLAs (Child Looked After, the current jargon for children in care or adopted) - get Pupil Premium Plus. The money is very useful, but as a parent you have to be very active in getting it allocated to support for your child; it goes straight to the school so the natural instinct for many is to subsume it into their general budget until pushed, because the guideance is woolly enough that can justify pretty much anything as supporting the child in question. A good school will be willing to use it for targeted TA support - two or three children in a class can provide enough funding for a TA to support them exclusively. With the general PP money, many of the parents of the eligible children won't be in a position to advocate for their child to get the funding, so it's down to the school being proactive and sympathetic.Ah yes, the other thing I wanted to reply to was about SureStart.What has been the impact of the Pupil Premium?
Oh yes, getting rid of SureStart was an absolutely catastrophic decision. Through being an adopter, sitting on the adoption panel, and being a councillor, I am aware of so many families whose lives were changed for the better by having this support in place - and so many children whose lives have been blighted and warped by the removal. The way @Cyclefree feels about Post Office management is pretty much how I feel about those who decided to kill SureStart..
Great header.Agreed, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest that we occasionally have thread headers that have nothing to do with politics or betting. In fact it is part of the Site's charm that its scope is broad and unpredictable.
Not sure what it has to do with politics but I'd bet on you as a father.
A thought provoking header for a Saturday morning.I am part of James's world from the other side - I work with fostered and adopted kids in school.
I like the idea of the difference between guilt and shame. The problem I see in the real world is that the vast majority of nasty/wicked/selfish deeds are never punished. The correlation therefore breaks down.
All too often in my job I see bewildered accused in the dock not really understanding what they have done wrong or why they are being held to account. Often, this is because this happened to them and they don't know any better. At least equally often, however, this is because they have never developed the moral or ethical compass that allows them to see that the consequences for their victims are as important or more important than the
benefit for themselves.
Religious teaching used to fill this gap to
some extent. The story of the Good Samaritan is one of Jesus's most important parables. He
was teaching his followers to care. How do
we teach this in a largely agnostic or atheist
society? Like James, I think that the answer must come in the home from engaged,
compassionate parents who understand what
they are doing and what the real lessons are.