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Education, education, education – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited January 2023 in General
Education, education, education – politicalbetting.com

Labour wants to strip private schools of their charitable status and associated tax exemptions.Most Britons (55%) say private schools should not be allowed to be charities and should lose tax exemptions.https://t.co/44OCApK89F pic.twitter.com/lZUikamJAY

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Comments

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969
    edited January 2023
    First class.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,745
    Second rate?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    edited January 2023
    stodge said:

    Second rate?

    Third world?

    Education system.
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    Mr Eagles, as a proud, fee-paying pupil, could you explain why the proud fee-paying pupil Anthony Crosland is reported by his wife to have said ... "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every f**cking grammar school in England. And Wales and Northern Ireland."

    A somewhat selective socialist?

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    edited January 2023
    Labour always attack private schools' charitable status, even Blair removed assisted places. However supporting private schools and choice in education is a key Tory principle and Sunak has correctly backed keeping charitable status for private schools even if Starmer wants to scrap it.
    That charitable status enables more scholarships and bursaries for bright children from non rich families to attend private schools and is anything but just a tax break for rich people.

    Note too while 68% of Labour voters back scrapping private schools charitable status, less than half of Tory voters do. If we encourage more free schools and grammar schools that would be a far better Conservative way of encouraging state education
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959
    45% pissed off about it and voting Tory as a result won't quite have the impact of the "most" approving of it YouGov suggests.....
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    First class.

    Complete with gratuitous organ on display ?
  • HYUFD said:

    Labour always attack private schools' charitable status, even Blair removed assisted places. However supporting private schools and choice in education is a key Tory principle and Sunak has correctly backed keeping charitable status for private schools even if Starmer wants to scrap it.
    That charitable status enables more scholarships and bursaries for bright children from non rich families to attend private schools and is anything but just a tax break for rich people.

    Note too while 68% of Labour voters back scrapping private schools charitable status, less than half of Tory voters do. If we encourage more free schools and grammar schools that would be a far better Conservative way of encouraging state education

    More grammar schools = more secondary moderns.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 5,996
    This is one of those polls that needed a special cross-tab. It seems most of PB comments went to private schools, and think private schools should get tax breaks.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959
    Education has a way of showing off Labour's hypocrisy on the subject to full effect.

    It will be a cause of some fun embarrassment during an election campaign.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    CD13 said:

    Mr Eagles, as a proud, fee-paying pupil, could you explain why the proud fee-paying pupil Anthony Crosland is reported by his wife to have said ... "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every f**cking grammar school in England. And Wales and Northern Ireland."

    A somewhat selective socialist?

    Indeed, before him we had more competition for private schools. As every local authority had a grammar school and there were no comprehensive schools if you were middle class and had an intelligent child you could send them to an excellent state school for free, a grammar school.

    Only if you had a child who was not bright did you need to send them to a private school (with a few top independent schools like Eton, Harrow and Winchester still getting pupils for snobbish reasons)
  • Incoherent question, VAT is what SKS is currently on about, and that has nothing to do with charitable status anyway.

    Surprised not to see yougov going with Should former Chancellors who "settle disputes" over tax for 7 figures face prosecution?
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,745
    To pick up specifically on @HYUFD's comments on the previous thread, let's consider England.

    In December 2019, the Conservatives won 47.2% of the vote and 345 seats. Labour won 34% and 179 seats and the LDs 7 seats on 12.4% of the vote.

    Last night's Opinium sub-samples for England were:

    CON: 30.3% (-16.9)
    LAB: 46.9% (+12.9)
    LD: 8.7% (-3.7%)

    That's a 14.9% swing from Conservative to Labour in England and a 10.3% swing Conservative to LD in England.

    14.9% takes us down to Elmet & Rothwell, number 193 on the Conservative defence list. Add on a bit of tactical voting and a Conservative parliamentary party post-election 2024 similar in size to that of 1997 can't be ruled out.

    YouGov earlier in the week had Labour 50% in England, the Conservatives on 27% and the LDs on 9%. This would be a 17% swing from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Kettering which is seat 228 on the Conservative defence list. If that and every seat above it fell, the Conservatives would have a smaller rump in the next Commons than they did after 1997.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    HYUFD said:

    Labour always attack private schools' charitable status, even Blair removed assisted places. However supporting private schools and choice in education is a key Tory principle and Sunak has correctly backed keeping charitable status for private schools even if Starmer wants to scrap it.
    That charitable status enables more scholarships and bursaries for bright children from non rich families to attend private schools and is anything but just a tax break for rich people.

    Note too while 68% of Labour voters back scrapping private schools charitable status, less than half of Tory voters do. If we encourage more free schools and grammar schools that would be a far better Conservative way of encouraging state education

    Where have I heard all this before?

    Oh yes, at least one post on the subject from HYUFD on every thread.

    Oh and, selection at 11 is not the answer for the millionth time.
  • WTF did Keir Starmer mean when he told Laura Kuenssberg that patients with internal bleeding who just need a test should not need to go via their gp? Who diagnoses their own internal bleeding and knows what tests to order?
    https://youtu.be/bYALXuc8y-Q?t=1210s
  • WillGWillG Posts: 1,996

    Education has a way of showing off Labour's hypocrisy on the subject to full effect.

    It will be a cause of some fun embarrassment during an election campaign.

    It doesn't need to be.

    "We think private education is a service that should be charged tax like any other service"

    "But YOU send your kids to private school"

    "Yes, and I will happily pay taxes on it"

    Conversation over.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    stodge said:

    To pick up specifically on @HYUFD's comments on the previous thread, let's consider England.

    In December 2019, the Conservatives won 47.2% of the vote and 345 seats. Labour won 34% and 179 seats and the LDs 7 seats on 12.4% of the vote.

    Last night's Opinium sub-samples for England were:

    CON: 30.3% (-16.9)
    LAB: 46.9% (+12.9)
    LD: 8.7% (-3.7%)

    That's a 14.9% swing from Conservative to Labour in England and a 10.3% swing Conservative to LD in England.

    14.9% takes us down to Elmet & Rothwell, number 193 on the Conservative defence list. Add on a bit of tactical voting and a Conservative parliamentary party post-election 2024 similar in size to that of 1997 can't be ruled out.

    YouGov earlier in the week had Labour 50% in England, the Conservatives on 27% and the LDs on 9%. This would be a 17% swing from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Kettering which is seat 228 on the Conservative defence list. If that and every seat above it fell, the Conservatives would have a smaller rump in the next Commons than they did after 1997.

    Subsamples are dead! Long live subsamples!
  • EPGEPG Posts: 5,996
    HYUFD said:

    CD13 said:

    Mr Eagles, as a proud, fee-paying pupil, could you explain why the proud fee-paying pupil Anthony Crosland is reported by his wife to have said ... "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every f**cking grammar school in England. And Wales and Northern Ireland."

    A somewhat selective socialist?

    Indeed, before him we had more competition for private schools. As every local authority had a grammar school and there were no comprehensive schools if you were middle class and had an intelligent child you could send them to an excellent state school for free, a grammar school.

    Only if you had a child who was not bright did you need to send them to a private school (with a few top independent schools like Eton, Harrow and Winchester still getting pupils for snobbish reasons)
    Very few people could afford that for a child who was "not bright" (based on an exam given to pre-pubescent children) (measuring 19th century concepts of academic intelligence) (if you were middle class!!!!). It was also an era where the legacy colonial-imperial businesses and expatriates were keeping the bog-standard independent schools going to an extent that wouldn't happen today. So I think the model here is miscalibrated somewhat.
  • Wes had just a perfect response to the private schools/health argument.

    Make the public sector better and so good we don't need private anymore. Aspiration. Good.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587

    45% pissed off about it and voting Tory as a result won't quite have the impact of the "most" approving of it YouGov suggests.....

    Ah, I see you are using the HY method of polling percentage extrapolation.

    55% in favour must mean 45% against! I don't know?
  • WillGWillG Posts: 1,996
    HYUFD said:

    Labour always attack private schools' charitable status, even Blair removed assisted places. However supporting private schools and choice in education is a key Tory principle and Sunak has correctly backed keeping charitable status for private schools even if Starmer wants to scrap it.
    That charitable status enables more scholarships and bursaries for bright children from non rich families to attend private schools and is anything but just a tax break for rich people.

    Note too while 68% of Labour voters back scrapping private schools charitable status, less than half of Tory voters do. If we encourage more free schools and grammar schools that would be a far better Conservative way of encouraging state education

    I support choice in education, just as I support choice in banking or restaurants. Doesn't mean I think they should get tax breaks or be unregulated.
  • WTF did Keir Starmer mean when he told Laura Kuenssberg that patients with internal bleeding who just need a test should not need to go via their gp? Who diagnoses their own internal bleeding and knows what tests to order?
    https://youtu.be/bYALXuc8y-Q?t=1210s

    “Hello 111? Yes I have internal bleeding” “Lovely. Now will you be needing a colonoscopy, a flexible sigmoidoscopy, an OGD, a CT colon, a CT abdo pelvis, a FIT test, or urgent assessment in A&E?”

    “……”

    https://twitter.com/irishdmb/status/1614572325302861825?s=20&t=aCcwXbsRYMlF2ouQCcTmvw
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    I went to a state school and I don't give a fuck if less children go to private school because their parents can't afford the VAT. Boo hoo.
  • TresTres Posts: 2,163
    edited January 2023
    Final line sums it up - can't trust privately schooled tory kids to improve our state schools.

    Out of ideas so we'll have the 20% VAT instead thank you very much.
  • CorrectHorseBattery3CorrectHorseBattery3 Posts: 2,757
    edited January 2023
    In many ways, it was incredibly lucky that the Brexit vote happened in 2016.

    If it had been in any other year, I think it would have been a strong Remain vote.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    stodge said:

    To pick up specifically on @HYUFD's comments on the previous thread, let's consider England.

    In December 2019, the Conservatives won 47.2% of the vote and 345 seats. Labour won 34% and 179 seats and the LDs 7 seats on 12.4% of the vote.

    Last night's Opinium sub-samples for England were:

    CON: 30.3% (-16.9)
    LAB: 46.9% (+12.9)
    LD: 8.7% (-3.7%)

    That's a 14.9% swing from Conservative to Labour in England and a 10.3% swing Conservative to LD in England.

    14.9% takes us down to Elmet & Rothwell, number 193 on the Conservative defence list. Add on a bit of tactical voting and a Conservative parliamentary party post-election 2024 similar in size to that of 1997 can't be ruled out.

    YouGov earlier in the week had Labour 50% in England, the Conservatives on 27% and the LDs on 9%. This would be a 17% swing from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Kettering which is seat 228 on the Conservative defence list. If that and every seat above it fell, the Conservatives would have a smaller rump in the next Commons than they did after 1997.

    RefUK on 6% however for Sunak to squeeze and a large number of DKs who voted Tory in 2019.

    So it only needs a small swing to the Tories in England and we are in hung parliament territory given Labour does not have a majority of Scottish seats unlike 1997
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    Wow- this is insane - while I know we have a problem with knives, and guns, at least we haven’t graduated to explosives as in Sweden yet

    https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-stockholm-gang-violence-eropean-union-vision/amp/


    In Stockholm county alone, 126 shootings were recorded in 2022, resulting in 28 deaths, as well as 31 attacks with explosives, which was up from 23 deaths as well as 25 attacks with explosives in 2021. Countrywide, Sweden saw 388 shootings resulting in 61 deaths and 90 attacks with explosives last year; the number of deaths was up by one-third over the previous year.

    It is already clear that the violence has continued into 2023. Last week on Wednesday, a man was shot dead at a train station in Jordbro, on the southern edge of Stockholm, and last Thursday, a bomb was thrown into an apartment block in nearby Farsta, damaging a stairwell.

    Police suspect gang conflicts, many with their roots in competition for control of illegal drug sales, have evolved into a cycle of revenge attacks now sweeping the city. They believe the killing of a man on Christmas Day in the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby may have triggered subsequent attacks in the city’s south.
  • I went to a state school and I don't give a fuck if less children go to private school because their parents can't afford the VAT. Boo hoo.

    I went to public school and I know it's fewer children. Also, where you say Boo hoo I say, Sunt lacrimae rerum. Classy,
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    I went to a state school and I don't give a fuck if less children go to private school because their parents can't afford the VAT. Boo hoo.

    It shows. *fewer children*
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    I went to a state school and I don't give a fuck if less children go to private school because their parents can't afford the VAT. Boo hoo.

    I went to public school and I know it's fewer children. Also, where you say Boo hoo I say, Sunt lacrimae rerum. Classy,
    The state of this.
  • WillGWillG Posts: 1,996
    DougSeal said:

    Wow- this is insane - while I know we have a problem with knives, and guns, at least we haven’t graduated to explosives as in Sweden yet

    https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-stockholm-gang-violence-eropean-union-vision/amp/


    In Stockholm county alone, 126 shootings were recorded in 2022, resulting in 28 deaths, as well as 31 attacks with explosives, which was up from 23 deaths as well as 25 attacks with explosives in 2021. Countrywide, Sweden saw 388 shootings resulting in 61 deaths and 90 attacks with explosives last year; the number of deaths was up by one-third over the previous year.

    It is already clear that the violence has continued into 2023. Last week on Wednesday, a man was shot dead at a train station in Jordbro, on the southern edge of Stockholm, and last Thursday, a bomb was thrown into an apartment block in nearby Farsta, damaging a stairwell.

    Police suspect gang conflicts, many with their roots in competition for control of illegal drug sales, have evolved into a cycle of revenge attacks now sweeping the city. They believe the killing of a man on Christmas Day in the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby may have triggered subsequent attacks in the city’s south.

    Low skilled migration is a bad idea. The first generation may appreciate the upgrade from their previous society, but the second generation perform poorly, resent the natives and reject society. Many of them end up in gangs as that's where they see status and money that they can't get through the mainstream.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    Tres said:

    Final line sums it up - can't trust privately schooled tory kids to improve our state schools.

    Out of ideas so we'll have the 20% VAT instead thank you very much.

    They pay taxes to fund state schools and state schools will need even more funds to cope with the extra pupils shifting from private to state schools
  • WillGWillG Posts: 1,996

    In many ways, it was incredibly lucky that the Brexit vote happened in 2016.

    If it had been in any other year, I think it would have been a strong Remain vote.

    Ahead of the campaign we would also have thought a strong Remain vote (and almost everyone did). It was the campaign that changed things, as it would if held any other year.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    WillG said:

    HYUFD said:

    Labour always attack private schools' charitable status, even Blair removed assisted places. However supporting private schools and choice in education is a key Tory principle and Sunak has correctly backed keeping charitable status for private schools even if Starmer wants to scrap it.
    That charitable status enables more scholarships and bursaries for bright children from non rich families to attend private schools and is anything but just a tax break for rich people.

    Note too while 68% of Labour voters back scrapping private schools charitable status, less than half of Tory voters do. If we encourage more free schools and grammar schools that would be a far better Conservative way of encouraging state education

    I support choice in education, just as I support choice in banking or restaurants. Doesn't mean I think they should get tax breaks or be unregulated.
    There are restaurants which are charities and therefore get tax breaks

    https://theclinkcharity.org/
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    edited January 2023
    HYUFD said:

    Tres said:

    Final line sums it up - can't trust privately schooled tory kids to improve our state schools.

    Out of ideas so we'll have the 20% VAT instead thank you very much.

    They pay taxes to fund state schools and state schools will need even more funds to cope with the extra pupils shifting from private to state schools
    Nah, they'll just cough up the extra 20% and go on *fewer* skiing holidays. Boo hoo.
  • DJ41DJ41 Posts: 792
    edited January 2023
    The only problem with the Labour policy is it doesn't go far enough.

    Electorally it has nothing to do with education. By that I mean it won't be read by any voters as a promise to improve the education of their children.

    The same was true about Blair's famous "education, education, education". That was primarily about

    1) getting a big chunk of the working class into lifelong debt from when they were 18 (never forget that the Financial Times supported Blair), and

    2) making sure he got votes from the "good state school" brigade, i.e. middle class types who want their brats to get one up on the plebs but who are too mean to pay fees or perhaps don't consider themselves horsy enough to send them to an HMC school or "loadsamoney" bookmakery enough to send them to a lower-ranking "independent" school. [*]

    Educashun? Really?

    Many in the population are semi-illiterate nowadays, can't compose even a moderately complicated sentence, can't do joined-up handwriting, and spend most of their time picking their smartphones.

    No party will address that.

    Most who think they know something about education can only talk about it in a revoltingly bureaucratic and professionalised way, with lots of punchworthy fashionable jargon thrown in, and wouldn't know education it if kicked them up the a*se.

    Note
    *) I am aware these are stupid stereotypes. This is just in case anyone thought otherwise. They are still what many tofu types believe, though.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    edited January 2023

    Education has a way of showing off Labour's hypocrisy on the subject to full effect.

    It will be a cause of some fun embarrassment during an election campaign.

    It seldom does. Every now and again people like Diane Abbott gets caught out.

    I believe in non-selective education. I sent my children to a comprehensive school. I could have afforded private education. They did just fine. Maybe they didn't make the network connections they would need to become a Conservative MP, but I can live with that.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    DJ41 said:

    The only problem with the Labour policy is it doesn't go far enough.

    Electorally it has nothing to do with education. By that I mean it won't be read by any voters as a promise to improve the education of their children.

    The same was true about Blair's famous "education, education, education". That was primarily about

    1) getting a big chunk of the working class into lifelong debt from when they were 18 (never forget that the Financial Times supported Blair), and

    2) making sure he got votes from the "good state school" brigade, i.e. middle class types who want their brats to get one up on the plebs but who are too mean to pay fees or perhaps don't consider themselves horsy enough to send them to an HMC school or "loadsamoney" bookmakery enough to send them to a lower-ranking "independent" school.

    Educashun? Really?

    Many in the population are semi-illiterate nowadays, can't compose even a moderately complicated sentence, can't do joined-up handwriting, and spend most of their time picking their smartphones.

    No party will address that.

    Most who think they know something about education can only talk about it in a revoltingly bureaucratic and professionalised way, with lots of punchworthy fashionable jargon thrown in, and wouldn't know education it if kicked them up the a*se.

    Imagine thinking that "joined-up handwriting" is important in 2023.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    Education has a way of showing off Labour's hypocrisy on the subject to full effect.

    It will be a cause of some fun embarrassment during an election campaign.

    It seldom does. Every now and again people like Diane Abbott gets caught out.

    I believe in non-selective education. I sent my children to a comprehensive school. I could have afforded private education. They did just fine. Maybe they didn't make the network connections they would need to become a Conservative MP, but I can live with that.
    They missed out being part of the old boys club chortling about the plebs using "less" rather than "fewer" though.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Education has a way of showing off Labour's hypocrisy on the subject to full effect.

    It will be a cause of some fun embarrassment during an election campaign.

    It seldom does. Every now and again people like Diane Abbott gets caught out.

    I believe in non-selective education. I sent my children to a comprehensive school. I could have afforded private education. They did just fine. Maybe they didn't make the network connections they would need to become a Conservative MP, but I can live with that.
    They missed out being part of the old boys club chortling about the plebs using "less" rather than "fewer" though.
    Take a joke will you? I went to a state grammar, I’ve no skin in this game.
  • DougSeal said:

    Wow- this is insane - while I know we have a problem with knives, and guns, at least we haven’t graduated to explosives as in Sweden yet

    https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-stockholm-gang-violence-eropean-union-vision/amp/


    In Stockholm county alone, 126 shootings were recorded in 2022, resulting in 28 deaths, as well as 31 attacks with explosives, which was up from 23 deaths as well as 25 attacks with explosives in 2021. Countrywide, Sweden saw 388 shootings resulting in 61 deaths and 90 attacks with explosives last year; the number of deaths was up by one-third over the previous year.

    It is already clear that the violence has continued into 2023. Last week on Wednesday, a man was shot dead at a train station in Jordbro, on the southern edge of Stockholm, and last Thursday, a bomb was thrown into an apartment block in nearby Farsta, damaging a stairwell.

    Police suspect gang conflicts, many with their roots in competition for control of illegal drug sales, have evolved into a cycle of revenge attacks now sweeping the city. They believe the killing of a man on Christmas Day in the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby may have triggered subsequent attacks in the city’s south.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombings_in_Sweden

    Mainly yugoslav army grenades apparently. Nobel would be proud.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    edited January 2023
    HYUFD said:

    WillG said:

    HYUFD said:

    Labour always attack private schools' charitable status, even Blair removed assisted places. However supporting private schools and choice in education is a key Tory principle and Sunak has correctly backed keeping charitable status for private schools even if Starmer wants to scrap it.
    That charitable status enables more scholarships and bursaries for bright children from non rich families to attend private schools and is anything but just a tax break for rich people.

    Note too while 68% of Labour voters back scrapping private schools charitable status, less than half of Tory voters do. If we encourage more free schools and grammar schools that would be a far better Conservative way of encouraging state education

    I support choice in education, just as I support choice in banking or restaurants. Doesn't mean I think they should get tax breaks or be unregulated.
    There are restaurants which are charities and therefore get tax breaks

    https://theclinkcharity.org/
    Specifically to rehabilitate prisoners. There is a distinct social benefit to charitable status for the Clink restaurants. The one in Cardiff has nonetheless closed.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    DougSeal said:

    Education has a way of showing off Labour's hypocrisy on the subject to full effect.

    It will be a cause of some fun embarrassment during an election campaign.

    It seldom does. Every now and again people like Diane Abbott gets caught out.

    I believe in non-selective education. I sent my children to a comprehensive school. I could have afforded private education. They did just fine. Maybe they didn't make the network connections they would need to become a Conservative MP, but I can live with that.
    They missed out being part of the old boys club chortling about the plebs using "less" rather than "fewer" though.
    Take a joke will you? I went to a state grammar, I’ve no skin in this game.
    It's impossible to tell when faced with an army of the privately educated who think that's the norm.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    edited January 2023
    HYUFD said:

    WillG said:

    HYUFD said:

    Labour always attack private schools' charitable status, even Blair removed assisted places. However supporting private schools and choice in education is a key Tory principle and Sunak has correctly backed keeping charitable status for private schools even if Starmer wants to scrap it.
    That charitable status enables more scholarships and bursaries for bright children from non rich families to attend private schools and is anything but just a tax break for rich people.

    Note too while 68% of Labour voters back scrapping private schools charitable status, less than half of Tory voters do. If we encourage more free schools and grammar schools that would be a far better Conservative way of encouraging state education

    I support choice in education, just as I support choice in banking or restaurants. Doesn't mean I think they should get tax breaks or be unregulated.
    There are restaurants which are charities and therefore get tax breaks

    https://theclinkcharity.org/
    There was an “immersive theatre” experience in the tunnels under London Bridge Station before it was redeveloped that was a nightclub by any other name. Got charitable status though, royally pissing off its competition

    https://www.shunt.co.uk/the-shunt-lounge
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    Mr Pete,

    My parents had four boys within 5 years of each other. Three went to the local Grammar and one went to the secondary modern as it was then. The teaching wasn't much different but the discipline was better at the Grammar.

    One or two from the local council estate who'd been left behind joined us later in the following years, As they tended to join the 'A' stream it suggested others could have joined too.

    Anecdote only, but suggestive.

    Tax fiddles for private schools? The way of the world, but not something important enough for me to worry about.
  • I've just got one of those fancy Dyson cordless vacuums. What an incredible piece of machinery, the dust it picks up is terrifying though
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,169
    This is their 2024 foxhunting ban. Every vaguely centrist government in waiting seems to need its red meat policy that has an insignificant practical impact but keeps the more radical grassroots happy.

    Cameron had the inheritance tax giveaway, although he had to drop that in coalition.

    Having said that, as I write I realise we’ve only had 2 such governments in waiting in my entire life. Thatcher in 1979 was not a centrist needing to keep her right wing quiet. She was the right wing.
  • DJ41DJ41 Posts: 792
    For up-to-the-minute PBers who aim to achieve high Brier scores in relation to what happens next in the Ukraine:

    https://www.e-ir.info/2022/01/27/the-revival-of-the-dnipropetrovsk-and-dnipro-jewish-community-in-ukraine/

    Note: "Dnipropetrovsk and Dnipro" is the author's way of showing she knows that the city changed name. They aren't two different places. One thing I learnt from the article is that Ihor Kolomoisky wasn't only Mr Big from Dnipro - he was actually the governor for a while. Yes, Ukraine is just as much a mafia state as Russia. The article is slanted and the idea that there is no anti-Jewishness among non-Jewish non-Russian-speaking Ukrainians is false. A good read, though, for those who want some background now that Dnipro is getting shelled.
  • DougSeal said:

    Education has a way of showing off Labour's hypocrisy on the subject to full effect.

    It will be a cause of some fun embarrassment during an election campaign.

    It seldom does. Every now and again people like Diane Abbott gets caught out.

    I believe in non-selective education. I sent my children to a comprehensive school. I could have afforded private education. They did just fine. Maybe they didn't make the network connections they would need to become a Conservative MP, but I can live with that.
    They missed out being part of the old boys club chortling about the plebs using "less" rather than "fewer" though.
    Take a joke will you? I went to a state grammar, I’ve no skin in this game.
    It's impossible to tell when faced with an army of the privately educated who think that's the norm.
    I was not taught the less/fewer distinction at school, I think it is a nonsense on a par with split infinitives and I ignore it.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,704
    TimS said:

    This is their 2024 foxhunting ban. Every vaguely centrist government in waiting seems to need its red meat policy that has an insignificant practical impact but keeps the more radical grassroots happy.

    Cameron had the inheritance tax giveaway, although he had to drop that in coalition.

    Having said that, as I write I realise we’ve only had 2 such governments in waiting in my entire life. Thatcher in 1979 was not a centrist needing to keep her right wing quiet. She was the right wing.

    With the foxhunting ban it was more about annoying the right people to the radical grassroots.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,088
    Eton gave the land both David Cameron and Boris Johnson. Enough said.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGOtZDk6wRc
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,745
    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    To pick up specifically on @HYUFD's comments on the previous thread, let's consider England.

    In December 2019, the Conservatives won 47.2% of the vote and 345 seats. Labour won 34% and 179 seats and the LDs 7 seats on 12.4% of the vote.

    Last night's Opinium sub-samples for England were:

    CON: 30.3% (-16.9)
    LAB: 46.9% (+12.9)
    LD: 8.7% (-3.7%)

    That's a 14.9% swing from Conservative to Labour in England and a 10.3% swing Conservative to LD in England.

    14.9% takes us down to Elmet & Rothwell, number 193 on the Conservative defence list. Add on a bit of tactical voting and a Conservative parliamentary party post-election 2024 similar in size to that of 1997 can't be ruled out.

    YouGov earlier in the week had Labour 50% in England, the Conservatives on 27% and the LDs on 9%. This would be a 17% swing from Conservative to Labour in England. That takes us to Kettering which is seat 228 on the Conservative defence list. If that and every seat above it fell, the Conservatives would have a smaller rump in the next Commons than they did after 1997.

    RefUK on 6% however for Sunak to squeeze and a large number of DKs who voted Tory in 2019.

    So it only needs a small swing to the Tories in England and we are in hung parliament territory given Labour does not have a majority of Scottish seats unlike 1997
    The YouGov raw numbers have the Don't Knows as England's second party - polling 20% behind Labour on 33% and in front of the Conservatives on 18%.

    Of the 2019 Conservative voters, 41% are still loyal, 25% are Don't Knows and 18% are intending to vote Labour with 10% now supporting Reform.

    Not all the 20% of Don't Knows in England are Conservative - nor can you blithely assume all the Reform Party supporters will run back to the Conservatives at the first hint of an election.

    As for this "small swing", the 50th most marginal Conservative seat is Hendon which would be lost on a 3.84% swing. The England swing currently is 17% - add on the Reform UK voters and you get down to a 14% swing but Hendon falls and with it the majority on less than 4% so it's a bit more than small and you're going to need the 25% of Don't Knows from the 2019 vote to come back en masse..
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009
    "A private education allowed this grandson of humble immigrants to soar academically and professionally."

    Nice for you.
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    edited January 2023
    Mr dearg,

    As my daughter pointed out when she was 12, how else do you differentiate between 'fewer quailifed people' and 'more quailifed people'?
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    WTF did Keir Starmer mean when he told Laura Kuenssberg that patients with internal bleeding who just need a test should not need to go via their gp? Who diagnoses their own internal bleeding and knows what tests to order?
    https://youtu.be/bYALXuc8y-Q?t=1210s

    When I was on my run this morning, I listened to a cops podcast that covered this: apparently paramedics at the site of an incident where the patient might have serious internal injuries and is unconscious, put on a glove and put a finger up the patient's bum. If there's blood, they almost certainly have internal bleeding.

    So it's fairly easy to diagnose...
  • DJ41DJ41 Posts: 792
    TimS said:

    This is their 2024 foxhunting ban. Every vaguely centrist government in waiting seems to need its red meat policy that has an insignificant practical impact but keeps the more radical grassroots happy.

    And the voters. Don't forget them. The same applies with the foxhunting ban: a very popular policy - and, like the removal of charity status from private schools, it could have been introduced generations ago and it would have been popular then too.

    It's not like Palestine in the 2017 manifesto.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    edited January 2023
    CD13 said:

    Mr dearg,

    As my daughter pointed out when she was 12, how else do you differentiate between 'more quailifed' and 'less quailifed'?

    Fewer qualified obviously
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    So more qualified always mean a greater number of qualified people?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,260
    DougSeal said:

    Wow- this is insane - while I know we have a problem with knives, and guns, at least we haven’t graduated to explosives as in Sweden yet

    https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-stockholm-gang-violence-eropean-union-vision/amp/


    In Stockholm county alone, 126 shootings were recorded in 2022, resulting in 28 deaths, as well as 31 attacks with explosives, which was up from 23 deaths as well as 25 attacks with explosives in 2021. Countrywide, Sweden saw 388 shootings resulting in 61 deaths and 90 attacks with explosives last year; the number of deaths was up by one-third over the previous year.

    It is already clear that the violence has continued into 2023. Last week on Wednesday, a man was shot dead at a train station in Jordbro, on the southern edge of Stockholm, and last Thursday, a bomb was thrown into an apartment block in nearby Farsta, damaging a stairwell.

    Police suspect gang conflicts, many with their roots in competition for control of illegal drug sales, have evolved into a cycle of revenge attacks now sweeping the city. They believe the killing of a man on Christmas Day in the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby may have triggered subsequent attacks in the city’s south.

    Because of mass immigration. A lefty policy you support. Idiot
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,704
    Newcastle look to be in desperate need of some firepower up front.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    CD13 said:

    Mr Pete,

    My parents had four boys within 5 years of each other. Three went to the local Grammar and one went to the secondary modern as it was then. The teaching wasn't much different but the discipline was better at the Grammar.

    One or two from the local council estate who'd been left behind joined us later in the following years, As they tended to join the 'A' stream it suggested others could have joined too.

    Anecdote only, but suggestive.

    Tax fiddles for private schools? The way of the world, but not something important enough for me to worry about.

    I have shared my own Comp v Grammar anecdotes many times in the past on PB.

    I would just add that we had a B stream at Grammar School which was predominantly full of the public-sector housed children. The B stream were referred to as "less able" by the staff, relegated to CSEs and few got 5 or more grade ones.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,260
    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    CD13 said:

    Mr dearg,

    As my daughter pointed out when she was 12, how else do you differentiate between 'fewer quailifed people' and 'more quailifed people'?

    No quotes?

    Morris Dancer is that you?
  • CD13 said:

    Mr dearg,

    As my daughter pointed out when she was 12, how else do you differentiate between 'fewer quailifed people' and 'more quailifed people'?

    I assume you mean fewer vs less, and yes, that's a distinction you can linguistically make in that context. However we get on fine having only "more" as the antonym to both. Languages have ambiguities; I was startled to hear a news report the other day of some crime being committed by the driver of a black people carrier.
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    "We need less quailifed people commenting." Nicely summarised, but confusing. However "Fewer" avoids the ambiguity
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    I demand lesser people who fail to misunderstand.

    More or less.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587
    Leon said:

    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp

    I wonder if @DerekMcDecadent had a similar experience, maybe in Scotland?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    Leon said:

    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp


    Of course they can get by but they will just become even more exclusive with fewer scholarships and bursaries and less sharing of facilities with the local community.

    So the end result is our top public schools become even more just restricted to the very rich here and from abroad, especially at boarding schools
  • DJ41DJ41 Posts: 792

    WTF did Keir Starmer mean when he told Laura Kuenssberg that patients with internal bleeding who just need a test should not need to go via their gp? Who diagnoses their own internal bleeding and knows what tests to order?
    https://youtu.be/bYALXuc8y-Q?t=1210s

    When I was on my run this morning, I listened to a cops podcast that covered this: apparently paramedics at the site of an incident where the patient might have serious internal injuries and is unconscious, put on a glove and put a finger up the patient's bum. If there's blood, they almost certainly have internal bleeding.

    So it's fairly easy to diagnose...
    Info on false negatives is missing from that argument.

    And what applies when there has been an incident and an unconscious person seems they may have sustained internal injuries may not apply in other circs. "Want to find out if you've got internal bleeding? Simples. Stick your finger up your bum and see if it comes out red" is not universally appropriate advice.

    I'm probably about the same age as you and I do a lot of running too - 4 miles every morning. My approach is to do everything I can to keep my immune system strong. When the day comes that something does happen, I have little or no faith in the NHS or with very few exceptions in the rest of the medical fraternity either.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,260
    Re Sweden, after my recent deep dive on Europe and migration, I am now convinced a significant western European country will elect a hard/far right government in the next 5-10 years. And i don’t mean “in coalition” I mean: they will be handed the government, in toto. And they will enact some eye watering polices

    My guess is that the first will either be Sweden or France

    You could argue Italy has done it already with Meloni, but their system is so fucked and fractious nothing ever happens whoever is elected
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    DJ41 said:

    TimS said:

    This is their 2024 foxhunting ban. Every vaguely centrist government in waiting seems to need its red meat policy that has an insignificant practical impact but keeps the more radical grassroots happy.

    And the voters. Don't forget them. The same applies with the foxhunting ban: a very popular policy - and, like the removal of charity status from private schools, it could have been introduced generations ago and it would have been popular then too.

    It's not like Palestine in the 2017 manifesto.
    And as a result we have foxes roaming free everywhere, spreading to urban areas too and more chickens and rabbits getting ripped to pieces
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,260
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp


    Of course they can get by but they will just become even more exclusive with fewer scholarships and bursaries and less sharing of facilities with the local community.

    So the end result is our top public schools become even more just restricted to the very rich here and from abroad, especially at boarding schools
    Who gives a tiny scintilla of a fuck?

    That means the upper middle classes will be forced into the state sector, and these posh parents will then use their sharp elbows and loud voices to demand better education for their kids in state schools, and, thus, everyone else

    Win win
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,260
    HYUFD said:

    DJ41 said:

    TimS said:

    This is their 2024 foxhunting ban. Every vaguely centrist government in waiting seems to need its red meat policy that has an insignificant practical impact but keeps the more radical grassroots happy.

    And the voters. Don't forget them. The same applies with the foxhunting ban: a very popular policy - and, like the removal of charity status from private schools, it could have been introduced generations ago and it would have been popular then too.

    It's not like Palestine in the 2017 manifesto.
    And as a result we have foxes roaming free everywhere, spreading to urban areas too and more chickens and rabbits getting ripped to pieces
    Foxes have been rampant in urban areas for decades. It has fuck all to do with fox hunting (abolished or not). Foxes are like rats

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    edited January 2023

    Education has a way of showing off Labour's hypocrisy on the subject to full effect.

    It will be a cause of some fun embarrassment during an election campaign.

    It seldom does. Every now and again people like Diane Abbott gets caught out.

    I believe in non-selective education. I sent my children to a comprehensive school. I could have afforded private education. They did just fine. Maybe they didn't make the network connections they would need to become a Conservative MP, but I can live with that.
    59% of Tory MPs went to state schools now, a big change from 50 years ago when most went to private schools.

    https://www.fenews.co.uk/skills/newly-elected-mps-now-more-likely-to-have-been-educated-at-state-schools/

    You are more likely to find the privately educated in top city law firms or barristers' chambers or amongst senior army officers or judges or diplomats than amongst Tory MPs now

    https://www.fenews.co.uk/skills/newly-elected-mps-now-more-likely-to-have-been-educated-at-state-schools/

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-48745333.amp

    https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/educational-backgrounds-leading-lawyers-journalists-vice-chancellors-politicians-medics-chief-executives/
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,088
    Leon said:

    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp

    They're only a networking opportunity for the (frequently horrible) children of hugely rich and entitled billionaires and royals anyway. The fees are already so steep that your typical sharp-elbowed, upper-middle-class parent who's worried about their kid ending up in a shit school will simply buy their way into a really good state one by moving house, rather than wasting tens of thousands a term on an exciting opportunity for their offspring to dress up in a silly outfit and get buggered by one of the more obscure members of the Bahraini ruling family.

    What pressing social need justifies giving a fee-paying school enormous tax exemptions? There isn't one, is there? These organisations are parasitic. Their leeching should be stopped.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 5,996
    HYUFD said:

    DJ41 said:

    TimS said:

    This is their 2024 foxhunting ban. Every vaguely centrist government in waiting seems to need its red meat policy that has an insignificant practical impact but keeps the more radical grassroots happy.

    And the voters. Don't forget them. The same applies with the foxhunting ban: a very popular policy - and, like the removal of charity status from private schools, it could have been introduced generations ago and it would have been popular then too.

    It's not like Palestine in the 2017 manifesto.
    And as a result we have foxes roaming free everywhere, spreading to urban areas too and more chickens and rabbits getting ripped to pieces
    Which is good because they reduce pests like rodents.
  • WTF did Keir Starmer mean when he told Laura Kuenssberg that patients with internal bleeding who just need a test should not need to go via their gp? Who diagnoses their own internal bleeding and knows what tests to order?
    https://youtu.be/bYALXuc8y-Q?t=1210s

    When I was on my run this morning, I listened to a cops podcast that covered this: apparently paramedics at the site of an incident where the patient might have serious internal injuries and is unconscious, put on a glove and put a finger up the patient's bum. If there's blood, they almost certainly have internal bleeding.

    So it's fairly easy to diagnose...
    Um, no, that's not really what diagnose means. Internal bleeding is a symptom, the tricky bit is diagnosing its cause as between let's say piles, polyps, trauma and cancer.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 5,996
    Leon said:

    Re Sweden, after my recent deep dive on Europe and migration, I am now convinced a significant western European country will elect a hard/far right government in the next 5-10 years. And i don’t mean “in coalition” I mean: they will be handed the government, in toto. And they will enact some eye watering polices

    My guess is that the first will either be Sweden or France

    You could argue Italy has done it already with Meloni, but their system is so fucked and fractious nothing ever happens whoever is elected

    Thought you already did some deep diving while being an immigrant to Thailand.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    I've just got one of those fancy Dyson cordless vacuums. What an incredible piece of machinery, the dust it picks up is terrifying though

    Yeah, they work quite well, for a short while...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,260
    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp

    They're only a networking opportunity for the (frequently horrible) children of hugely rich and entitled billionaires and royals anyway. The fees are already so steep that your typical sharp-elbowed, upper-middle-class parent who's worried about their kid ending up in a shit school will simply buy their way into a really good state one by moving house, rather than wasting tens of thousands a term on an exciting opportunity for their offspring to dress up in a silly outfit and get buggered by one of the more obscure members of the Bahraini ruling family.

    What pressing social need justifies giving a fee-paying school enormous tax exemptions? There isn't one, is there? These organisations are parasitic. Their leeching should be stopped.
    Quite so, quite so
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    WTF did Keir Starmer mean when he told Laura Kuenssberg that patients with internal bleeding who just need a test should not need to go via their gp? Who diagnoses their own internal bleeding and knows what tests to order?
    https://youtu.be/bYALXuc8y-Q?t=1210s

    When I was on my run this morning, I listened to a cops podcast that covered this: apparently paramedics at the site of an incident where the patient might have serious internal injuries and is unconscious, put on a glove and put a finger up the patient's bum. If there's blood, they almost certainly have internal bleeding.

    So it's fairly easy to diagnose...
    If someone is unconscious, I think expecting them to arrange their own investigation and referral is a little unreasonable.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp

    They're only a networking opportunity for the (frequently horrible) children of hugely rich and entitled billionaires and royals anyway. The fees are already so steep that your typical sharp-elbowed, upper-middle-class parent who's worried about their kid ending up in a shit school will simply buy their way into a really good state one by moving house, rather than wasting tens of thousands a term on an exciting opportunity for their offspring to dress up in a silly outfit and get buggered by one of the more obscure members of the Bahraini ruling family.

    What pressing social need justifies giving a fee-paying school enormous tax exemptions? There isn't one, is there? These organisations are parasitic. Their leeching should be stopped.
    I never got buggered by a member of the Bahraini ruling family but I did play tennis a few times with the nephew of the Sultan of Brunei at my public school
  • pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp

    They're only a networking opportunity for the (frequently horrible) children of hugely rich and entitled billionaires and royals anyway. The fees are already so steep that your typical sharp-elbowed, upper-middle-class parent who's worried about their kid ending up in a shit school will simply buy their way into a really good state one by moving house, rather than wasting tens of thousands a term on an exciting opportunity for their offspring to dress up in a silly outfit and get buggered by one of the more obscure members of the Bahraini ruling family.

    What pressing social need justifies giving a fee-paying school enormous tax exemptions? There isn't one, is there? These organisations are parasitic. Their leeching should be stopped.
    They really aren't, and your breathy excitement about your misconception of them is disturbing. I imagine you went to school, and then left home to attend university? Try imagining the leaving home bit applying from age 13 to the school bit, and that’s all there is to it.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    DJ41 said:

    TimS said:

    This is their 2024 foxhunting ban. Every vaguely centrist government in waiting seems to need its red meat policy that has an insignificant practical impact but keeps the more radical grassroots happy.

    And the voters. Don't forget them. The same applies with the foxhunting ban: a very popular policy - and, like the removal of charity status from private schools, it could have been introduced generations ago and it would have been popular then too.

    It's not like Palestine in the 2017 manifesto.
    And as a result we have foxes roaming free everywhere, spreading to urban areas too and more chickens and rabbits getting ripped to pieces
    Foxes have been rampant in urban areas for decades. It has fuck all to do with fox hunting (abolished or not). Foxes are like rats

    I have definitely noticed more around since Fox hunting was banned. It is harder for farmers to find them and shoot them and if you don't kill them instantly it can ironically be a worse death than a quick dispatch by hounds
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    HYUFD said:

    DJ41 said:

    TimS said:

    This is their 2024 foxhunting ban. Every vaguely centrist government in waiting seems to need its red meat policy that has an insignificant practical impact but keeps the more radical grassroots happy.

    And the voters. Don't forget them. The same applies with the foxhunting ban: a very popular policy - and, like the removal of charity status from private schools, it could have been introduced generations ago and it would have been popular then too.

    It's not like Palestine in the 2017 manifesto.
    And as a result we have foxes roaming free everywhere, spreading to urban areas too and more chickens and rabbits getting ripped to pieces
    Fox hunting was never particularly good at controlling the population of foxes. That’s best left to farmers who know what they’re doing.
  • HYUFD said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp

    They're only a networking opportunity for the (frequently horrible) children of hugely rich and entitled billionaires and royals anyway. The fees are already so steep that your typical sharp-elbowed, upper-middle-class parent who's worried about their kid ending up in a shit school will simply buy their way into a really good state one by moving house, rather than wasting tens of thousands a term on an exciting opportunity for their offspring to dress up in a silly outfit and get buggered by one of the more obscure members of the Bahraini ruling family.

    What pressing social need justifies giving a fee-paying school enormous tax exemptions? There isn't one, is there? These organisations are parasitic. Their leeching should be stopped.
    I never got buggered by a member of the Bahraini ruling family but I did play tennis a few times with the nephew of the Sultan of Brunei at my public school
    Do I detect a plaintive, regretful note in the first part of your recollection?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp


    Of course they can get by but they will just become even more exclusive with fewer scholarships and bursaries and less sharing of facilities with the local community.

    So the end result is our top public schools become even more just restricted to the very rich here and from abroad, especially at boarding schools
    Who gives a tiny scintilla of a fuck?

    That means the upper middle classes will be forced into the state sector, and these posh parents will then use their sharp elbows and loud voices to demand better education for their kids in state schools, and, thus, everyone else

    Win win
    Not everyone with a scholarship to private school is upper middle class, some even come from council estates.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6614871/Schoolboy-East-End-council-estate-wins-76-000-study-Eton.html

    Plus those upper middle class parents will only send their children to Outstanding state schools anyway, especially grammar schools or faith schools or free schools.

    That means more of the pupils in those Outstanding state schools now will be forced into state schools which only have a Good rating or even Requires Improvement or Inadequate
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,088

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp

    They're only a networking opportunity for the (frequently horrible) children of hugely rich and entitled billionaires and royals anyway. The fees are already so steep that your typical sharp-elbowed, upper-middle-class parent who's worried about their kid ending up in a shit school will simply buy their way into a really good state one by moving house, rather than wasting tens of thousands a term on an exciting opportunity for their offspring to dress up in a silly outfit and get buggered by one of the more obscure members of the Bahraini ruling family.

    What pressing social need justifies giving a fee-paying school enormous tax exemptions? There isn't one, is there? These organisations are parasitic. Their leeching should be stopped.
    They really aren't, and your breathy excitement about your misconception of them is disturbing. I imagine you went to school, and then left home to attend university? Try imagining the leaving home bit applying from age 13 to the school bit, and that’s all there is to it.
    They are parasitic. They sell a service to the very wealthy, for which they claim handsome tax breaks that cost the Treasury (i.e. the nation collectively.) Charities are meant to exist to fund what are regarded by common consent as good causes, such as providing clean water in underdeveloped parts of Africa or throwing money at research into curing horrible diseases. Subsidising exclusive schooling for the privileged children of very rich parents (who will simply invest the resultant savings or spend them on ultra luxury goods, and who could perfectly well afford an extra 25% on their fees,) doesn't count.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587

    I've just got one of those fancy Dyson cordless vacuums. What an incredible piece of machinery, the dust it picks up is terrifying though

    Three tips.

    1 Don't buy a hair-shedding dog like a Beagle or a Labrador. The hairs get jammed up in the machine because the diameter of the dust container is too small.

    2. Remember to wash or replace the filters regularly.

    3. James Dyson is a Brexiteer Tory. Send it back!
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    pigeon said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp

    They're only a networking opportunity for the (frequently horrible) children of hugely rich and entitled billionaires and royals anyway. The fees are already so steep that your typical sharp-elbowed, upper-middle-class parent who's worried about their kid ending up in a shit school will simply buy their way into a really good state one by moving house, rather than wasting tens of thousands a term on an exciting opportunity for their offspring to dress up in a silly outfit and get buggered by one of the more obscure members of the Bahraini ruling family.

    What pressing social need justifies giving a fee-paying school enormous tax exemptions? There isn't one, is there? These organisations are parasitic. Their leeching should be stopped.
    They really aren't, and your breathy excitement about your misconception of them is disturbing. I imagine you went to school, and then left home to attend university? Try imagining the leaving home bit applying from age 13 to the school bit, and that’s all there is to it.
    They are parasitic. They sell a service to the very wealthy, for which they claim handsome tax breaks that cost the Treasury (i.e. the nation collectively.) Charities are meant to exist to fund what are regarded by common consent as good causes, such as providing clean water in underdeveloped parts of Africa or throwing money at research into curing horrible diseases. Subsidising exclusive schooling for the privileged children of very rich parents (who will simply invest the resultant savings or spend them on ultra luxury goods, and who could perfectly well afford an extra 25% on their fees,) doesn't count.
    It doesn't, it funds bursaries mainly for children of non rich parents who are bright
  • pigeon said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp

    They're only a networking opportunity for the (frequently horrible) children of hugely rich and entitled billionaires and royals anyway. The fees are already so steep that your typical sharp-elbowed, upper-middle-class parent who's worried about their kid ending up in a shit school will simply buy their way into a really good state one by moving house, rather than wasting tens of thousands a term on an exciting opportunity for their offspring to dress up in a silly outfit and get buggered by one of the more obscure members of the Bahraini ruling family.

    What pressing social need justifies giving a fee-paying school enormous tax exemptions? There isn't one, is there? These organisations are parasitic. Their leeching should be stopped.
    They really aren't, and your breathy excitement about your misconception of them is disturbing. I imagine you went to school, and then left home to attend university? Try imagining the leaving home bit applying from age 13 to the school bit, and that’s all there is to it.
    They are parasitic. They sell a service to the very wealthy, for which they claim handsome tax breaks that cost the Treasury (i.e. the nation collectively.) Charities are meant to exist to fund what are regarded by common consent as good causes, such as providing clean water in underdeveloped parts of Africa or throwing money at research into curing horrible diseases. Subsidising exclusive schooling for the privileged children of very rich parents (who will simply invest the resultant savings or spend them on ultra luxury goods, and who could perfectly well afford an extra 25% on their fees,) doesn't count.
    You seem to have been driven slightly mad by the issue. There is a spectrum of consumers of any good, from those to whom the cost is virtually invisible to those who struggle to pay for it. This applies to everything including private education

    The sums involved are actually relatively trivial. Schools are run not for profit, so there's no corporation tax foregone. Charitable status saves the sector about 100m a year in business rates, whoopee. The thing about VAT is if you start charging it you also start reclaiming it which schools currently don't. Bet you didn't know that.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    Yes, take away their tax exemption. Time to level the field.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    DJ41 said:

    TimS said:

    This is their 2024 foxhunting ban. Every vaguely centrist government in waiting seems to need its red meat policy that has an insignificant practical impact but keeps the more radical grassroots happy.

    And the voters. Don't forget them. The same applies with the foxhunting ban: a very popular policy - and, like the removal of charity status from private schools, it could have been introduced generations ago and it would have been popular then too.

    It's not like Palestine in the 2017 manifesto.
    And as a result we have foxes roaming free everywhere, spreading to urban areas too and more chickens and rabbits getting ripped to pieces
    Foxes have been rampant in urban areas for decades. It has fuck all to do with fox hunting (abolished or not). Foxes are like rats

    I have definitely noticed more around since Fox hunting was banned. It is harder for farmers to find them and shoot them and if you don't kill them instantly it can ironically be a worse death than a quick dispatch by hounds
    “Quick death dispatch”…really? You do understand what’s involved?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    CD13 said:

    "We need less quailifed people commenting." Nicely summarised, but confusing. However "Fewer" avoids the ambiguity

    How does one qualify to become “quailified”? Does one have to live as a quail for a certain period or can you self-certify?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    DougSeal said:

    CD13 said:

    "We need less quailifed people commenting." Nicely summarised, but confusing. However "Fewer" avoids the ambiguity

    How does one qualify to become “quailified”? Does one have to live as a quail for a certain period or can you self-certify?
    Nah, any game bird will do. No one would grouse about it.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    DavidL said:

    DougSeal said:

    CD13 said:

    "We need less quailifed people commenting." Nicely summarised, but confusing. However "Fewer" avoids the ambiguity

    How does one qualify to become “quailified”? Does one have to live as a quail for a certain period or can you self-certify?
    Nah, any game bird will do. No one would grouse about it.
    Does not such a system present a clear and pheasant danger of abuse?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    DougSeal said:

    DavidL said:

    DougSeal said:

    CD13 said:

    "We need less quailifed people commenting." Nicely summarised, but confusing. However "Fewer" avoids the ambiguity

    How does one qualify to become “quailified”? Does one have to live as a quail for a certain period or can you self-certify?
    Nah, any game bird will do. No one would grouse about it.
    Does not such a system present a clear and pheasant danger of abuse?
    I don't think it quailifies.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884
    edited January 2023
    DougSeal said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    DJ41 said:

    TimS said:

    This is their 2024 foxhunting ban. Every vaguely centrist government in waiting seems to need its red meat policy that has an insignificant practical impact but keeps the more radical grassroots happy.

    And the voters. Don't forget them. The same applies with the foxhunting ban: a very popular policy - and, like the removal of charity status from private schools, it could have been introduced generations ago and it would have been popular then too.

    It's not like Palestine in the 2017 manifesto.
    And as a result we have foxes roaming free everywhere, spreading to urban areas too and more chickens and rabbits getting ripped to pieces
    Foxes have been rampant in urban areas for decades. It has fuck all to do with fox hunting (abolished or not). Foxes are like rats

    I have definitely noticed more around since Fox hunting was banned. It is harder for farmers to find them and shoot them and if you don't kill them instantly it can ironically be a worse death than a quick dispatch by hounds
    “Quick death dispatch”…really? You do understand what’s involved?
    A bracing cross country jog, followed by being torn to shreds by dogs.

    Now to be fair, there is too much towniefile sentiment at times. No animals ever die, they retire to farthing wood, and live on lettuce forever.

    Nature is shit. Animals starve to death when they can no longer hunt, get diseased, or get predated. Animals eat other animals.

    None of which means we need to hunt foxes with dogs, on horseback. But without other predators (wolves, bears etc) foxes tend to high on the food chain, only limited by the food they can get, hence towns are a natural draw for them. Much better grub raiding West Hampstead bins, than roughing it in a cold, muddy wood, subsisting on roadkill and earthworms.

    The fox hunting ban was right, but down for all kinds of reasons, some frankly spiteful, some a misguided sense of cuddly foxes.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,184
    pigeon said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    If these posho schools can’t get by without an outrageous and immoral bung from the taxpayer, then let them sink

    Starmer and Labour are right on this

    NB: I went to a bog standard comp

    They're only a networking opportunity for the (frequently horrible) children of hugely rich and entitled billionaires and royals anyway. The fees are already so steep that your typical sharp-elbowed, upper-middle-class parent who's worried about their kid ending up in a shit school will simply buy their way into a really good state one by moving house, rather than wasting tens of thousands a term on an exciting opportunity for their offspring to dress up in a silly outfit and get buggered by one of the more obscure members of the Bahraini ruling family.

    What pressing social need justifies giving a fee-paying school enormous tax exemptions? There isn't one, is there? These organisations are parasitic. Their leeching should be stopped.
    They really aren't, and your breathy excitement about your misconception of them is disturbing. I imagine you went to school, and then left home to attend university? Try imagining the leaving home bit applying from age 13 to the school bit, and that’s all there is to it.
    They are parasitic. They sell a service to the very wealthy, for which they claim handsome tax breaks that cost the Treasury (i.e. the nation collectively.) Charities are meant to exist to fund what are regarded by common consent as good causes, such as providing clean water in underdeveloped parts of Africa or throwing money at research into curing horrible diseases. Subsidising exclusive schooling for the privileged children of very rich parents (who will simply invest the resultant savings or spend them on ultra luxury goods, and who could perfectly well afford an extra 25% on their fees,) doesn't count.
    I think there are an awful lot of charitues which would fail the "regarded by common consent as good causes" test.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624

    WTF did Keir Starmer mean when he told Laura Kuenssberg that patients with internal bleeding who just need a test should not need to go via their gp? Who diagnoses their own internal bleeding and knows what tests to order?
    https://youtu.be/bYALXuc8y-Q?t=1210s

    “Hello 111? Yes I have internal bleeding” “Lovely. Now will you be needing a colonoscopy, a flexible sigmoidoscopy, an OGD, a CT colon, a CT abdo pelvis, a FIT test, or urgent assessment in A&E?”

    “……”

    https://twitter.com/irishdmb/status/1614572325302861825?s=20&t=aCcwXbsRYMlF2ouQCcTmvw
    So years back I had a mad physio - one of those people whose life is full of incident.

    Cracked a vertebra playing rugby. NHS A&E missed this and sent him home with some painkillers.

    Went private, found the problem.

    Then went back to the NHS hospital and demanded to see the senior consultant. When asked if he was going to sue, he said - “Fuck no. Just get your chap in here and look at this X-ray. So he knows what to look for next time.”
This discussion has been closed.