When all the state schools are at the same standard, then there is no need for private schools, as in Scandinavian countries. But the reality is that here there is too much disparity in the quality of schools by way of location. The most coherant argument against the policy of taxing private schools is that it will have the effect of driving out middle class families out of areas with bad state schools, thus compounding inequalities between areas more generally.
My other observation is that many of the cheerleaders of the policy are people who live in expensive houses in nice middle class areas with good state schools. But they are actually beneficiaries of the current system, and stand to gain financially from the policy - because it will increase house prices in areas with good state schools, given the declining viability of private schools.
Private schools will not have to raise their fees to cover Labour’s VAT raid on independent education, the shadow education secretary has insisted, describing claims that the policy would result in widespread school closures as “bogus”.
Bridget Phillipson told The Times that private schools would be “more than able” to cover the cost of paying VAT without raising the cost to parents or being forced to close.
She further pledged that the £1.7 billion raised by imposing the tax would be invested in recruiting and retaining teachers particularly in Stem subjects where state schools had struggled to attract specialist graduates.
The party released figures showing that about half of all computer science lessons at state schools were being taught by staff who had no A-level or degree-level qualification in the subject.
At the same time more than one in four physics lessons were taught by non-specialists while one in ten maths teachers had no appropriate senior qualification.
That frustrating moment when you realise the Opposition are just as clueless as the government about education.
There are many private schools that will not notice. Eton. Harrow. Roedean. Clifton. Cheltenham.
There are others that will certainly have to raise fees and may well go bust.
Almost all in poorer areas. Round here, Denstone may just about survive, but the rest won't.
Now that may be what is intended. And it's a legitimate debate to have although I think they're going about it the wrong way (you want to eliminate private schools? Cut class sizes in the state sector by a big number).
But if you take this blind approach to it then you won't prepare for the influx of pupils to a state sector already creaking at the seams. And that will cause far more problems for education than the existence of private schools did.
Exactly, Labour's policy won't hit the grand public schools like Eton, Harrow, Winchester and Charterhouse and Westminster where the parents are mainly multi millionaires and the foreign super rich.
What it will hit is smaller private schools which survive on a tight budget and whose parents are small business owners, police officers, teachers themselves etc who scrimp and save and avoid foreign holidays and new cars to pay the fees
Like my daughter's school - which has sent out a letter to all parents about the threat and it's concerns on the impact on the school, to manage expectations.
It's a downright idiotic policy, typical of Starmer's tactical triangulation rather than proper leadership, and means Labour are a clear and present danger to my family.
I've said before that Labours policies on private schools is unjust and a bad policy in many ways, but....
I have a dual national (EU) family which was never an issue when we were in the EU. I think Brexit it has cost my own family about £5k due to our circumstances, to secure for ourselves the same rights and freedoms that we had before by becoming dual nationals, and we were relatively fortunate. Others, not so much.
The fact is that this was never a big political issue because it affected so few people. I think it will be the same with labour and their punitive policies on private schools. It just won't affect enough people to be salient, and will appeal to a bigoted minority of voters. So it is just really a case of business as usual, sadly.
The difference here is that the Labour policy on taxing private schools is overwhelmingly popular with the public. Not a reason in itself to implement it (see executions):
Do Britons support or oppose Labour’s plan to remove the charitable status from private schools? (30 November)
Support 62% Neither 18% Oppose 13% Don't know 7%
Only 22% of 2019 Conservative voters OPPOSE Labour's plan.
Well duh. Most people don’t go to private schools and see them as a luxury for the rich.
Many people do have kids at state schools though and know just how few places there are, and don't relish a sudden influx of new kids. I think that polling is typical of the answers you get to a "haven't thought about it in much detail" question.
1) its red meat for Labour members 2) the consequences will only be felt at the age of 4 / 11 because except at intake points swapping schools results in your child in all likelihood going to the only school in the area with spaces (i.e. the worst one).
So the impact wouldn't be immediate but 3-6 years later
FWIW I would much prefer that a hypothetical Labour government focus on wealth taxes and taking the tax burden off income than mess around with something that realistically doesn’t matter that much (private school fees).
I just think some people who attended private schools and/or send their kids their are so out of touch with how fortunate they are.
Private schools will not have to raise their fees to cover Labour’s VAT raid on independent education, the shadow education secretary has insisted, describing claims that the policy would result in widespread school closures as “bogus”.
Bridget Phillipson told The Times that private schools would be “more than able” to cover the cost of paying VAT without raising the cost to parents or being forced to close.
She further pledged that the £1.7 billion raised by imposing the tax would be invested in recruiting and retaining teachers particularly in Stem subjects where state schools had struggled to attract specialist graduates.
The party released figures showing that about half of all computer science lessons at state schools were being taught by staff who had no A-level or degree-level qualification in the subject.
At the same time more than one in four physics lessons were taught by non-specialists while one in ten maths teachers had no appropriate senior qualification.
That frustrating moment when you realise the Opposition are just as clueless as the government about education.
There are many private schools that will not notice. Eton. Harrow. Roedean. Clifton. Cheltenham.
There are others that will certainly have to raise fees and may well go bust.
Almost all in poorer areas. Round here, Denstone may just about survive, but the rest won't.
Now that may be what is intended. And it's a legitimate debate to have although I think they're going about it the wrong way (you want to eliminate private schools? Cut class sizes in the state sector by a big number).
But if you take this blind approach to it then you won't prepare for the influx of pupils to a state sector already creaking at the seams. And that will cause far more problems for education than the existence of private schools did.
Exactly, Labour's policy won't hit the grand public schools like Eton, Harrow, Winchester and Charterhouse and Westminster where the parents are mainly multi millionaires and the foreign super rich.
What it will hit is smaller private schools which survive on a tight budget and whose parents are small business owners, police officers, teachers themselves etc who scrimp and save and avoid foreign holidays and new cars to pay the fees
Like my daughter's school - which has sent out a letter to all parents about the threat and it's concerns on the impact on the school, to manage expectations.
It's a downright idiotic policy, typical of Starmer's tactical triangulation rather than proper leadership, and means Labour are a clear and present danger to my family.
Talk about hyperbole and hysteria.
Again, as is so often the case, there's nuance at work. The general sentiment isn't so much anti-private schools per se but against the perceived (and actual) unfairness of a system whereby IF you have enough money you can buy your child a better education.
Every parent (in my experience) wants their child to have a good education because they know it opens doors and provides opportunities for them to have a better life (however you quantify that).
The current system precludes that because a good education, it seems, can only be bought and for those who don't have the means, the alternative is an under-funded under-resourced system, the products of which are professionally and personally disadvantaged throughout later life. That's a generalisation as we know there are islands of real excellence in the State school system, one of which is in my borough of Newham.
Now, there's an issue here about how we prioritise University education over for example what was once called Technical Education and businesses should be doing a lot more to develop apprenticeships and other forms of skill development via in-house training and education (or by getting together with other organisations). It's much easier (and cheaper) to send young adults off to University (where they can be indoctrinated in the ways of woke, sorry, channelling my inner @Casino_Royale there) then to train them, skill them and develop them to be an integral part of a successful high-quality manufacturing economy.
That should be part of the education debate but unfortunately like the housing debate the discussion becomes too narrowly focused and misses all the other aspects.
Private schools will not have to raise their fees to cover Labour’s VAT raid on independent education, the shadow education secretary has insisted, describing claims that the policy would result in widespread school closures as “bogus”.
Bridget Phillipson told The Times that private schools would be “more than able” to cover the cost of paying VAT without raising the cost to parents or being forced to close.
She further pledged that the £1.7 billion raised by imposing the tax would be invested in recruiting and retaining teachers particularly in Stem subjects where state schools had struggled to attract specialist graduates.
The party released figures showing that about half of all computer science lessons at state schools were being taught by staff who had no A-level or degree-level qualification in the subject.
At the same time more than one in four physics lessons were taught by non-specialists while one in ten maths teachers had no appropriate senior qualification.
That frustrating moment when you realise the Opposition are just as clueless as the government about education.
There are many private schools that will not notice. Eton. Harrow. Roedean. Clifton. Cheltenham.
There are others that will certainly have to raise fees and may well go bust.
Almost all in poorer areas. Round here, Denstone may just about survive, but the rest won't.
Now that may be what is intended. And it's a legitimate debate to have although I think they're going about it the wrong way (you want to eliminate private schools? Cut class sizes in the state sector by a big number).
But if you take this blind approach to it then you won't prepare for the influx of pupils to a state sector already creaking at the seams. And that will cause far more problems for education than the existence of private schools did.
Exactly, Labour's policy won't hit the grand public schools like Eton, Harrow, Winchester and Charterhouse and Westminster where the parents are mainly multi millionaires and the foreign super rich.
What it will hit is smaller private schools which survive on a tight budget and whose parents are small business owners, police officers, teachers themselves etc who scrimp and save and avoid foreign holidays and new cars to pay the fees
Like my daughter's school - which has sent out a letter to all parents about the threat and it's concerns on the impact on the school, to manage expectations.
It's a downright idiotic policy, typical of Starmer's tactical triangulation rather than proper leadership, and means Labour are a clear and present danger to my family.
I've said before that Labours policies on private schools is unjust and a bad policy in many ways, but....
I have a dual national (EU) family which was never an issue when we were in the EU. I think Brexit it has cost my own family about £5k due to our circumstances, to secure for ourselves the same rights and freedoms that we had before by becoming dual nationals, and we were relatively fortunate. Others, not so much.
The fact is that this was never a big political issue because it affected so few people. I think it will be the same with labour and their punitive policies on private schools. It just won't affect enough people to be salient, and will appeal to a bigoted minority of voters. So it is just really a case of business as usual, sadly.
The difference here is that the Labour policy on taxing private schools is overwhelmingly popular with the public. Not a reason in itself to implement it (see executions):
Do Britons support or oppose Labour’s plan to remove the charitable status from private schools? (30 November)
Support 62% Neither 18% Oppose 13% Don't know 7%
Only 22% of 2019 Conservative voters OPPOSE Labour's plan.
Removing charitable status is a slightly different question to charging VAT!
You undeniably have an issue where VAT is paid on a service that the government would provide free of charge. All depends on exactly how many people make the switch.
But what exactly is Labour's plan? Do they want fewer kids educated in the private sector? They could get tied in knots on this one.
It would be a problem from a revenue PoV if more than 20% - the VAT rate - of private school students drop out because of unaffordable fees. I believe inflation in school fees over recent years has been much more than 20% without that happening.
We should be spending more on state education. I could not agree more. One way of doing that would be to move private schools that cannot cope with losing VAT exemptions into the state sector.
Thereby getting the state to pay for the education of kids who were previously educated privately? It doesn't strike me as an obvious win.
The win is the school, its teaching staff and its facilities. They become available to many more people. If the school closes, the kids will move into the state sector anyway.
Longer term, if the UK is going to be dynamic and successful it will be through returning to the idea of meritocracy and hard work, not through building a network of who you know to maintain the wealth and power of the current families with wealth and power.
A little off-topic (though it's come up recently) but I've been trying out some of the new LLM models that have free demo's recently to see how they compare to ChatGPT4. Found WizardLM to be quite good.
"What is the likely outcome of the next UK general election?"
GPT4: "As an AI language model, I cannot predict the future with certainty, and my knowledge is limited to information available up until September 2021. The outcome of the next UK general election will depend on various factors, including political developments, the performance of the incumbent government, policy proposals from different parties, and public sentiment at the time.
To get an accurate picture of the likely outcome, it is advisable to follow current political analyses, track the latest opinion polls, and consider major events or issues leading up to the election. Keep in mind that political landscapes can change rapidly, and predictions made far in advance are often uncertain."
WizardLM: "As an AI language model, I cannot predict the future with certainty. However, based on current polling data and political events, it is likely that the next UK general election will result in a hung parliament, with no single party having a clear majority. This would mean that the party or coalition with the most seats would need to form a government with the support of other parties or independents. This scenario has occurred in the past, most recently in the 2017 election, and could lead to political instability and a period of negotiations and coalition building."
Private schools will not have to raise their fees to cover Labour’s VAT raid on independent education, the shadow education secretary has insisted, describing claims that the policy would result in widespread school closures as “bogus”.
Bridget Phillipson told The Times that private schools would be “more than able” to cover the cost of paying VAT without raising the cost to parents or being forced to close.
She further pledged that the £1.7 billion raised by imposing the tax would be invested in recruiting and retaining teachers particularly in Stem subjects where state schools had struggled to attract specialist graduates.
The party released figures showing that about half of all computer science lessons at state schools were being taught by staff who had no A-level or degree-level qualification in the subject.
At the same time more than one in four physics lessons were taught by non-specialists while one in ten maths teachers had no appropriate senior qualification.
That frustrating moment when you realise the Opposition are just as clueless as the government about education.
There are many private schools that will not notice. Eton. Harrow. Roedean. Clifton. Cheltenham.
There are others that will certainly have to raise fees and may well go bust.
Almost all in poorer areas. Round here, Denstone may just about survive, but the rest won't.
Now that may be what is intended. And it's a legitimate debate to have although I think they're going about it the wrong way (you want to eliminate private schools? Cut class sizes in the state sector by a big number).
But if you take this blind approach to it then you won't prepare for the influx of pupils to a state sector already creaking at the seams. And that will cause far more problems for education than the existence of private schools did.
Exactly, Labour's policy won't hit the grand public schools like Eton, Harrow, Winchester and Charterhouse and Westminster where the parents are mainly multi millionaires and the foreign super rich.
What it will hit is smaller private schools which survive on a tight budget and whose parents are small business owners, police officers, teachers themselves etc who scrimp and save and avoid foreign holidays and new cars to pay the fees
Like my daughter's school - which has sent out a letter to all parents about the threat and it's concerns on the impact on the school, to manage expectations.
It's a downright idiotic policy, typical of Starmer's tactical triangulation rather than proper leadership, and means Labour are a clear and present danger to my family.
I've said before that Labours policies on private schools is unjust and a bad policy in many ways, but....
I have a dual national (EU) family which was never an issue when we were in the EU. I think Brexit it has cost my own family about £5k due to our circumstances, to secure for ourselves the same rights and freedoms that we had before by becoming dual nationals, and we were relatively fortunate. Others, not so much.
The fact is that this was never a big political issue because it affected so few people. I think it will be the same with labour and their punitive policies on private schools. It just won't affect enough people to be salient, and will appeal to a bigoted minority of voters. So it is just really a case of business as usual, sadly.
The difference here is that the Labour policy on taxing private schools is overwhelmingly popular with the public. Not a reason in itself to implement it (see executions):
Do Britons support or oppose Labour’s plan to remove the charitable status from private schools? (30 November)
Support 62% Neither 18% Oppose 13% Don't know 7%
Only 22% of 2019 Conservative voters OPPOSE Labour's plan.
If Starmer confounds all your pessimism and wins a majority, is that really a candidate for second best night of your life? It’s not wether labour win the election or not BJO - you shouldn’t be happy even if they did, otherwise you would be a “sell-out”.
You need to be even more unhappy when Starmer has a majority and not governing how you want. Surely that’s your gripe with him?
A little off-topic (though it's come up recently) but I've been trying out some of the new LLM models that have free demo's recently to see how they compare to ChatGPT4. Found WizardLM to be quite good.
"What is the likely outcome of the next UK general election?"
GPT4: "As an AI language model, I cannot predict the future with certainty, and my knowledge is limited to information available up until September 2021. The outcome of the next UK general election will depend on various factors, including political developments, the performance of the incumbent government, policy proposals from different parties, and public sentiment at the time.
To get an accurate picture of the likely outcome, it is advisable to follow current political analyses, track the latest opinion polls, and consider major events or issues leading up to the election. Keep in mind that political landscapes can change rapidly, and predictions made far in advance are often uncertain."
WizardLM: "As an AI language model, I cannot predict the future with certainty. However, based on current polling data and political events, it is likely that the next UK general election will result in a hung parliament, with no single party having a clear majority. This would mean that the party or coalition with the most seats would need to form a government with the support of other parties or independents. This scenario has occurred in the past, most recently in the 2017 election, and could lead to political instability and a period of negotiations and coalition building."
These bots seemed amazing when they first came out but their limitations are now quite clear. The thing that I find alarming is their ability to come up with entirely fictional things. For instance GPT4 has been advising me with some confidence about about completely fictitious legislation including things that I can prompt it about.
When all the state schools are at the same standard, then there is no need for private schools, as in Scandinavian countries. But the reality is that here there is too much disparity in the quality of schools by way of location. The most coherant argument against the policy of taxing private schools is that it will have the effect of driving out middle class families out of areas with bad state schools, thus compounding inequalities between areas more generally.
My other observation is that many of the cheerleaders of the policy are people who live in expensive houses in nice middle class areas with good state schools. But they are actually beneficiaries of the current system, and stand to gain financially from the policy - because it will increase house prices in areas with good state schools, given the declining viability of private schools.
Though it will also disproprtionately increase pressure for places at thise schools. The biggest losers will be those about a mile from a good school who as a result of this policy can no longer get a place and are instead offered the sink school 6 miles away.
We should be spending more on state education. I could not agree more. One way of doing that would be to move private schools that cannot cope with losing VAT exemptions into the state sector.
Thereby getting the state to pay for the education of kids who were previously educated privately? It doesn't strike me as an obvious win.
The win is the school, its teaching staff and its facilities. They become available to many more people. If the school closes, the kids will move into the state sector anyway.
That's a fair point. There is an example of such a school near me actually (in Altrincham). Can't get into it, because you need to live within about a mile of it - so the already-good state provision in Altrincham becomes even better. But still. Knock on effects, and all that. I'm not convinced the overall effect is any moee than neutral at best, but undeniably there are some kids going there who otherwise wouldn't have been able to.
Perhaps. But Netflix do have a 'documentary' featuring a black Cleopatra.
I'm aware quite a few cultural depictions, in drama, art and documentary form, of a very northern European looking Jesus. No one on the right gets all het up about those. Funny that.
Seem to remember seeing a viral clip of some Fox news presenter being outraged at Jesus NOT being portrayed as white.
Megyn Kelly iirc. And black Santa.
He probably looked like a typical middle eastern jew of the time, very inexplicable.
When all the state schools are at the same standard, then there is no need for private schools, as in Scandinavian countries. But the reality is that here there is too much disparity in the quality of schools by way of location. The most coherant argument against the policy of taxing private schools is that it will have the effect of driving out middle class families out of areas with bad state schools, thus compounding inequalities between areas more generally.
My other observation is that many of the cheerleaders of the policy are people who live in expensive houses in nice middle class areas with good state schools. But they are actually beneficiaries of the current system, and stand to gain financially from the policy - because it will increase house prices in areas with good state schools, given the declining viability of private schools.
Though it will also disproprtionately increase pressure for places at thise schools. The biggest losers will be those about a mile from a good school who as a result of this policy can no longer get a place and are instead offered the sink school 6 miles away.
Yeah this will happen although that may not be immediately obvious when voters think about the policy. The latter part of my comment was more directed at some of the cheerleaders of the policy and their subconscious motivations for supporting it.
I'm not sure this doesn't help rather than harm Haley ?
DeSantis allies go to war with an unlikely foe: Nikki Haley https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/28/desantis-nikki-haley-2024-election-00094496 ...DeSantis is comfortably in second place in most surveys, trailing Trump but well ahead of the other Republicans in the field. But in recent weeks, he has lost ground, with Trump picking up endorsements from several Republican Congress members in Florida and with some major donors expressing reservations about the Florida governor. Two recent polls of South Carolina GOP voters showed Trump far ahead of the pack and Haley only narrowly behind DeSantis. A survey conducted earlier this month by National Public Affairs, a Republican firm co-founded by Clark, found DeSantis at 21 percent, with Haley at 19 percent. A Winthrop University poll taken several weeks earlier showed similar results, with DeSantis at 20 percent and Haley at 18 percent...
Haley seems like a much more plausible candidate to take on Trump than DeSantis. She has a proper contrast with Trump because she looks young and different, but also she negotiated the Trump era quite cannily and she can still appeal to people who liked Trump but think it's time for a change.
Also her state is primary #3, which is a good position to be in: The non-Trump field will probably need Iowa and NH to consolidate since there's one Trump and many non-Trumps, so it's going to be hard for any challenger to score a win over Trump until then.
Haley has about as much chance of winning the GOP nomination next year as Jeremy Hunt does of being the next Conservative leader. She also doesn't have the appeal to evangelicals in Iowa Pence does if you want a non Trump non De Santis candidate
Evangelicals in Iowa don't seem like a great place to fish for anti-Trump voters?
Iowa evangelicals voted for Cruz not Trump in 2016
Right but Trump wasn't President Trump at that point, he was the presenter of Celebrity Apprentice. And even there Cruz only got 28%, while Huckabee and Santorum totally bombed.
Trump isn't President at this point either and is in court
He's called President Trump, Americans are weird. I don't think GOP Iowa evangelicals are going to care about the court cases.
They might care and like it. Shows the deep state is after their boy.
Personally, I feel that public schools should be asked to take care of a lot more kids from the care system, to justify their charitable status. Not because I am against their current status, but because I think it would be a good idea. The care system is vastly expensive, and all it results in is that the looked after kids in turn have kids they can't cope with, who also go through the care system. Better to send them to Eton and Benenden for lacrosse and midnight feasts and they can one day be PM.
Private schools will not have to raise their fees to cover Labour’s VAT raid on independent education, the shadow education secretary has insisted, describing claims that the policy would result in widespread school closures as “bogus”.
Bridget Phillipson told The Times that private schools would be “more than able” to cover the cost of paying VAT without raising the cost to parents or being forced to close.
She further pledged that the £1.7 billion raised by imposing the tax would be invested in recruiting and retaining teachers particularly in Stem subjects where state schools had struggled to attract specialist graduates.
The party released figures showing that about half of all computer science lessons at state schools were being taught by staff who had no A-level or degree-level qualification in the subject.
At the same time more than one in four physics lessons were taught by non-specialists while one in ten maths teachers had no appropriate senior qualification.
That frustrating moment when you realise the Opposition are just as clueless as the government about education.
There are many private schools that will not notice. Eton. Harrow. Roedean. Clifton. Cheltenham.
There are others that will certainly have to raise fees and may well go bust.
Almost all in poorer areas. Round here, Denstone may just about survive, but the rest won't.
Now that may be what is intended. And it's a legitimate debate to have although I think they're going about it the wrong way (you want to eliminate private schools? Cut class sizes in the state sector by a big number).
But if you take this blind approach to it then you won't prepare for the influx of pupils to a state sector already creaking at the seams. And that will cause far more problems for education than the existence of private schools did.
Exactly, Labour's policy won't hit the grand public schools like Eton, Harrow, Winchester and Charterhouse and Westminster where the parents are mainly multi millionaires and the foreign super rich.
What it will hit is smaller private schools which survive on a tight budget and whose parents are small business owners, police officers, teachers themselves etc who scrimp and save and avoid foreign holidays and new cars to pay the fees
Like my daughter's school - which has sent out a letter to all parents about the threat and it's concerns on the impact on the school, to manage expectations.
It's a downright idiotic policy, typical of Starmer's tactical triangulation rather than proper leadership, and means Labour are a clear and present danger to my family.
I've said before that Labours policies on private schools is unjust and a bad policy in many ways, but....
I have a dual national (EU) family which was never an issue when we were in the EU. I think Brexit it has cost my own family about £5k due to our circumstances, to secure for ourselves the same rights and freedoms that we had before by becoming dual nationals, and we were relatively fortunate. Others, not so much.
The fact is that this was never a big political issue because it affected so few people. I think it will be the same with labour and their punitive policies on private schools. It just won't affect enough people to be salient, and will appeal to a bigoted minority of voters. So it is just really a case of business as usual, sadly.
The difference here is that the Labour policy on taxing private schools is overwhelmingly popular with the public. Not a reason in itself to implement it (see executions):
Do Britons support or oppose Labour’s plan to remove the charitable status from private schools? (30 November)
Support 62% Neither 18% Oppose 13% Don't know 7%
Only 22% of 2019 Conservative voters OPPOSE Labour's plan.
Desperately sad to read about the awful plight of middle and upper class parents who, if Labour win power, may have to resort to using food banks if they choose to keep their kids at private schools, such will be the hit on their modest incomes.
Worth noting most private schools aren't Eton, and parents may only be able to afford sending their kids there by making sacrifices (no holidays abroad etc) or if the child wins a scholarship/bursary.
Private schools will not have to raise their fees to cover Labour’s VAT raid on independent education, the shadow education secretary has insisted, describing claims that the policy would result in widespread school closures as “bogus”.
Bridget Phillipson told The Times that private schools would be “more than able” to cover the cost of paying VAT without raising the cost to parents or being forced to close.
She further pledged that the £1.7 billion raised by imposing the tax would be invested in recruiting and retaining teachers particularly in Stem subjects where state schools had struggled to attract specialist graduates.
The party released figures showing that about half of all computer science lessons at state schools were being taught by staff who had no A-level or degree-level qualification in the subject.
At the same time more than one in four physics lessons were taught by non-specialists while one in ten maths teachers had no appropriate senior qualification.
That frustrating moment when you realise the Opposition are just as clueless as the government about education.
There are many private schools that will not notice. Eton. Harrow. Roedean. Clifton. Cheltenham.
There are others that will certainly have to raise fees and may well go bust.
Almost all in poorer areas. Round here, Denstone may just about survive, but the rest won't.
Now that may be what is intended. And it's a legitimate debate to have although I think they're going about it the wrong way (you want to eliminate private schools? Cut class sizes in the state sector by a big number).
But if you take this blind approach to it then you won't prepare for the influx of pupils to a state sector already creaking at the seams. And that will cause far more problems for education than the existence of private schools did.
Exactly, Labour's policy won't hit the grand public schools like Eton, Harrow, Winchester and Charterhouse and Westminster where the parents are mainly multi millionaires and the foreign super rich.
What it will hit is smaller private schools which survive on a tight budget and whose parents are small business owners, police officers, teachers themselves etc who scrimp and save and avoid foreign holidays and new cars to pay the fees
Like my daughter's school - which has sent out a letter to all parents about the threat and it's concerns on the impact on the school, to manage expectations.
It's a downright idiotic policy, typical of Starmer's tactical triangulation rather than proper leadership, and means Labour are a clear and present danger to my family.
I've said before that Labours policies on private schools is unjust and a bad policy in many ways, but....
I have a dual national (EU) family which was never an issue when we were in the EU. I think Brexit it has cost my own family about £5k due to our circumstances, to secure for ourselves the same rights and freedoms that we had before by becoming dual nationals, and we were relatively fortunate. Others, not so much.
The fact is that this was never a big political issue because it affected so few people. I think it will be the same with labour and their punitive policies on private schools. It just won't affect enough people to be salient, and will appeal to a bigoted minority of voters. So it is just really a case of business as usual, sadly.
The difference here is that the Labour policy on taxing private schools is overwhelmingly popular with the public. Not a reason in itself to implement it (see executions):
Do Britons support or oppose Labour’s plan to remove the charitable status from private schools? (30 November)
Support 62% Neither 18% Oppose 13% Don't know 7%
Only 22% of 2019 Conservative voters OPPOSE Labour's plan.
A little off-topic (though it's come up recently) but I've been trying out some of the new LLM models that have free demo's recently to see how they compare to ChatGPT4. Found WizardLM to be quite good.
"What is the likely outcome of the next UK general election?"
GPT4: "As an AI language model, I cannot predict the future with certainty, and my knowledge is limited to information available up until September 2021. The outcome of the next UK general election will depend on various factors, including political developments, the performance of the incumbent government, policy proposals from different parties, and public sentiment at the time.
To get an accurate picture of the likely outcome, it is advisable to follow current political analyses, track the latest opinion polls, and consider major events or issues leading up to the election. Keep in mind that political landscapes can change rapidly, and predictions made far in advance are often uncertain."
WizardLM: "As an AI language model, I cannot predict the future with certainty. However, based on current polling data and political events, it is likely that the next UK general election will result in a hung parliament, with no single party having a clear majority. This would mean that the party or coalition with the most seats would need to form a government with the support of other parties or independents. This scenario has occurred in the past, most recently in the 2017 election, and could lead to political instability and a period of negotiations and coalition building."
These bots seemed amazing when they first came out but their limitations are now quite clear. The thing that I find alarming is their ability to come up with entirely fictional things. For instance GPT4 has been advising me with some confidence about about completely fictitious legislation including things that I can prompt it about.
To me, they're the next iteration of search engines. In the past, a search engine would be used to find a page, or a website. Over time, people started using search engines to find information. These bots, with teething problems, are the next step. I've found it useful for looking up a bunch of stuff, though the work is currently compounded by having to get ChatGPT to give sources and then track down the information in those sources.
It can also be a good tool for trying to get a basic understanding of complex topics, but again concerns around accuracy remain.
Private schools will not have to raise their fees to cover Labour’s VAT raid on independent education, the shadow education secretary has insisted, describing claims that the policy would result in widespread school closures as “bogus”.
Bridget Phillipson told The Times that private schools would be “more than able” to cover the cost of paying VAT without raising the cost to parents or being forced to close.
She further pledged that the £1.7 billion raised by imposing the tax would be invested in recruiting and retaining teachers particularly in Stem subjects where state schools had struggled to attract specialist graduates.
The party released figures showing that about half of all computer science lessons at state schools were being taught by staff who had no A-level or degree-level qualification in the subject.
At the same time more than one in four physics lessons were taught by non-specialists while one in ten maths teachers had no appropriate senior qualification.
Private schools aren't businesses and most typically operate on very tight margins where they just about break even.
Where do the think the extra 20% is coming from if not from the school's reserves or the patents? Thin air?
Same old Labour.
They couldn't run a whelk stall. They have no ides about business.
At least they don’t want to f*** business, however.
Outside of the Brexit controversies the Tories are very supportive of business.
The cultural/values stuff is properly a bigger barrier than the microeconomics these days, to be honest, but to some extent there's an overlap between the two - and it's a polarising one.
Business needs to navigate this better, as do politicians.
“Outside of the Brexit controversies the Tories are very supportive of business.”
Whaaaaaaaaaaat are you trying to say 🥹
That’s like invading Martians blowing up congress, and the president trying to spin at least half your government is still there functioning okay delivering the policies you voted for.
I think the real question is: what are you trying to say?
No.
“Outside of the Brexit controversies the Tories are very supportive of business.”
The real question is, what are you trying to say 😆
“Aside from the murders, what a fine doctor Shipman was! Done wonders for my Bert’s lumbago.”
Members of the prosecuting team did indeed note that when not murdering Shipman was a good GP. Fairly fatal flaw admittedly.
Desperately sad to read about the awful plight of middle and upper class parents who, if Labour win power, may have to resort to using food banks if they choose to keep their kids at private schools, such will be the hit on their modest incomes.
Quite possible. If the numbers drop off it doesn't take long for the school.to become unviable.
I would have phrased it differently, but yes, thank you. One heck of an increase from 2-3
Thoughts on looking at the figures * Chris Chibnall really messed up Doctor Who with the drop-off from 10-11 * There's a reason why people refuse to acknowledge Scrubs season 9 (if you know, you know) * The modern habit of setting season 2 in an entirely different setting/cast/story than season 1 doesn't work (Altered Carbon/The Terror/True Detective) * Regardless of Kevin Spacey's obvious sins, dropping him from House of Cards killed the show * Are the British show ratings the ratings in the US or UK? * Was Endeavour one of those never-noticed steady ratings successes that don't get talked about in the posh papers but people consistently watch? * Red Dwarf Season 10????
The National Conservative movement also seems to be gaining a lot of ground...
I am bloody annoyed about this. There's a very narrow Overton Window in the chattering classes and UK people really think Corbyn is far-left and Farage far-right, but by world standards they aren't (not sure about Corbyn, but bear with me for a moment).
I've been arguing for years that we need to import terms from places other than the US to enable us to handle shades of gray (blue, red, whatevs). "National Conservatism" in the European sense has been around for decades, esp in Eastern Europe. It partly fills the gap between Christian Democracy and Fascism - think Kinder, Küche, Kirche with added homophobia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_conservatism
But suddenly some American japanapes comes along, steals the name and it's the new hotness. Andrew Marr seems genuinely surprised. Crikey dude, you should know stuff like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w05Roqj4HRM
When all the state schools are at the same standard, then there is no need for private schools, as in Scandinavian countries. But the reality is that here there is too much disparity in the quality of schools by way of location. The most coherant argument against the policy of taxing private schools is that it will have the effect of driving out middle class families out of areas with bad state schools, thus compounding inequalities between areas more generally.
My other observation is that many of the cheerleaders of the policy are people who live in expensive houses in nice middle class areas with good state schools. But they are actually beneficiaries of the current system, and stand to gain financially from the policy - because it will increase house prices in areas with good state schools, given the declining viability of private schools.
I participated in an interesting discussion at the local free school. Middle class parents upset by the strict rules on politeness, timeliness and dress code.
Versus some parents from the estates. One lady had withdrawn her son from St Stabbingtons, because when he refused to join the gang, someone had tried to stab him.
Her opinion was that shouting swear words at teachers *should* be a disciplinary offence. Because it would tend to exclude the kind of people who wanted to stab her son
There’s been colour blindness in casting on the stage, such as in Shakespeare from RSC, a long time, and no problem at all with it. A Black Romeo with a proper lunchbox will get rave reviews for all the right reasons.
The RSC staged an all black Hamlet a few years ago. It was brilliant.
Comments
My other observation is that many of the cheerleaders of the policy are people who live in expensive houses in nice middle class areas with good state schools. But they are actually beneficiaries of the current system, and stand to gain financially from the policy - because it will increase house prices in areas with good state schools, given the declining viability of private schools.
2) the consequences will only be felt at the age of 4 / 11 because except at intake points swapping schools results in your child in all likelihood going to the only school in the area with spaces (i.e. the worst one).
So the impact wouldn't be immediate but 3-6 years later
I just think some people who attended private schools and/or send their kids their are so out of touch with how fortunate they are.
Every parent (in my experience) wants their child to have a good education because they know it opens doors and provides opportunities for them to have a better life (however you quantify that).
The current system precludes that because a good education, it seems, can only be bought and for those who don't have the means, the alternative is an under-funded under-resourced system, the products of which are professionally and personally disadvantaged throughout later life. That's a generalisation as we know there are islands of real excellence in the State school system, one of which is in my borough of Newham.
Now, there's an issue here about how we prioritise University education over for example what was once called Technical Education and businesses should be doing a lot more to develop apprenticeships and other forms of skill development via in-house training and education (or by getting together with other organisations). It's much easier (and cheaper) to send young adults off to University (where they can be indoctrinated in the ways of woke, sorry, channelling my inner @Casino_Royale there) then to train them, skill them and develop them to be an integral part of a successful high-quality manufacturing economy.
That should be part of the education debate but unfortunately like the housing debate the discussion becomes too narrowly focused and misses all the other aspects.
"What is the likely outcome of the next UK general election?"
GPT4: "As an AI language model, I cannot predict the future with certainty, and my knowledge is limited to information available up until September 2021. The outcome of the next UK general election will depend on various factors, including political developments, the performance of the incumbent government, policy proposals from different parties, and public sentiment at the time.
To get an accurate picture of the likely outcome, it is advisable to follow current political analyses, track the latest opinion polls, and consider major events or issues leading up to the election. Keep in mind that political landscapes can change rapidly, and predictions made far in advance are often uncertain."
WizardLM: "As an AI language model, I cannot predict the future with certainty. However, based on current polling data and political events, it is likely that the next UK general election will result in a hung parliament, with no single party having a clear majority. This would mean that the party or coalition with the most seats would need to form a government with the support of other parties or independents. This scenario has occurred in the past, most recently in the 2017 election, and could lead to political instability and a period of negotiations and coalition building."
There's a sometimes up, sometimes down demo version at https://6f8173a3550ed441ab.gradio.live/
You need to be even more unhappy when Starmer has a majority and not governing how you want. Surely that’s your gripe with him?
The biggest losers will be those about a mile from a good school who as a result of this policy can no longer get a place and are instead offered the sink school 6 miles away.
He probably looked like a typical middle eastern jew of the time, very inexplicable.
NEW THREAD
It can also be a good tool for trying to get a basic understanding of complex topics, but again concerns around accuracy remain.
Some of the suggestions (“most will close”) seem risible.
Thoughts on looking at the figures
* Chris Chibnall really messed up Doctor Who with the drop-off from 10-11
* There's a reason why people refuse to acknowledge Scrubs season 9 (if you know, you know)
* The modern habit of setting season 2 in an entirely different setting/cast/story than season 1 doesn't work (Altered Carbon/The Terror/True Detective)
* Regardless of Kevin Spacey's obvious sins, dropping him from House of Cards killed the show
* Are the British show ratings the ratings in the US or UK?
* Was Endeavour one of those never-noticed steady ratings successes that don't get talked about in the posh papers but people consistently watch?
* Red Dwarf Season 10????
I've been arguing for years that we need to import terms from places other than the US to enable us to handle shades of gray (blue, red, whatevs). "National Conservatism" in the European sense has been around for decades, esp in Eastern Europe. It partly fills the gap between Christian Democracy and Fascism - think Kinder, Küche, Kirche with added homophobia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_conservatism
But suddenly some American japanapes comes along, steals the name and it's the new hotness. Andrew Marr seems genuinely surprised. Crikey dude, you should know stuff like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w05Roqj4HRM
Versus some parents from the estates. One lady had withdrawn her son from St Stabbingtons, because when he refused to join the gang, someone had tried to stab him.
Her opinion was that shouting swear words at teachers *should* be a disciplinary offence. Because it would tend to exclude the kind of people who wanted to stab her son