Remember how women candidates have been so successful in by-elections recently? Using that to predict the forthcoming contests, it would mean Rutherglen = SNP hold, Mid Beds = LD gain, Tamworth = Lab gain.
Remember how women candidates have been so successful in by-elections recently? Using that to predict the forthcoming contests, it would mean Rutherglen = SNP hold, Mid Beds = LD gain, Tamworth = Lab gain.
If the first two of those come in, then I might start to take the theory more seriously.
I thought I was joking about AI writing Starmer's speeches. Labour chatbots sounds like a terrible idea.
It depends how you use them. Identifying which ads to show to which people is already just probabilistic, it doesn't matter if you get it a little bit wrong. Direct contacts are riskier but political parties already use a lot of scripts where the human is basically just reading off the script. I'm sure you could make something that'll do better than that in the average case, although there's obviously a risk that they'll occasionally promise the voter that they're going to ban oranges or fill the Irish Sea with chocolate or whatever, and everyone will share those conversations to laugh at them.
ITV News Politics @ITVNewsPolitics · 5h 'You are the daughter of an immigrant, someone who wanted to come to the UK to make a better life for themselves'
Suella Braverman tells @AnushkaAsthana it's 'offensive' that people say she should be pro-migration because she is 'the child of immigrants'
===
"What I am dealing with here is illegal migration."
But you are not are you because the whole system is a systemic mess after 13 years of saying it is fixed.
She's talking about changing the rules to make it illegal!
I feel quite sorry for Laurence Fox, and he's being enabled by both the GB News types and the haters. He's got some pretty significant personal things that need working through in private, and neither group is helping.
Why, he's getting bank-rolled to spout all this hate?
Gavin Barwell @GavinBarwell · 2h What is the basis for the claim that many arrivals live a separate existence in a parallel society? I live in one of the most diverse parts of the country. You're talking about my friends and neighbours. It is untrue and deeply offensive to suggest they're not part of our society
I had a Sri Lankan friend at university whose parents came to the UK in the 1970s. The father had a good job and good English, but her mother could barely string a sentence together. She had been in the country 30 years, but in Hounslow it was no problem to live like that.
Is there a more integrated, multi-racial country?
Mauritius.
Very diverse ethnicities and religions, that all seem to get on very well indeed.
Remember how women candidates have been so successful in by-elections recently? Using that to predict the forthcoming contests, it would mean Rutherglen = SNP hold, Mid Beds = LD gain, Tamworth = Lab gain.
Looking at by-elections since last summer, Selby was a gain for a Labour man standing against a Tory woman, Tiverton was a gain for a Lib Dem man standing against a Tory woman, and Stretford was a hold for a Labour man against a Tory woman in second (albeit this last one was never likely to be competitive).
In both Uxbridge and Wakefield both leading candidates were men, in both Somerton and Chester both were women.
Only West Lancashire, which wasn't all that interesting as a contest, was a hold for a Labour woman against a Tory man.
So I'm not sure your basic assumption is right, even if it was a sensible model for prediction.
I can't help thinking that what Braverman really believes is that it's good for people to migrate so that they can make money, but bad for people to migrate if they are threatened with violence or imprisonment.
Gavin Barwell @GavinBarwell · 2h What is the basis for the claim that many arrivals live a separate existence in a parallel society? I live in one of the most diverse parts of the country. You're talking about my friends and neighbours. It is untrue and deeply offensive to suggest they're not part of our society
I had a Sri Lankan friend at university whose parents came to the UK in the 1970s. The father had a good job and good English, but her mother could barely string a sentence together. She had been in the country 30 years, but in Hounslow it was no problem to live like that.
There are plenty of people in Hounslow who are unable to string a sentence together, irrespective of the language.
Some of them can't even walk properly, spend most of their time sleeping or puking up everywhere. Those pesky babies really shouldn't be allowed.
ITV News Politics @ITVNewsPolitics · 5h 'You are the daughter of an immigrant, someone who wanted to come to the UK to make a better life for themselves'
Suella Braverman tells @AnushkaAsthana it's 'offensive' that people say she should be pro-migration because she is 'the child of immigrants'
===
"What I am dealing with here is illegal migration."
But you are not are you because the whole system is a systemic mess after 13 years of saying it is fixed.
This is the classic thing where some on the Left engage in racism without really realising it because they assume minorities should politically agree with them, or they're not really minorities.
ITV News Politics @ITVNewsPolitics · 5h 'You are the daughter of an immigrant, someone who wanted to come to the UK to make a better life for themselves'
Suella Braverman tells @AnushkaAsthana it's 'offensive' that people say she should be pro-migration because she is 'the child of immigrants'
===
"What I am dealing with here is illegal migration."
But you are not are you because the whole system is a systemic mess after 13 years of saying it is fixed.
First part a bit tricky. It is certainly unreasonable to demand she has certain political positions because of who her parents are, and she has the clear right to believe and express what she does. I am not sure it is unreasonable to ask her to explain her views given her background though. Most politicians talk about the influence of their family and early years on their policy development. One of the main things Starmer gets grief on here is his dad being a comparny director for example.
The second bit is just a blatant lie, on so many angles that it is not worthy of further discussion.
ITV News Politics @ITVNewsPolitics · 5h 'You are the daughter of an immigrant, someone who wanted to come to the UK to make a better life for themselves'
Suella Braverman tells @AnushkaAsthana it's 'offensive' that people say she should be pro-migration because she is 'the child of immigrants'
===
"What I am dealing with here is illegal migration."
But you are not are you because the whole system is a systemic mess after 13 years of saying it is fixed.
This is the classic thing where some on the Left engage in racism without really realising it because they assume minorities should politically agree with them, or they're not really minorities.
This is the classic thing on the Right where people commenting on the hypocrisy of someone like Braverman are accused of racism as a diversionary tactic.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
ITV News Politics @ITVNewsPolitics · 5h 'You are the daughter of an immigrant, someone who wanted to come to the UK to make a better life for themselves'
Suella Braverman tells @AnushkaAsthana it's 'offensive' that people say she should be pro-migration because she is 'the child of immigrants'
===
"What I am dealing with here is illegal migration."
But you are not are you because the whole system is a systemic mess after 13 years of saying it is fixed.
This is the classic thing where some on the Left engage in racism without really realising it because they assume minorities should politically agree with them, or they're not really minorities.
Also that the left gets surprised when anyone who is an immigrant isn’t in favour all unrestricted immigration of all forms.
Mind you, the same people worked very industriously to prevent any white Zimbabwean farmers coming to this country, when they were being illegally* pushed off their land at gun point.
The reason given for this was their culture would be incompatible with that of this country.
*as ruled by the black justices of the Zimbabwean Supreme Court, using the post independence law and constitution.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
Yet another private schooler oozing resentment about having to fund the public education system, is it any wonder that the Tories and their backers won't fund our kids' education properly. You're not 'donating resources', you are paying your taxes, funding our public services and our security, which is your patriotic duty. Having more kids to educate isn't a 'burden' for the state sector - it's what it's there for. Having more kids whose parents (presumably) are passionate about their education can only help the state education system - who knows, perhaps if all these wealthy people's kids were in state schools we might find them getting funded properly. There is no rationale for providing a tax break to people who are mostly wealthy and privileged, and getting rid of this tax distortion will generate more revenue to devote to education, as the IFS has shown.
ITV News Politics @ITVNewsPolitics · 5h 'You are the daughter of an immigrant, someone who wanted to come to the UK to make a better life for themselves'
Suella Braverman tells @AnushkaAsthana it's 'offensive' that people say she should be pro-migration because she is 'the child of immigrants'
===
"What I am dealing with here is illegal migration."
But you are not are you because the whole system is a systemic mess after 13 years of saying it is fixed.
This is the classic thing where some on the Left engage in racism without really realising it because they assume minorities should politically agree with them, or they're not really minorities.
Also that the left gets surprised when anyone who is an immigrant isn’t in favour all unrestricted immigration of all forms.
Mind you, the same people worked very industriously to prevent any white Zimbabwean farmers coming to this country, when they were being illegally* pushed off their land at gun point.
The reason given for this was their culture would be incompatible with that of this country.
*as ruled by the black justices of the Zimbabwean Supreme Court, using the post independence law and constitution.
The main thing I took from that speech is that she doesn’t like gays.
Andy_JS - The Joby air taxi can travel at 200 mph. Since it can take off and land vertically, it can travel from almost anywhere in London to almost anywhere in Birmingham, so your trip would not include the time taken to get to a station, and then from a second station to your destination. Both would vary, but if we add in an hour for them, a train trip would take three hours, roughly, the air taxi, a half hour, roughly. Perhaps I should add, very roughly.
Note: The first model holds 4 passengers, so the cost would be shared four ways, or five ways if the pilot is also a pssenger.
That distance is a little beyond the limit of the Joby's range, but I would expect that range to be extended in the next few years.
(An exercise for the ambitious: Draw a circle with a hundred mile radius around the city of your choice. That shows you where commuters to the city could live, without impossibly long commute times -- assuming they were traveling in an air taxi.)
An HS2 train will carry 1,100 people so you'd need 375 of these buzzing over your head every few minutes to replicate HS2's ability to move people from London to Birmingham, with all the noise pollution and risks involved. Flying car technology is a total non-starter because nobody will put up with it in their neighbourhood.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
Yet another private schooler oozing resentment about having to fund the public education system, is it any wonder that the Tories and their backers won't fund our kids' education properly. You're not 'donating resources', you are paying your taxes, funding our public services and our security, which is your patriotic duty. Having more kids to educate isn't a 'burden' for the state sector - it's what it's there for. Having more kids whose parents (presumably) are passionate about their education can only help the state education system - who knows, perhaps if all these wealthy people's kids were in state schools we might find them getting funded properly. There is no rationale for providing a tax break to people who are mostly wealthy and privileged, and getting rid of this tax distortion will generate more revenue to devote to education, as the IFS has shown.
"Yet another private schooler oozing resentment "
That was not exactly the best line with which to start a post that actually contained a couple of reasonable points.
My son's school is in a fairly middle-class area. I have talked to a fair few parents and kids, and see a large range of attitudes towards schooling. I reckon the biggest problem facing state schools isn't funding (although that helps); it's parenting and culture.
One in five kids are frequently missing school (1). Some of these kids will have good reasons to be off school (e.g. illness), but for many - and their parents - it will be the 'easier' option. We need kids, parents and society as a whole to value schooling and education; to say that knowledge and skills are not only useful, but also good in their own right. This includes skills and training for kids who find 'traditional' subjects difficult.
And yes, increased funding to help those left behind would be excellent. But it will do little good unless the kids being left behind - and their parents - understand the value of education.
ITV News Politics @ITVNewsPolitics · 5h 'You are the daughter of an immigrant, someone who wanted to come to the UK to make a better life for themselves'
Suella Braverman tells @AnushkaAsthana it's 'offensive' that people say she should be pro-migration because she is 'the child of immigrants'
===
"What I am dealing with here is illegal migration."
But you are not are you because the whole system is a systemic mess after 13 years of saying it is fixed.
This is the classic thing where some on the Left engage in racism without really realising it because they assume minorities should politically agree with them, or they're not really minorities.
Also that the left gets surprised when anyone who is an immigrant isn’t in favour all unrestricted immigration of all forms.
Mind you, the same people worked very industriously to prevent any white Zimbabwean farmers coming to this country, when they were being illegally* pushed off their land at gun point.
The reason given for this was their culture would be incompatible with that of this country.
*as ruled by the black justices of the Zimbabwean Supreme Court, using the post independence law and constitution.
The main thing I took from that speech is that she doesn’t like gays.
That's unfair. She doesn't hate gays, she's just very relaxed about other people persecuting and killing them.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
Yet another private schooler oozing resentment about having to fund the public education system, is it any wonder that the Tories and their backers won't fund our kids' education properly. You're not 'donating resources', you are paying your taxes, funding our public services and our security, which is your patriotic duty. Having more kids to educate isn't a 'burden' for the state sector - it's what it's there for. Having more kids whose parents (presumably) are passionate about their education can only help the state education system - who knows, perhaps if all these wealthy people's kids were in state schools we might find them getting funded properly. There is no rationale for providing a tax break to people who are mostly wealthy and privileged, and getting rid of this tax distortion will generate more revenue to devote to education, as the IFS has shown.
"Yet another private schooler oozing resentment "
That was not exactly the best line with which to start a post that actually contained a couple of reasonable points.
My son's school is in a fairly middle-class area. I have talked to a fair few parents and kids, and see a large range of attitudes towards schooling. I reckon the biggest problem facing state schools isn't funding (although that helps); it's parenting and culture.
One in five kids are frequently missing school (1). Some of these kids will have good reasons to be off school (e.g. illness), but for many - and their parents - it will be the 'easier' option. We need kids, parents and society as a whole to value schooling and education; to say that knowledge and skills are not only useful, but also good in their own right. This includes skills and training for kids who find 'traditional' subjects difficult.
And yes, increased funding to help those left behind would be excellent. But it will do little good unless the kids being left behind - and their parents - understand the value of education.
How do you expect them to value education when the people in power don't value it enough to fund it adequately, and don't think the system is good enough for their own children (but apparently have no desire to make it good enough)?
Incidentally, an acquaintance has taken one of his kids out of a local school and put her into private education because of some rather nasty bullying that the school could not, or refused, to combat.
Not everyone who sends their kids to private school are posh; many parents who send their kids to private school make sacrifices to do so - because they care for their kids.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
Yet another private schooler oozing resentment about having to fund the public education system, is it any wonder that the Tories and their backers won't fund our kids' education properly. You're not 'donating resources', you are paying your taxes, funding our public services and our security, which is your patriotic duty. Having more kids to educate isn't a 'burden' for the state sector - it's what it's there for. Having more kids whose parents (presumably) are passionate about their education can only help the state education system - who knows, perhaps if all these wealthy people's kids were in state schools we might find them getting funded properly. There is no rationale for providing a tax break to people who are mostly wealthy and privileged, and getting rid of this tax distortion will generate more revenue to devote to education, as the IFS has shown.
"Yet another private schooler oozing resentment "
That was not exactly the best line with which to start a post that actually contained a couple of reasonable points.
My son's school is in a fairly middle-class area. I have talked to a fair few parents and kids, and see a large range of attitudes towards schooling. I reckon the biggest problem facing state schools isn't funding (although that helps); it's parenting and culture.
One in five kids are frequently missing school (1). Some of these kids will have good reasons to be off school (e.g. illness), but for many - and their parents - it will be the 'easier' option. We need kids, parents and society as a whole to value schooling and education; to say that knowledge and skills are not only useful, but also good in their own right. This includes skills and training for kids who find 'traditional' subjects difficult.
And yes, increased funding to help those left behind would be excellent. But it will do little good unless the kids being left behind - and their parents - understand the value of education.
How do you expect them to value education when the people in power don't value it enough to fund it adequately, and don't think the system is good enough for their own children (but apparently have no desire to make it good enough)?
That view's a little odd, IMO. And I bet your view on what 'adequate' funding is will change when your favoured party comes into power.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
Yet another private schooler oozing resentment about having to fund the public education system, is it any wonder that the Tories and their backers won't fund our kids' education properly. You're not 'donating resources', you are paying your taxes, funding our public services and our security, which is your patriotic duty. Having more kids to educate isn't a 'burden' for the state sector - it's what it's there for. Having more kids whose parents (presumably) are passionate about their education can only help the state education system - who knows, perhaps if all these wealthy people's kids were in state schools we might find them getting funded properly. There is no rationale for providing a tax break to people who are mostly wealthy and privileged, and getting rid of this tax distortion will generate more revenue to devote to education, as the IFS has shown.
A post that ignores everything I've written above the line.
By not taking up a state school place those resources are available for everyone else. So the "tax break" is precisely the other way round. It's effectively a voluntary £6-7k donation every year. You'd have a point if the State offered a refund to any taxpayer who didn't take up a state education place but since they don't, you don't. Rather than discouraging it would actually be more logical to encourage even more of it, for those who can afford to do so, because would increase resources in the education sector as a whole and those available to educate poorer children, and efficiently raise the level of education for our populace.
The IFS analysis is flawed. Paul Johnson is a Brownite. It has been challenged by several other think-tanks, who think it will be at best neutral or net-negative in revenue, because its assumptions are wishful thinking. It underestimates price sensitivity, take into capital costs of educating additional children in the state sector, doesn't take into account school closures and doesn't consider the teachers that will be laid off.
Your post repeats well-worn tired shibboleths about how having magic, articulate "ambitious" parents in the state sector will be transformative - it won't, they will simply buy up around the best schools, enclave with other ambitious parents outside it, and tutor on top. Nothing will happen to state sector performance overall, and it's remarkable so many erstwhile intelligent people on the Left are taken in by it. It's a sort of strange class deference thing in place here, and its a myth.
I have said before I think the state education sector is underinvested in. I have said before I'd increase its budget significantly, and I think too much is spent on the NHS & pensions and not enough on science, R&D, education or defence.
But this is not the way to do it because it will damage the education sector overall, reduce its size and resources, not increase it, and harm our future prosperity.
Incidentally, an acquaintance has taken one of his kids out of a local school and put her into private education because of some rather nasty bullying that the school could not, or refused, to combat.
Not everyone who sends their kids to private school are posh; many parents who send their kids to private school make sacrifices to do so - because they care for their kids.
That’s the catch 22 of private education. Most parents are aware of the private schools in their area and many will have gone along to an open day when their child gets into year 5 or 6. They’ll have seen the difference in facilities and the high quality teaching and pastoral care.
If they can afford the fees, they then face the dilemma: send the child private and they’re abandoning the state sector and giving their offspring an unfair advantage. Send them to the state secondary and they’re denying their child all those things they saw on open day.
In other normal countries private school is a niche sector where you go if you want to focus on a specific skill like music or sport, or have special needs, or strong religious beliefs. In the UK it’s not like that.
How to address this? Anything but the current system. Reintroduce the direct grant system to dilute the border between state and private; or price private completely out of the mainstream; or spend enough on state education to close the gap; or nationalise the independent sector? No easy answers. VAT on fees is a small step towards the second option but isn’t going to have a transformational effect.
He's been found liable for Civil Fraud, and his family have all had their rights to do businesses in NY cancelled. 10 days to appoint receivers for the NY based Trump businesses to dissolve them.
Plus restitution to be extracted on an estimated sum of $250 million.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
Yet another private schooler oozing resentment about having to fund the public education system, is it any wonder that the Tories and their backers won't fund our kids' education properly. You're not 'donating resources', you are paying your taxes, funding our public services and our security, which is your patriotic duty. Having more kids to educate isn't a 'burden' for the state sector - it's what it's there for. Having more kids whose parents (presumably) are passionate about their education can only help the state education system - who knows, perhaps if all these wealthy people's kids were in state schools we might find them getting funded properly. There is no rationale for providing a tax break to people who are mostly wealthy and privileged, and getting rid of this tax distortion will generate more revenue to devote to education, as the IFS has shown.
"Yet another private schooler oozing resentment "
That was not exactly the best line with which to start a post that actually contained a couple of reasonable points.
My son's school is in a fairly middle-class area. I have talked to a fair few parents and kids, and see a large range of attitudes towards schooling. I reckon the biggest problem facing state schools isn't funding (although that helps); it's parenting and culture.
One in five kids are frequently missing school (1). Some of these kids will have good reasons to be off school (e.g. illness), but for many - and their parents - it will be the 'easier' option. We need kids, parents and society as a whole to value schooling and education; to say that knowledge and skills are not only useful, but also good in their own right. This includes skills and training for kids who find 'traditional' subjects difficult.
And yes, increased funding to help those left behind would be excellent. But it will do little good unless the kids being left behind - and their parents - understand the value of education.
How do you expect them to value education when the people in power don't value it enough to fund it adequately, and don't think the system is good enough for their own children (but apparently have no desire to make it good enough)?
I have (a) children in private school and (b) favour more resources going into the state sector, and significantly so.
ITV News Politics @ITVNewsPolitics · 5h 'You are the daughter of an immigrant, someone who wanted to come to the UK to make a better life for themselves'
Suella Braverman tells @AnushkaAsthana it's 'offensive' that people say she should be pro-migration because she is 'the child of immigrants'
===
"What I am dealing with here is illegal migration."
But you are not are you because the whole system is a systemic mess after 13 years of saying it is fixed.
This is the classic thing where some on the Left engage in racism without really realising it because they assume minorities should politically agree with them, or they're not really minorities.
Also that the left gets surprised when anyone who is an immigrant isn’t in favour all unrestricted immigration of all forms.
Mind you, the same people worked very industriously to prevent any white Zimbabwean farmers coming to this country, when they were being illegally* pushed off their land at gun point.
The reason given for this was their culture would be incompatible with that of this country.
*as ruled by the black justices of the Zimbabwean Supreme Court, using the post independence law and constitution.
The main thing I took from that speech is that she doesn’t like gays.
Good. Yes we need to reduce our use of carbon based fuels drastically and we should aim for net zero ASAP but whilst we continue to make any use of oil or gas we should use our own.
ITV News Politics @ITVNewsPolitics · 5h 'You are the daughter of an immigrant, someone who wanted to come to the UK to make a better life for themselves'
Suella Braverman tells @AnushkaAsthana it's 'offensive' that people say she should be pro-migration because she is 'the child of immigrants'
===
"What I am dealing with here is illegal migration."
But you are not are you because the whole system is a systemic mess after 13 years of saying it is fixed.
This is the classic thing where some on the Left engage in racism without really realising it because they assume minorities should politically agree with them, or they're not really minorities.
Also that the left gets surprised when anyone who is an immigrant isn’t in favour all unrestricted immigration of all forms.
Mind you, the same people worked very industriously to prevent any white Zimbabwean farmers coming to this country, when they were being illegally* pushed off their land at gun point.
The reason given for this was their culture would be incompatible with that of this country.
*as ruled by the black justices of the Zimbabwean Supreme Court, using the post independence law and constitution.
The main thing I took from that speech is that she doesn’t like gays.
Nonsense.
Being gay in a country where it’s a capital offence (and where that regularly occurs) not enough to claim asylum?
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
Yet another private schooler oozing resentment about having to fund the public education system, is it any wonder that the Tories and their backers won't fund our kids' education properly. You're not 'donating resources', you are paying your taxes, funding our public services and our security, which is your patriotic duty. Having more kids to educate isn't a 'burden' for the state sector - it's what it's there for. Having more kids whose parents (presumably) are passionate about their education can only help the state education system - who knows, perhaps if all these wealthy people's kids were in state schools we might find them getting funded properly. There is no rationale for providing a tax break to people who are mostly wealthy and privileged, and getting rid of this tax distortion will generate more revenue to devote to education, as the IFS has shown.
A post that ignores everything I've written above the line.
By not taking up a state school place those resources are available for everyone else. So the "tax break" is precisely the other way round. It's effectively a voluntary £6-7k donation every year. You'd have a point if the State offered a refund to any taxpayer who didn't take up a state education place but since they don't, you don't. Rather than discouraging it would actually be more logical to encourage even more of it, for those who can afford to do so, because would increase resources in the education sector as a whole and those available to educate poorer children, and efficiently raise the level of education for our populace.
The IFS analysis is flawed. Paul Johnson is a Brownite. It has been challenged by several other think-tanks, who think it will be at best neutral or net-negative in revenue, because its assumptions are wishful thinking. It underestimates price sensitivity, take into capital costs of educating additional children in the state sector, doesn't take into account school closures and doesn't consider the teachers that will be laid off.
Your post repeats well-worn tired shibboleths about how having magic, articulate "ambitious" parents in the state sector will be transformative - it won't, they will simply buy up around the best schools, enclave with other ambitious parents outside it, and tutor on top. Nothing will happen to state sector performance overall, and it's remarkable so many erstwhile intelligent people on the Left are taken in by it. It's a sort of strange class deference thing in place here, and its a myth.
I have said before I think the state education sector is underinvested in. I have said before I'd increase its budget significantly, and I think too much is spent on the NHS & pensions and not enough on science, R&D, education or defence.
But this is not the way to do it because it will damage the education sector overall, reduce its size and resources, not increase it, and harm our future prosperity.
It's a real tragedy more can't see it.
I don’t have kids. By your argument, I’m making a voluntary £6-7k donation a year to the Government. Where’s my refund?
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
Yet another private schooler oozing resentment about having to fund the public education system, is it any wonder that the Tories and their backers won't fund our kids' education properly. You're not 'donating resources', you are paying your taxes, funding our public services and our security, which is your patriotic duty. Having more kids to educate isn't a 'burden' for the state sector - it's what it's there for. Having more kids whose parents (presumably) are passionate about their education can only help the state education system - who knows, perhaps if all these wealthy people's kids were in state schools we might find them getting funded properly. There is no rationale for providing a tax break to people who are mostly wealthy and privileged, and getting rid of this tax distortion will generate more revenue to devote to education, as the IFS has shown.
"Yet another private schooler oozing resentment "
That was not exactly the best line with which to start a post that actually contained a couple of reasonable points.
My son's school is in a fairly middle-class area. I have talked to a fair few parents and kids, and see a large range of attitudes towards schooling. I reckon the biggest problem facing state schools isn't funding (although that helps); it's parenting and culture.
One in five kids are frequently missing school (1). Some of these kids will have good reasons to be off school (e.g. illness), but for many - and their parents - it will be the 'easier' option. We need kids, parents and society as a whole to value schooling and education; to say that knowledge and skills are not only useful, but also good in their own right. This includes skills and training for kids who find 'traditional' subjects difficult.
And yes, increased funding to help those left behind would be excellent. But it will do little good unless the kids being left behind - and their parents - understand the value of education.
How do you expect them to value education when the people in power don't value it enough to fund it adequately, and don't think the system is good enough for their own children (but apparently have no desire to make it good enough)?
I have (a) children in private school and (b) favour more resources going into the state sector, and significantly so.
How do you explain that?
Why don't you vote for a party who will deliver (b) then?
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Parents of children at private schools, who are wealthier than the average, already pay far more than their far share for a state education system they don't use.
It is bizarre to call it a subsidy: not taxing something isn't a subsidy, and the state provides the competitor service entirely free.
Since private schools will stop providing charitable services such as free use of facilities to local comps it will hurt those it's supposed to help. They will also be much less able to help relatively poorer children with scholareships. State schools will crumble even more if they have to cope with a big influx of pupils priced out of private schools. Etc. etc. It's terrible policy driven solely by envy and it will have all kinds of bad unintended effects.
So classic socialism.
It's one of the last bastions of socialism - the main criticism from some seems to be it doesn't go far enough, and actually we should nationalise or ban all private schools - and there's all sorts of class myths and prejudice bound up in it. We've got decades of experience of real socialism to see how that plays out. Tragically.
This should actually be a policy where there is a decent divide between liberals and left-wingers, and it'd be interested to understand that.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
Yet another private schooler oozing resentment about having to fund the public education system, is it any wonder that the Tories and their backers won't fund our kids' education properly. You're not 'donating resources', you are paying your taxes, funding our public services and our security, which is your patriotic duty. Having more kids to educate isn't a 'burden' for the state sector - it's what it's there for. Having more kids whose parents (presumably) are passionate about their education can only help the state education system - who knows, perhaps if all these wealthy people's kids were in state schools we might find them getting funded properly. There is no rationale for providing a tax break to people who are mostly wealthy and privileged, and getting rid of this tax distortion will generate more revenue to devote to education, as the IFS has shown.
"Yet another private schooler oozing resentment "
That was not exactly the best line with which to start a post that actually contained a couple of reasonable points.
My son's school is in a fairly middle-class area. I have talked to a fair few parents and kids, and see a large range of attitudes towards schooling. I reckon the biggest problem facing state schools isn't funding (although that helps); it's parenting and culture.
One in five kids are frequently missing school (1). Some of these kids will have good reasons to be off school (e.g. illness), but for many - and their parents - it will be the 'easier' option. We need kids, parents and society as a whole to value schooling and education; to say that knowledge and skills are not only useful, but also good in their own right. This includes skills and training for kids who find 'traditional' subjects difficult.
And yes, increased funding to help those left behind would be excellent. But it will do little good unless the kids being left behind - and their parents - understand the value of education.
How do you expect them to value education when the people in power don't value it enough to fund it adequately, and don't think the system is good enough for their own children (but apparently have no desire to make it good enough)?
I have (a) children in private school and (b) favour more resources going into the state sector, and significantly so.
How do you explain that?
Why don't you vote for a party who will deliver (b) then?
I am lobbying my own party on (b) - it's absolutely what needs to happen.
The policy you advocate will deliver the opposite.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
Yet another private schooler oozing resentment about having to fund the public education system, is it any wonder that the Tories and their backers won't fund our kids' education properly. You're not 'donating resources', you are paying your taxes, funding our public services and our security, which is your patriotic duty. Having more kids to educate isn't a 'burden' for the state sector - it's what it's there for. Having more kids whose parents (presumably) are passionate about their education can only help the state education system - who knows, perhaps if all these wealthy people's kids were in state schools we might find them getting funded properly. There is no rationale for providing a tax break to people who are mostly wealthy and privileged, and getting rid of this tax distortion will generate more revenue to devote to education, as the IFS has shown.
"Yet another private schooler oozing resentment "
That was not exactly the best line with which to start a post that actually contained a couple of reasonable points.
My son's school is in a fairly middle-class area. I have talked to a fair few parents and kids, and see a large range of attitudes towards schooling. I reckon the biggest problem facing state schools isn't funding (although that helps); it's parenting and culture.
One in five kids are frequently missing school (1). Some of these kids will have good reasons to be off school (e.g. illness), but for many - and their parents - it will be the 'easier' option. We need kids, parents and society as a whole to value schooling and education; to say that knowledge and skills are not only useful, but also good in their own right. This includes skills and training for kids who find 'traditional' subjects difficult.
And yes, increased funding to help those left behind would be excellent. But it will do little good unless the kids being left behind - and their parents - understand the value of education.
How do you expect them to value education when the people in power don't value it enough to fund it adequately, and don't think the system is good enough for their own children (but apparently have no desire to make it good enough)?
That view's a little odd, IMO. And I bet your view on what 'adequate' funding is will change when your favoured party comes into power.
It won't, unless they increase resources. You will find me being very critical of Labour if and when they are in power. Right now the government is cutting real spending per pupil. So getting lectures from Tory supporters about how they are doing us a favour by opting out of the mess their party is creating, while my kids suffer the consequences, is pretty galling.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
What a load of shite. This is closing a tax loophole on a tax that is levied on pretty much everything else.
If VAT on private school fees already existed nobody would be campaigning to remove it.
Good. Yes we need to reduce our use of carbon based fuels drastically and we should aim for net zero ASAP but whilst we continue to make any use of oil or gas we should use our own.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
Fair post.
I think the main difference is that I'd redistribute public spending from within the existing envelope to keep taxes low, fair and competitive, and deliver additional resources to education that way, rather than increasing the burden still further, crowding out other sectors & suffocating growth.
To the extent tax does need to be raised though, I agree wealth is undertaxed and income overtaxed.
I also think we need to look afresh at NHS and Pensions funding, which are both baselined to models from the 1940s and 1900s respectively, when things were very different and there was very little private or social provision available, except to the super-rich, and shift more of the risk and responsibility for it onto individuals, or it will collectively bankrupt us.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
What a load of shite. This is closing a tax loophole on a tax that is levied on pretty much everything else.
If VAT on private school fees already existed nobody would be campaigning to remove it.
This is middle class crybabyism
Thanks for your carefully crafted rebuttal! PB is all the better for such erudite wordsmanship.
VAT on food and children’s clothes next, then? Let’s close those pesky loopholes.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
Yet another private schooler oozing resentment about having to fund the public education system, is it any wonder that the Tories and their backers won't fund our kids' education properly. You're not 'donating resources', you are paying your taxes, funding our public services and our security, which is your patriotic duty. Having more kids to educate isn't a 'burden' for the state sector - it's what it's there for. Having more kids whose parents (presumably) are passionate about their education can only help the state education system - who knows, perhaps if all these wealthy people's kids were in state schools we might find them getting funded properly. There is no rationale for providing a tax break to people who are mostly wealthy and privileged, and getting rid of this tax distortion will generate more revenue to devote to education, as the IFS has shown.
"Yet another private schooler oozing resentment "
That was not exactly the best line with which to start a post that actually contained a couple of reasonable points.
My son's school is in a fairly middle-class area. I have talked to a fair few parents and kids, and see a large range of attitudes towards schooling. I reckon the biggest problem facing state schools isn't funding (although that helps); it's parenting and culture.
One in five kids are frequently missing school (1). Some of these kids will have good reasons to be off school (e.g. illness), but for many - and their parents - it will be the 'easier' option. We need kids, parents and society as a whole to value schooling and education; to say that knowledge and skills are not only useful, but also good in their own right. This includes skills and training for kids who find 'traditional' subjects difficult.
And yes, increased funding to help those left behind would be excellent. But it will do little good unless the kids being left behind - and their parents - understand the value of education.
How do you expect them to value education when the people in power don't value it enough to fund it adequately, and don't think the system is good enough for their own children (but apparently have no desire to make it good enough)?
I have (a) children in private school and (b) favour more resources going into the state sector, and significantly so.
How do you explain that?
Why don't you vote for a party who will deliver (b) then?
I am lobbying my own party on (b) - it's absolutely what needs to happen.
The policy you advocate will deliver the opposite.
What arguments do you hear from the party about why they are cutting per pupil resources?
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
What a load of shite. This is closing a tax loophole on a tax that is levied on pretty much everything else.
If VAT on private school fees already existed nobody would be campaigning to remove it.
This is middle class crybabyism
Any genuine charity, i.e. a school for those with autism etc should not be charging “fees” for general education.
He's been found liable for Civil Fraud, and his family have all had their rights to do businesses in NY cancelled. 10 days to appoint receivers for the NY based Trump businesses to dissolve them.
Plus restitution to be extracted on an estimated sum of $250 million.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
What a load of shite. This is closing a tax loophole on a tax that is levied on pretty much everything else.
If VAT on private school fees already existed nobody would be campaigning to remove it.
This is middle class crybabyism
Thanks for your carefully crafted rebuttal! PB is all the better for such erudite wordsmanship.
VAT on food and children’s clothes next, then? Let’s close those pesky loopholes.
Yeah because basic food is the same as elite education…
Good. Yes we need to reduce our use of carbon based fuels drastically and we should aim for net zero ASAP but whilst we continue to make any use of oil or gas we should use our own.
As pointed out on R4, at least we can now forever ignore bleating from oil companies about windfall taxes obstructing development and investment.
ITV News Politics @ITVNewsPolitics · 5h 'You are the daughter of an immigrant, someone who wanted to come to the UK to make a better life for themselves'
Suella Braverman tells @AnushkaAsthana it's 'offensive' that people say she should be pro-migration because she is 'the child of immigrants'
===
"What I am dealing with here is illegal migration."
But you are not are you because the whole system is a systemic mess after 13 years of saying it is fixed.
This is the classic thing where some on the Left engage in racism without really realising it because they assume minorities should politically agree with them, or they're not really minorities.
Also that the left gets surprised when anyone who is an immigrant isn’t in favour all unrestricted immigration of all forms.
Mind you, the same people worked very industriously to prevent any white Zimbabwean farmers coming to this country, when they were being illegally* pushed off their land at gun point.
The reason given for this was their culture would be incompatible with that of this country.
*as ruled by the black justices of the Zimbabwean Supreme Court, using the post independence law and constitution.
The main thing I took from that speech is that she doesn’t like gays.
Nonsense.
Being gay in a country where it’s a capital offence (and where that regularly occurs) not enough to claim asylum?
We can't take in any of the 8 billion people on the planet where human rights aren't fully respected in the way we'd like them to be. Hundreds of millions would qualify, and we couldn't take them all in. I also think it's gamed by those who aren't gay but claim to be to gain admission.
At present, we have a form of unchecked liberal idealism that refuses to recognise how starkly it clashes with reality, and unless we reform it there's a risk its brought down all around us.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
What a load of shite. This is closing a tax loophole on a tax that is levied on pretty much everything else.
If VAT on private school fees already existed nobody would be campaigning to remove it.
This is middle class crybabyism
Thanks for your carefully crafted rebuttal! PB is all the better for such erudite wordsmanship.
VAT on food and children’s clothes next, then? Let’s close those pesky loopholes.
Yeah because basic food is the same as elite education…
Precisely. There's already VAT on luxury food (hence the famous Jaffa Cake legal ruling). VAT-free private schools is like having VAT on bread but exempting fois gras.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
Trouble is that the UK political system has persuaded itself that cutting headline tax rates wins and increasing them is a one way ticket to opposition.
See also: the frankly insane marginal rates for some high earners.
Sunak's abuse of fiscal drag as he promises a 16p basic rate.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
What a load of shite. This is closing a tax loophole on a tax that is levied on pretty much everything else.
If VAT on private school fees already existed nobody would be campaigning to remove it.
This is middle class crybabyism
Any genuine charity, i.e. a school for those with autism etc should not be charging “fees” for general education.
Many private schools have large scholarships and bursaries; so some kids *do* get free educations. My old school was part of the Woodard Foundation, and there were lots of local kids there whose parents paid little, or nothing, towards their education (admittedly most of those were, like me, day pupils).
"Each year Woodard schools provide help and assistance to parents of pupils in the form of bursaries and scholarships. The level of this assistance totals in the region of 15.5% of the gross fee income of the group – over £22.7 million in 2015-16." (1)
That makes it fairly clear how a Woodard school could replace the income lost by VAT being imposed: reduce, or stop, such assistance.
Good. Yes we need to reduce our use of carbon based fuels drastically and we should aim for net zero ASAP but whilst we continue to make any use of oil or gas we should use our own.
As pointed out on R4, at least we can now forever ignore bleating from oil companies about windfall taxes obstructing development and investment.
A phrase about a swallow and summer comes to mind. Not nearly enough money is being spent sustaining the infrastructure in the north sea with the result some fields will not be depleted to the extent that they could have been. Windfall taxes hit marginal investment and the fact that this one is proceeding doesn't change that. Anyone wondering about the adverse consequences should have a walk up and down Union Street in Aberdeen. From one of our richer areas it is now close to a disaster zone with closed restaurants and shops with charity shops filling some of the holes. These windfall taxes have hurt Scotland badly.
Also, can someone tell me how much of a charity's income needs to go towards charitable efforts; how much income they can spend on salaries and overheads, and who checks this?
ITV News Politics @ITVNewsPolitics · 5h 'You are the daughter of an immigrant, someone who wanted to come to the UK to make a better life for themselves'
Suella Braverman tells @AnushkaAsthana it's 'offensive' that people say she should be pro-migration because she is 'the child of immigrants'
===
"What I am dealing with here is illegal migration."
But you are not are you because the whole system is a systemic mess after 13 years of saying it is fixed.
This is the classic thing where some on the Left engage in racism without really realising it because they assume minorities should politically agree with them, or they're not really minorities.
Also that the left gets surprised when anyone who is an immigrant isn’t in favour all unrestricted immigration of all forms.
Mind you, the same people worked very industriously to prevent any white Zimbabwean farmers coming to this country, when they were being illegally* pushed off their land at gun point.
The reason given for this was their culture would be incompatible with that of this country.
*as ruled by the black justices of the Zimbabwean Supreme Court, using the post independence law and constitution.
The main thing I took from that speech is that she doesn’t like gays.
Nonsense.
Being gay in a country where it’s a capital offence (and where that regularly occurs) not enough to claim asylum?
We can't take in any of the 8 billion people on the planet where human rights aren't fully respected in the way we'd like them to be. Hundreds of millions would qualify, and we couldn't take them all in. I also think it's gamed by those who aren't gay but claim to be to gain admission.
At present, we have a form of unchecked liberal idealism that refuses to recognise how starkly it clashes with reality, and unless we reform it there's a risk its brought down all around us.
The hundreds of millions line is just not true. We have the current system and hundreds of millions are not seeking asylum. The UN counts 35 million refugees worldwide.
The BBC found only 1.5% of those seeking asylum in the UK gave their sexuality as a reason. That’s about half the proportion of the UK population who are gay. If people were gaming the system in any significant numbers, we’d expect a much higher proportion.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
What a load of shite. This is closing a tax loophole on a tax that is levied on pretty much everything else.
If VAT on private school fees already existed nobody would be campaigning to remove it.
This is middle class crybabyism
Any genuine charity, i.e. a school for those with autism etc should not be charging “fees” for general education.
Many private schools have large scholarships and bursaries; so some kids *do* get free educations. My old school was part of the Woodard Foundation, and there were lots of local kids there whose parents paid little, or nothing, towards their education (admittedly most of those were, like me, day pupils).
"Each year Woodard schools provide help and assistance to parents of pupils in the form of bursaries and scholarships. The level of this assistance totals in the region of 15.5% of the gross fee income of the group – over £22.7 million in 2015-16." (1)
That makes it fairly clear how a Woodard school could replace the income lost by VAT being imposed: reduce, or stop, such assistance.
My old school actually provides free education to all its pupils, regardless of their circumstances. If anyone would like to make a contribution to the incredible work it does, please vote Labour so we can have a properly funded education system.
Also, can someone tell me how much of a charity's income needs to go towards charitable efforts; how much income they can spend on salaries and overheads, and who checks this?
There isn’t a simple figure. A successful charity at fundraising will put more to charitable effort compared to an unsuccessful one, but we don’t judge charities on how successful they are. A charity that’s just not very good at fundraising is still a charity.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
What a load of shite. This is closing a tax loophole on a tax that is levied on pretty much everything else.
If VAT on private school fees already existed nobody would be campaigning to remove it.
This is middle class crybabyism
Any genuine charity, i.e. a school for those with autism etc should not be charging “fees” for general education.
Many private schools have large scholarships and bursaries; so some kids *do* get free educations. My old school was part of the Woodard Foundation, and there were lots of local kids there whose parents paid little, or nothing, towards their education (admittedly most of those were, like me, day pupils).
"Each year Woodard schools provide help and assistance to parents of pupils in the form of bursaries and scholarships. The level of this assistance totals in the region of 15.5% of the gross fee income of the group – over £22.7 million in 2015-16." (1)
That makes it fairly clear how a Woodard school could replace the income lost by VAT being imposed: reduce, or stop, such assistance.
My old school actually provides free education to all its pupils, regardless of their circumstances. If anyone would like to make a contribution to the incredible work it does, please vote Labour so we can have a properly funded education system.
LOL. I have little hope that Labour will actually improve things wrt education. As I said below - and you apparently disagreed with - it's as much a societal and parental issue as it is a funding one.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
What a load of shite. This is closing a tax loophole on a tax that is levied on pretty much everything else.
If VAT on private school fees already existed nobody would be campaigning to remove it.
This is middle class crybabyism
Any genuine charity, i.e. a school for those with autism etc should not be charging “fees” for general education.
Many private schools have large scholarships and bursaries; so some kids *do* get free educations. My old school was part of the Woodard Foundation, and there were lots of local kids there whose parents paid little, or nothing, towards their education (admittedly most of those were, like me, day pupils).
"Each year Woodard schools provide help and assistance to parents of pupils in the form of bursaries and scholarships. The level of this assistance totals in the region of 15.5% of the gross fee income of the group – over £22.7 million in 2015-16." (1)
That makes it fairly clear how a Woodard school could replace the income lost by VAT being imposed: reduce, or stop, such assistance.
I'd have no problem with them stopping that support if they lost the charity tax breaks. I'd also have no problem with having a charitable organisation aligned to the school providing those places and enjoying charity status. I'd also have no problem with the school stopping that support, the money instead going to the government and being split across education to benefit all rather than a lucky few who happen to live close enough to such a school and qualify.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
It doesn't subsidise rich kids, most of it subsidises scholarships and bursaries for bright pupils who would otherwise have parents unable to pay the fees and who would then have to be taxpayer funded in state schools anyway. It also funds facilities which are often shared with the local community
I’m not saying the policy is good. But is good politics . The general public don’t do detail , forums like this aren’t representative of the general population .
Labours line will be that it’s unfair for the public to be subsidizing private schools with tax breaks . It doesn’t matter if that’s stretching the truth.
In any case - the general public is currently subsidising a very few and highly selected un-rich kids in a very few limited areas,. whereas the VAT moneys go to the wider realm as a whole. So HYUFD's argument is not valid.
Yes it is valid, I am a conservative, I believe in ladders to excellence unlike a lowest common denominator leftwinger like you.
Public cost for private benefit? That's what modern Conservatism is all about. And if you can't tell the difference between centrist dads and lefties out of Citizen Smith then your sense of proportion has long been out of kilter.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
Trouble is that the UK political system has persuaded itself that cutting headline tax rates wins and increasing them is a one way ticket to opposition.
See also: the frankly insane marginal rates for some high earners.
Sunak's abuse of fiscal drag as he promises a 16p basic rate.
I don't know how we break out of this.
And Office of Tax Transparency which, after each change, publishes graphs of the full tax take, including NI, across income ranges and, for each see decile (say) or earnings compares this to the past 10 or 20 years?
He's been found liable for Civil Fraud, and his family have all had their rights to do businesses in NY cancelled. 10 days to appoint receivers for the NY based Trump businesses to dissolve them.
Plus restitution to be extracted on an estimated sum of $250 million.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
It doesn't subsidise rich kids, most of it subsidises scholarships and bursaries for bright pupils who would otherwise have parents unable to pay the fees and who would then have to be taxpayer funded in state schools anyway. It also funds facilities which are often shared with the local community
I’m not saying the policy is good. But is good politics . The general public don’t do detail , forums like this aren’t representative of the general population .
Labours line will be that it’s unfair for the public to be subsidizing private schools with tax breaks . It doesn’t matter if that’s stretching the truth.
In any case - the general public is currently subsidising a very few and highly selected un-rich kids in a very few limited areas,. whereas the VAT moneys go to the wider realm as a whole. So HYUFD's argument is not valid.
Yes it is valid, I am a conservative, I believe in ladders to excellence unlike a lowest common denominator leftwinger like you.
Public cost for private benefit? That's what modern Conservatism is all about. And if you can't tell the difference between centrist dads and lefties out of Citizen Smith then your sense of proportion has long been out of kilter.
He talks about "ladders to excellence" - out of state schools into private schools.
In other words state schools are considered to be shit. Vote Conservative or Fuck Off.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
Trouble is that the UK political system has persuaded itself that cutting headline tax rates wins and increasing them is a one way ticket to opposition.
See also: the frankly insane marginal rates for some high earners.
Sunak's abuse of fiscal drag as he promises a 16p basic rate.
I don't know how we break out of this.
And Office of Tax Transparency which, after each change, publishes graphs of the full tax take, including NI, across income ranges and, for each see decile (say) or earnings compares this to the past 10 or 20 years?
Don't leave the Universal Credit taper of 55% out of the conversation.
O/T Does anyone care to guess when Far From The Madding Crowd is set? (I'm trying to settle an argument.)
Most sources (ok, Google results) suggest 1860s or 1870s but... no railways are mentioned and Dorchester (Casterbridge) had two lines by 1857.
Isn't it set in the Puddletown area, near where TH was born at Higher Bockhampton? The railways don't go that way (well, the Dorchester-Wareham line does a bit, but it's to the south, to the other side of the Frome watermeadows. And if the characters don't travel much, it may not register.
Dorchester/Casterbridge was of course an army depot, but not till much later in the C19 I think? The thing that puzzles me on reflection is how/why Troy was released from the army. Any reference to that? Released early due to illness? or ganbling? The term of service with the Regulars was 21 years till 1870, so how old is he in the book? Assuming it's not 1814-1815.
And if he is young and not a part timer (Yeomarny/Volunteer/Militia man) then presumably we are looking at 1876 on - 1870 plus 6 years service under the 1870 Act.
Other poss is a part timer who went out to the Crimea but I don't think they did - home defence only?
Bathsheba drove her trap to Bath, a long and arduous journey, when she could have taken the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway from Dorchester.
That is pretty convincing.
And on checking, Troy is in barracks early on - but a long way north. Which could be anywhere. Indeed it might just be artistic licence, or TH misapplying the post-1870 regime anachronistically.
Farooq's poem quote is interesting - but is it in a context which forces the date of the action, or simply recalls the 1850-ish period?
Also, on checking the Barnes poem is not quoted by a character but inserted by the author, and no one disputes the book was written in the 1870s.
Yes, that's what Carnyx is saying. See my reply at 11:28. It's open to interpretation.
Ok, Turpin's Ride to York, the play mentioned by a character in Chapter L, was written in 1836. That's a rock-solid earliest setting for FFTMC
The niggle I have - admittedly it being so long since I read it - is why Bathsheba, with some land and property, should even consider marrying an army other rank in the 1850s. As a sergeant's wife she would be better off, and might actually be allowed to accompany her husband if he were sent overseas, but it was a pretty miserable life (depending on whether they could get one of the new marriedf quarters). The Army was not well thought of.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Of course, the exact opposite is true.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
This is spot on. (Even if Casino thinks I’m a “Leftie”.)
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
Trouble is that the UK political system has persuaded itself that cutting headline tax rates wins and increasing them is a one way ticket to opposition.
See also: the frankly insane marginal rates for some high earners.
Sunak's abuse of fiscal drag as he promises a 16p basic rate.
I don't know how we break out of this.
And Office of Tax Transparency which, after each change, publishes graphs of the full tax take, including NI, across income ranges and, for each see decile (say) or earnings compares this to the past 10 or 20 years?
Don't leave the Universal Credit taper of 55% out of the conversation.
I hate to say it but I can't see any way that reduces that taper below 55% that doesn't significantly increase the total bill because decreasing the taper would bring a lot more people into Universal Credit..
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Parents of children at private schools, who are wealthier than the average, already pay far more than their far share for a state education system they don't use.
It is bizarre to call it a subsidy: not taxing something isn't a subsidy, and the state provides the competitor service entirely free.
Since private schools will stop providing charitable services such as free use of facilities to local comps it will hurt those it's supposed to help. They will also be much less able to help relatively poorer children with scholareships. State schools will crumble even more if they have to cope with a big influx of pupils priced out of private schools. Etc. etc. It's terrible policy driven solely by envy and it will have all kinds of bad unintended effects.
So classic socialism.
Can someone ask SirKeir how much VAT he expects to actually raise from “schools like Eton”?
Some fag-packet maths. Eton boarding fees are £40k ish, and there’s c.1k pupils there, so Eton will pay £8m in VAT. Say there’s another 49 schools like Eton, that’s £400m in total.
Now, how many people in these schools are paying the fees via overseas companies, UK companies, various nation states, embassies, and our own military - all of whom won’t be paying the VAT?
What we come down to, is that the vast majority of the VAT he’ll be raising is from the provincial day schools, where parents scrimp and save to an astonishing degree, in order to send their kids there at £10k-£15k. Many of these people have planned for fees at a certain level, in a sector with way above-average inflation over the past two decades, and could be quite sensitive to a sudden 20% rise. A number of both parents and schools will tip over the edge, and create extra demand for the state sector.
Then there’s the private tutor industry, and the various Sunday schools and ‘Friday schools’, which are even more price-sensitive.
All this before we get to the loss of facilities to the community, and a reduction in scholarships.
I'm guessing that Labour follows through with the plan to put VAT on school fees, but with a compromise. Maybe the reduced rate of 5% will be applied rather than 20% - or perhaps a new rate in-between?
Good. Yes we need to reduce our use of carbon based fuels drastically and we should aim for net zero ASAP but whilst we continue to make any use of oil or gas we should use our own.
As pointed out on R4, at least we can now forever ignore bleating from oil companies about windfall taxes obstructing development and investment.
A phrase about a swallow and summer comes to mind. Not nearly enough money is being spent sustaining the infrastructure in the north sea with the result some fields will not be depleted to the extent that they could have been. Windfall taxes hit marginal investment and the fact that this one is proceeding doesn't change that. Anyone wondering about the adverse consequences should have a walk up and down Union Street in Aberdeen. From one of our richer areas it is now close to a disaster zone with closed restaurants and shops with charity shops filling some of the holes. These windfall taxes have hurt Scotland badly.
Union St has been in constant decline throughout all the booms and busts of NE oil. It was a basket case when the likes of Sir Ian Wood and Darling were stating that NE oil was running out and of little value, and it continued declining when oil prices bounced back. I'm even old enough to remember when a major oil field west of Shetland was claimed to be a Nat chimera, and yet Brigadoon-like, up it pops..
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
It doesn't subsidise rich kids, most of it subsidises scholarships and bursaries for bright pupils who would otherwise have parents unable to pay the fees and who would then have to be taxpayer funded in state schools anyway. It also funds facilities which are often shared with the local community
I’m not saying the policy is good. But is good politics . The general public don’t do detail , forums like this aren’t representative of the general population .
Labours line will be that it’s unfair for the public to be subsidizing private schools with tax breaks . It doesn’t matter if that’s stretching the truth.
In any case - the general public is currently subsidising a very few and highly selected un-rich kids in a very few limited areas,. whereas the VAT moneys go to the wider realm as a whole. So HYUFD's argument is not valid.
Yes it is valid, I am a conservative, I believe in ladders to excellence unlike a lowest common denominator leftwinger like you.
Public cost for private benefit? That's what modern Conservatism is all about. And if you can't tell the difference between centrist dads and lefties out of Citizen Smith then your sense of proportion has long been out of kilter.
He talks about "ladders to excellence" - out of state schools into private schools.
In other words state schools are considered to be shit. Vote Conservative or Fuck Off.
Exactly. He accuses people on the left of "lowest common denominator" thinking, and in the same breath implies that there's going to be no excellence, except in the private sector of education!
Also, can someone tell me how much of a charity's income needs to go towards charitable efforts; how much income they can spend on salaries and overheads, and who checks this?
And can that please be expanded to all charities. Many of the larger charities, those that advertise on TV (although mostly at reduced rates), have massive overheads, large offices, and plenty of executives on six-figure salaries.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Parents of children at private schools, who are wealthier than the average, already pay far more than their far share for a state education system they don't use.
It is bizarre to call it a subsidy: not taxing something isn't a subsidy, and the state provides the competitor service entirely free.
Since private schools will stop providing charitable services such as free use of facilities to local comps it will hurt those it's supposed to help. They will also be much less able to help relatively poorer children with scholareships. State schools will crumble even more if they have to cope with a big influx of pupils priced out of private schools. Etc. etc. It's terrible policy driven solely by envy and it will have all kinds of bad unintended effects.
So classic socialism.
Can someone ask SirKeir how much VAT he expects to actually raise from “schools like Eton”.
Some fag-packet maths. Eton boarding fees are £40k ish, and there’s 1k pupils there, so Eton will pay £8m in VAT. Say there’s another 49 schools like Eton, that’s £400m in total.
Now, how many people in these schools are paying the fees via overseas companies, UK companies, various nation states, embassies, and our own military - all of whom won’t be paying the VAT?
What we come down to, is that the vast majority of the VAT he’ll be raising is from the provincial day schools, where parents scrimp and save to an astonishing degree, in order to send their kids there at £10k-£15k. Many of these people have planned for fees at a certain level, in a sector with way above-average inflation over the past two decades, and could be quite sensitive to a sudden 20% rise. A number will tip over the edge and create extra demand for the state sector.
Then there’s the private tutor industry, and the various Sunday schools and ‘Friday schools’, which are even more price-sensitive.
It’s basically the 2020s version of fox hunting.
Did he really say schools like Eton - because as I said yesterday Eton is probably the only private school that could demonstrate it's charitable endeavours and show that those endeavours actually work..
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Parents of children at private schools, who are wealthier than the average, already pay far more than their far share for a state education system they don't use.
It is bizarre to call it a subsidy: not taxing something isn't a subsidy, and the state provides the competitor service entirely free.
Since private schools will stop providing charitable services such as free use of facilities to local comps it will hurt those it's supposed to help. They will also be much less able to help relatively poorer children with scholareships. State schools will crumble even more if they have to cope with a big influx of pupils priced out of private schools. Etc. etc. It's terrible policy driven solely by envy and it will have all kinds of bad unintended effects.
So classic socialism.
Can someone ask SirKeir how much VAT he expects to actually raise from “schools like Eton”.
Some fag-packet maths. Eton boarding fees are £40k ish, and there’s 1k pupils there, so Eton will pay £8m in VAT. Say there’s another 49 schools like Eton, that’s £400m in total.
Now, how many people in these schools are paying the fees via overseas companies, UK companies, various nation states, embassies, and our own military - all of whom won’t be paying the VAT?
What we come down to, is that the vast majority of the VAT he’ll be raising is from the provincial day schools, where parents scrimp and save to an astonishing degree, in order to send their kids there at £10k-£15k. Many of these people have planned for fees at a certain level, in a sector with way above-average inflation over the past two decades, and could be quite sensitive to a sudden 20% rise. A number will tip over the edge and create extra demand for the state sector.
Then there’s the private tutor industry, and the various Sunday schools and ‘Friday schools’, which are even more price-sensitive.
It’s basically the 2020s version of fox hunting.
Quite right. It's outrageous to suggest that well off people pay VAT on a service like the rest of us do. How very dare we?
Also, can someone tell me how much of a charity's income needs to go towards charitable efforts; how much income they can spend on salaries and overheads, and who checks this?
It is the charities Trustees and the Charity Commision that are responsible.
I am one of the Trustees of my church, though our charitable purposes are pretty broadly defined to include anything to support the aims of the church.
FPT: Earlier, I mentioned that aircraft might be a better choice than rail for carrying people, even on the HS2 route. But my example was not the best for my argument. In today's New York Times, there is an article describing electric "air taxis", which have wings, but can take off and land vertically, like a helicopter. One firm making them, Joby, just delivered one to the Air Force, which will be testing it at Edwards. Their aircraft can travel at up to 200 mph, quietly, and has a range of 100 miles. https://www.jobyaviation.com/
(Gardenwalker may find an example at their site of interest.)
For some time I have suspected that part of the reason that so many support rail transit is that they want to get other people off their roads. Especially poor people. But, if this aircraft option becomes important, it could get some of the wealthy off the roads and, in some places, off rail transit, possibly making both roads and rails more usable for the poor and middle class.
(I am referring to an article by Niraj Chokshi in a print copy of the newspaper, so no link, but I assume most of you can find the article, one way or another.)
Flying definitely isn't the best option for travelling between London and Birmingham, or London and Manchester. It's only 2 hours by train for the latter journey, even before HS2.
Oh it is. If you can afford an helicopter between London and Birmingham, it’s the option you take every single time.
What we come down to, is that the vast majority of the VAT he’ll be raising is from the provincial day schools,
Good. These are worse than Eton, Harrow, etc. because they are full of bourgeois provincials desperately trying to excise the glottal stops from their children's diction.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
It doesn't subsidise rich kids, most of it subsidises scholarships and bursaries for bright pupils who would otherwise have parents unable to pay the fees and who would then have to be taxpayer funded in state schools anyway. It also funds facilities which are often shared with the local community
I’m not saying the policy is good. But is good politics . The general public don’t do detail , forums like this aren’t representative of the general population .
Labours line will be that it’s unfair for the public to be subsidizing private schools with tax breaks . It doesn’t matter if that’s stretching the truth.
In any case - the general public is currently subsidising a very few and highly selected un-rich kids in a very few limited areas,. whereas the VAT moneys go to the wider realm as a whole. So HYUFD's argument is not valid.
Yes it is valid, I am a conservative, I believe in ladders to excellence unlike a lowest common denominator leftwinger like you.
Public cost for private benefit? That's what modern Conservatism is all about. And if you can't tell the difference between centrist dads and lefties out of Citizen Smith then your sense of proportion has long been out of kilter.
He talks about "ladders to excellence" - out of state schools into private schools.
In other words state schools are considered to be shit. Vote Conservative or Fuck Off.
Exactly. The 99% left behind can rot, as far as he is concerned.
ITV News Politics @ITVNewsPolitics · 5h 'You are the daughter of an immigrant, someone who wanted to come to the UK to make a better life for themselves'
Suella Braverman tells @AnushkaAsthana it's 'offensive' that people say she should be pro-migration because she is 'the child of immigrants'
===
"What I am dealing with here is illegal migration."
But you are not are you because the whole system is a systemic mess after 13 years of saying it is fixed.
This is the classic thing where some on the Left engage in racism without really realising it because they assume minorities should politically agree with them, or they're not really minorities.
Also that the left gets surprised when anyone who is an immigrant isn’t in favour all unrestricted immigration of all forms.
Mind you, the same people worked very industriously to prevent any white Zimbabwean farmers coming to this country, when they were being illegally* pushed off their land at gun point.
The reason given for this was their culture would be incompatible with that of this country.
*as ruled by the black justices of the Zimbabwean Supreme Court, using the post independence law and constitution.
The main thing I took from that speech is that she doesn’t like gays.
Nonsense.
Being gay in a country where it’s a capital offence (and where that regularly occurs) not enough to claim asylum?
We can't take in any of the 8 billion people on the planet where human rights aren't fully respected in the way we'd like them to be. Hundreds of millions would qualify, and we couldn't take them all in. I also think it's gamed by those who aren't gay but claim to be to gain admission.
At present, we have a form of unchecked liberal idealism that refuses to recognise how starkly it clashes with reality, and unless we reform it there's a risk its brought down all around us.
I must agree here. The critical point is not the place of the individual refugee on a victim hierarchy. The critical point is the number of people we can realistically accommodate per year. We are currently planning on bringing in 500k-1m people per year, which is way beyond the number of living units we can construct. Whether it's train lines, airport terminals or migrant policy, 2020s politics is wilfully unable to construct realistic plans and carry them out and I am very tired of it.
Thing is, I don't really care how tax efficient your system is, if your system is working towards a caste system.
Could equally be argued to be a liberal system. State provides education but doesn't mandate that everyone uses it. I support the private option but am amenable to tax being levied on fees, but 20% would do a lot of damage all round I think.
Good. Yes we need to reduce our use of carbon based fuels drastically and we should aim for net zero ASAP but whilst we continue to make any use of oil or gas we should use our own.
As pointed out on R4, at least we can now forever ignore bleating from oil companies about windfall taxes obstructing development and investment.
A phrase about a swallow and summer comes to mind. Not nearly enough money is being spent sustaining the infrastructure in the north sea with the result some fields will not be depleted to the extent that they could have been. Windfall taxes hit marginal investment and the fact that this one is proceeding doesn't change that. Anyone wondering about the adverse consequences should have a walk up and down Union Street in Aberdeen. From one of our richer areas it is now close to a disaster zone with closed restaurants and shops with charity shops filling some of the holes. These windfall taxes have hurt Scotland badly.
Union St has been in constant decline throughout all the booms and busts of NE oil. It was a basket case when the likes of Sir Ian Wood and Darling were stating that NE oil was running out and of little value, and it continued declining when oil prices bounced back. I'm even old enough to remember when a major oil field west of Shetland was claimed to be a Nat chimera, and yet Brigadoon-like, up it pops..
Union Street has been a bit rubbish for the last 25 years or so (as far as I can remember).
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
It doesn't subsidise rich kids, most of it subsidises scholarships and bursaries for bright pupils who would otherwise have parents unable to pay the fees and who would then have to be taxpayer funded in state schools anyway. It also funds facilities which are often shared with the local community
I’m not saying the policy is good. But is good politics . The general public don’t do detail , forums like this aren’t representative of the general population .
Labours line will be that it’s unfair for the public to be subsidizing private schools with tax breaks . It doesn’t matter if that’s stretching the truth.
In any case - the general public is currently subsidising a very few and highly selected un-rich kids in a very few limited areas,. whereas the VAT moneys go to the wider realm as a whole. So HYUFD's argument is not valid.
Yes it is valid, I am a conservative, I believe in ladders to excellence unlike a lowest common denominator leftwinger like you.
Public cost for private benefit? That's what modern Conservatism is all about. And if you can't tell the difference between centrist dads and lefties out of Citizen Smith then your sense of proportion has long been out of kilter.
He talks about "ladders to excellence" - out of state schools into private schools.
In other words state schools are considered to be shit. Vote Conservative or Fuck Off.
To be honest, the fact that attending private school often seems to breed this kind of attitude is why I don't send my kids to private school. It just seems like an expensive way of turning your child into a [insert word of your choice].
Eliud Kipchoge banned from training on that street then!
Well offtopic, but an open question. For how long do you think you could keep up Kipchoge marathon speed - 5 miles, one mile, half a mile, 100m?
Good luck with the the 100m, he does that in 17s, for two hours straight, on the road. 68s for 400m, one lap of a track, which most club runners can’t do. https://youtube.com/watch?v=41WC1hH8WX0
Good. Yes we need to reduce our use of carbon based fuels drastically and we should aim for net zero ASAP but whilst we continue to make any use of oil or gas we should use our own.
As pointed out on R4, at least we can now forever ignore bleating from oil companies about windfall taxes obstructing development and investment.
A phrase about a swallow and summer comes to mind. Not nearly enough money is being spent sustaining the infrastructure in the north sea with the result some fields will not be depleted to the extent that they could have been. Windfall taxes hit marginal investment and the fact that this one is proceeding doesn't change that. Anyone wondering about the adverse consequences should have a walk up and down Union Street in Aberdeen. From one of our richer areas it is now close to a disaster zone with closed restaurants and shops with charity shops filling some of the holes. These windfall taxes have hurt Scotland badly.
Union St has been in constant decline throughout all the booms and busts of NE oil. It was a basket case when the likes of Sir Ian Wood and Darling were stating that NE oil was running out and of little value, and it continued declining when oil prices bounced back. I'm even old enough to remember when a major oil field west of Shetland was claimed to be a Nat chimera, and yet Brigadoon-like, up it pops..
One wonders if London and the UK are in terminal decline because of the number of peculiar looking sweetie shops in Oxford Street. THough that might even be true.
Good. Yes we need to reduce our use of carbon based fuels drastically and we should aim for net zero ASAP but whilst we continue to make any use of oil or gas we should use our own.
As pointed out on R4, at least we can now forever ignore bleating from oil companies about windfall taxes obstructing development and investment.
A phrase about a swallow and summer comes to mind. Not nearly enough money is being spent sustaining the infrastructure in the north sea with the result some fields will not be depleted to the extent that they could have been. Windfall taxes hit marginal investment and the fact that this one is proceeding doesn't change that. Anyone wondering about the adverse consequences should have a walk up and down Union Street in Aberdeen. From one of our richer areas it is now close to a disaster zone with closed restaurants and shops with charity shops filling some of the holes. These windfall taxes have hurt Scotland badly.
I went to Aberdeen last year (RSS Conference) and I agree about the dying high street, but everywhere outside London is like that. It would be difficult to tease out what deprivation is caused by govt policy and what caused by online shopping.
What we come down to, is that the vast majority of the VAT he’ll be raising is from the provincial day schools,
Good. These are worse than Eton, Harrow, etc. because they are full of bourgeois provincials desperately trying to excise the glottal stops from their children's diction.
Good. Yes we need to reduce our use of carbon based fuels drastically and we should aim for net zero ASAP but whilst we continue to make any use of oil or gas we should use our own.
As pointed out on R4, at least we can now forever ignore bleating from oil companies about windfall taxes obstructing development and investment.
A phrase about a swallow and summer comes to mind. Not nearly enough money is being spent sustaining the infrastructure in the north sea with the result some fields will not be depleted to the extent that they could have been. Windfall taxes hit marginal investment and the fact that this one is proceeding doesn't change that. Anyone wondering about the adverse consequences should have a walk up and down Union Street in Aberdeen. From one of our richer areas it is now close to a disaster zone with closed restaurants and shops with charity shops filling some of the holes. These windfall taxes have hurt Scotland badly.
Union St has been in constant decline throughout all the booms and busts of NE oil. It was a basket case when the likes of Sir Ian Wood and Darling were stating that NE oil was running out and of little value, and it continued declining when oil prices bounced back. I'm even old enough to remember when a major oil field west of Shetland was claimed to be a Nat chimera, and yet Brigadoon-like, up it pops..
One wonders if London and the UK are in terminal decline because of the number of peculiar looking sweetie shops in Oxford Street. THough that might even be true.
Union St is an extreme case but aren't the main streets of all cities on a downward trajectory? I go through to Edinburgh reasonably frequently, but it must be 20 years since I used Princes St for anything but a route from station to pub.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis · 15m MAIL: Labour’s class war begins on Day One #TomorrowsPapersToday
===
"Backlash as parents face school fees hike"
How many Mail readers send their kids to private school???
It is not just the mail going onto the attack
The i as well
Sorry the link didn't work
The Mail tries its best to make it sound like Labour will be charging a new fee for all parents . Not sure the I headline will worry Labour . A backlash from private schools . 93% of children do not go to private schools . They get a subsidy in effect from tax payers whilst state schools are crumbling. Do you want your taxes subsiding rich parennts sending their kids to places like Eton .
That will be the Labour campaign.
Parents of children at private schools, who are wealthier than the average, already pay far more than their far share for a state education system they don't use.
It is bizarre to call it a subsidy: not taxing something isn't a subsidy, and the state provides the competitor service entirely free.
Since private schools will stop providing charitable services such as free use of facilities to local comps it will hurt those it's supposed to help. They will also be much less able to help relatively poorer children with scholareships. State schools will crumble even more if they have to cope with a big influx of pupils priced out of private schools. Etc. etc. It's terrible policy driven solely by envy and it will have all kinds of bad unintended effects.
So classic socialism.
Can someone ask SirKeir how much VAT he expects to actually raise from “schools like Eton”.
Some fag-packet maths. Eton boarding fees are £40k ish, and there’s 1k pupils there, so Eton will pay £8m in VAT. Say there’s another 49 schools like Eton, that’s £400m in total.
Now, how many people in these schools are paying the fees via overseas companies, UK companies, various nation states, embassies, and our own military - all of whom won’t be paying the VAT?
What we come down to, is that the vast majority of the VAT he’ll be raising is from the provincial day schools, where parents scrimp and save to an astonishing degree, in order to send their kids there at £10k-£15k. Many of these people have planned for fees at a certain level, in a sector with way above-average inflation over the past two decades, and could be quite sensitive to a sudden 20% rise. A number will tip over the edge and create extra demand for the state sector.
Then there’s the private tutor industry, and the various Sunday schools and ‘Friday schools’, which are even more price-sensitive.
It’s basically the 2020s version of fox hunting.
Quite right. It's outrageous to suggest that well off people pay VAT on a service like the rest of us do. How very dare we?
I see the Amry at least only pays £8692 per term per child max. And that is through the parents. So VAT not recoverable.
What we come down to, is that the vast majority of the VAT he’ll be raising is from the provincial day schools,
Good. These are worse than Eton, Harrow, etc. because they are full of bourgeois provincials desperately trying to excise the glottal stops from their children's diction.
Those who then go into politics have to be trained to reinsert the glottal stop (Blair, Sunak, Osborne et al); do those providing this essential service have charitable exemption from VAT?
Incidentally, an acquaintance has taken one of his kids out of a local school and put her into private education because of some rather nasty bullying that the school could not, or refused, to combat.
Not everyone who sends their kids to private school are posh; many parents who send their kids to private school make sacrifices to do so - because they care for their kids.
Exactly my family's experience.
The State School was incapable of addressing, or dealing with, bullying - so my niece had to be pulled out and sent to a local small independent day school to ensure her welfare.
She eventually returned to the State Sector at the next educational stage, but obtaining appropriate aid (ie a Statement) required a couple of years of bureaucratic process including the need to attend meetings with a specialist barrister (at 4 figures a time), private medical reports and all the rest.
Far better to have tolerably affordable alternatives, which many parents can meet by not taking holidays, living in a smaller house etc if they choose to do so.
These are things that the Labour proposals, as far as I can see, have just not bothered thinking about (having read the supporting report) in their enthusiasm to trip over their own feet to pander to Neander.
Not something Mr Starmer should do to raise pin money when he also needs every vote he can get his hands on.
Comments
Ade Adeyemi"
https://labourlist.org/2023/09/artificial-intelligence-campaigning-canvassing-labour-party-general-election/
Must be an alert on as Aberdeen were screening more people and bags than not. I even saw a copper get frisked.
Even this far right conspiracy theory stuff ?
https://x.com/lozzafox/status/1706648995429224675?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ
Very diverse ethnicities and religions, that all seem to get on very well indeed.
Ironically, part of the origin of the Home Sec.
In both Uxbridge and Wakefield both leading candidates were men, in both Somerton and Chester both were women.
Only West Lancashire, which wasn't all that interesting as a contest, was a hold for a Labour woman against a Tory man.
So I'm not sure your basic assumption is right, even if it was a sensible model for prediction.
Doesn't bode well, does it?
The second bit is just a blatant lie, on so many angles that it is not worthy of further discussion.
Every parent who sends their child to private school is effectively paying double - they are paying all the tax for a state school place, but not taking it up, thereby donating the resources they would have used so they are available for everyone else instead. Meanwhile, they expand the level of investment going into the education sector overall, funding the training of more teachers, experimenting with new education styles, more resources and facilities, rather than spend it on property and consumption. Which is where they money would otherwise go. And private schools are charitable endeavours that don't generate profit or return to investors but invest in an educational mission overall.
This is why governments of all stripes have recognised this in the tax system for decades - because it's in the public interest. They are a net good.
It won't be Eton, Harrow or Winchester hit by these changes. It will be the smaller more marginal private schools where two parents working full-time - doctors, accountants, pilots, solicitors, and small businessmen - work hard to be able to afford the fees are forced to pull their kids out, with the school closing and the community assets lost. The state system won't gain a bean from it except an additional burden and the education sector overall will shrink. We'll all be poorer for it.
It's a disgrace of a policy based on prejudice. It deserves to fail, as all bad policies should.
Mind you, the same people worked very industriously to prevent any white Zimbabwean farmers coming to this country, when they were being illegally* pushed off their land at gun point.
The reason given for this was their culture would be incompatible with that of this country.
*as ruled by the black justices of the Zimbabwean Supreme Court, using the post independence law and constitution.
It's a bit Spinal Tap final concert in vibe.
That was not exactly the best line with which to start a post that actually contained a couple of reasonable points.
My son's school is in a fairly middle-class area. I have talked to a fair few parents and kids, and see a large range of attitudes towards schooling. I reckon the biggest problem facing state schools isn't funding (although that helps); it's parenting and culture.
One in five kids are frequently missing school (1). Some of these kids will have good reasons to be off school (e.g. illness), but for many - and their parents - it will be the 'easier' option. We need kids, parents and society as a whole to value schooling and education; to say that knowledge and skills are not only useful, but also good in their own right. This includes skills and training for kids who find 'traditional' subjects difficult.
And yes, increased funding to help those left behind would be excellent. But it will do little good unless the kids being left behind - and their parents - understand the value of education.
(1): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66701748
Not everyone who sends their kids to private school are posh; many parents who send their kids to private school make sacrifices to do so - because they care for their kids.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-66933346
By not taking up a state school place those resources are available for everyone else. So the "tax break" is precisely the other way round. It's effectively a voluntary £6-7k donation every year. You'd have a point if the State offered a refund to any taxpayer who didn't take up a state education place but since they don't, you don't. Rather than discouraging it would actually be more logical to encourage even more of it, for those who can afford to do so, because would increase resources in the education sector as a whole and those available to educate poorer children, and efficiently raise the level of education for our populace.
The IFS analysis is flawed. Paul Johnson is a Brownite. It has been challenged by several other think-tanks, who think it will be at best neutral or net-negative in revenue, because its assumptions are wishful thinking. It underestimates price sensitivity, take into capital costs of educating additional children in the state sector, doesn't take into account school closures and doesn't consider the teachers that will be laid off.
Your post repeats well-worn tired shibboleths about how having magic, articulate "ambitious" parents in the state sector will be transformative - it won't, they will simply buy up around the best schools, enclave with other ambitious parents outside it, and tutor on top. Nothing will happen to state sector performance overall, and it's remarkable so many erstwhile intelligent people on the Left are taken in by it. It's a sort of strange class deference thing in place here, and its a myth.
I have said before I think the state education sector is underinvested in. I have said before I'd increase its budget significantly, and I think too much is spent on the NHS & pensions and not enough on science, R&D, education or defence.
But this is not the way to do it because it will damage the education sector overall, reduce its size and resources, not increase it, and harm our future prosperity.
It's a real tragedy more can't see it.
pastoral care.
If they can afford the fees, they then face the dilemma: send the child private and they’re abandoning the state sector and giving their offspring an unfair advantage. Send them to the state secondary and they’re denying their child all those things they saw on open day.
In other normal countries private school is a niche sector where you go if you want to focus on a specific skill like music or sport, or have special needs, or strong religious beliefs. In the UK it’s not like that.
How to address this? Anything but the current system. Reintroduce the direct grant system to dilute the border between state and private; or price private completely out of the mainstream; or spend enough on state education to close the gap; or nationalise the independent sector? No easy answers. VAT on fees is a small step towards the second option but isn’t going to have a transformational effect.
He's been found liable for Civil Fraud, and his family have all had their rights to do businesses in NY cancelled. 10 days to appoint receivers for the NY based Trump businesses to dissolve them.
Plus restitution to be extracted on an estimated sum of $250 million.
Expect an Appeal !
First minute of this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akyitagxDs8
BBC report:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66931855
How do you explain that?
The big name public schools will sail on regardless. The ones that will be hit will be the small ones with the specialisms in autism support or music or whatever, where the parents have scrimped and saved to send their kids because they’ve been failed by the state system.
If your position is “well improve the state system so it caters for those kids” that’s an honest position to take… and also I have a bridge to sell you. You have a look at the EHCP backlog for any given local authority and tell me how long that’s going to take.
Really it’s not that fricking hard (and here is where Casino will conclude I am in fact a Leftie). Tax wealth, rather than taxing people when they choose to spend that wealth on good things like education. A couple of pence on income tax for the super-rich would dwarf anything raised by VAT on school fees.
But Starmer won’t do that. It’s tokenism rather than genuine redistribution, at the expense of kids’ education.
This should actually be a policy where there is a decent divide between liberals and left-wingers, and it'd be interested to understand that.
The policy you advocate will deliver the opposite.
If VAT on private school fees already existed nobody would be campaigning to remove it.
This is middle class crybabyism
I think the main difference is that I'd redistribute public spending from within the existing envelope to keep taxes low, fair and competitive, and deliver additional resources to education that way, rather than increasing the burden still further, crowding out other sectors & suffocating growth.
To the extent tax does need to be raised though, I agree wealth is undertaxed and income overtaxed.
I also think we need to look afresh at NHS and Pensions funding, which are both baselined to models from the 1940s and 1900s respectively, when things were very different and there was very little private or social provision available, except to the super-rich, and shift more of the risk and responsibility for it onto individuals, or it will collectively bankrupt us.
VAT on food and children’s clothes next, then? Let’s close those pesky loopholes.
At present, we have a form of unchecked liberal idealism that refuses to recognise how starkly it clashes with reality, and unless we reform it there's a risk its brought down all around us.
See also: the frankly insane marginal rates for some high earners.
Sunak's abuse of fiscal drag as he promises a 16p basic rate.
I don't know how we break out of this.
"Each year Woodard schools provide help and assistance to parents of pupils in the form of bursaries and scholarships. The level of this assistance totals in the region of 15.5% of the gross fee income of the group – over £22.7 million in 2015-16." (1)
That makes it fairly clear how a Woodard school could replace the income lost by VAT being imposed: reduce, or stop, such assistance.
(1): https://woodardschools.co.uk/bursaries-and-scholarships/
The BBC found only 1.5% of those seeking asylum in the UK gave their sexuality as a reason. That’s about half the proportion of the UK population who are gay. If people were gaming the system in any significant numbers, we’d expect a much higher proportion.
In other words state schools are considered to be shit. Vote Conservative or Fuck Off.
Some fag-packet maths. Eton boarding fees are £40k ish, and there’s c.1k pupils there, so Eton will pay £8m in VAT.
Say there’s another 49 schools like Eton, that’s £400m in total.
Now, how many people in these schools are paying the fees via overseas companies, UK companies, various nation states, embassies, and our own military - all of whom won’t be paying the VAT?
What we come down to, is that the vast majority of the VAT he’ll be raising is from the provincial day schools, where parents scrimp and save to an astonishing degree, in order to send their kids there at £10k-£15k. Many of these people have planned for fees at a certain level, in a sector with way above-average inflation over the past two decades, and could be quite sensitive to a sudden 20% rise. A number of both parents and schools will tip over the edge, and create extra demand for the state sector.
Then there’s the private tutor industry, and the various Sunday schools and ‘Friday schools’, which are even more price-sensitive.
All this before we get to the loss of facilities to the community, and a reduction in scholarships.
It’s basically the 2020s version of fox hunting.
And the Tories need every vote they can possible get because a lot of former Tory voters are currently repulsed by them.
I am one of the Trustees of my church, though our charitable purposes are pretty broadly defined to include anything to support the aims of the church.
I can't decide. 50/50.
I laid USA a few weeks ago at 1.85 (BF) and their odds have drifted to 2.24 now. So this is nice.
Now USA at 2.24 is too big.
12.5 the draw but I'm not backing that as Solheim was a draw and surely not both a draw? (This is version of the Gambler's Fallacy.)
Happily: https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeen-aberdeenshire/5893771/union-street-bike-lane/
Well offtopic, but an open question. For how long do you think you could keep up Kipchoge marathon speed - 5 miles, one mile, half a mile, 100m?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=41WC1hH8WX0
If so I support the private system heartily.
It puts the cost of HS2 in perspective. You could buy 33 Rosebanks, or quite possibly more, for the cost of just 1 HS2.
https://aff.org.uk/advice/money-and-allowances/continuity-of-education-allowance/
The State School was incapable of addressing, or dealing with, bullying - so my niece had to be pulled out and sent to a local small independent day school to ensure her welfare.
She eventually returned to the State Sector at the next educational stage, but obtaining appropriate aid (ie a Statement) required a couple of years of bureaucratic process including the need to attend meetings with a specialist barrister (at 4 figures a time), private medical reports and all the rest.
Far better to have tolerably affordable alternatives, which many parents can meet by not taking holidays, living in a smaller house etc if they choose to do so.
These are things that the Labour proposals, as far as I can see, have just not bothered thinking about (having read the supporting report) in their enthusiasm to trip over their own feet to pander to Neander.
Not something Mr Starmer should do to raise pin money when he also needs every vote he can get his hands on.