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The greens have done a proper job on Labour - they are not so much a tree hugging brigade but a Trojan horse for momentum
This time they have good communicator heading it up
The VAT on private school was supposed to raise money assuming only 6% of kids bailed from the private sector into the public. In Scotland enrolments into secondary schools are down 15% - the numbers have stopped adding up - this policy will cost the tax payer money.
The cost of sending a kid to KES in Southampton is now £22k per year - that’s mental money (it was £1,800 when I went in 1983) so that’s 12x increase in fees against wage growth of approximately 4x over the same period. A couple of kid and you have to give up gross pay of £70k - Private schools are no longer an easy choice for the middle classes
Private Schools this year are also an indicator of how many families have left.
Wealthy Asian families who built up businesses, packed up and gone. Dubai, Malta, Portugal, Canada, Grandson lost noticeable numbers of friends.
Add in there are Private Schools packing it in and putting even more kids back into County Line society…
Stupid, spiteful policy.
Labour stopped being the party of the working class and is now the party of The Benefits Class
Never saw anything wrong with the policy myself. Private schools are not charities, which is why they were exempt from VAT on fees. They are anything but charitable.
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But they take students out of the school system so in theory their should be more money to educate those left
European countries actively encourage private schooling - you get tax deductions on the fees paid there
this is ideological clap trap akin to scrapping grammars which did more to elevate kids from poor backgrounds and give them a leg up than any policy since
also they are generally not for profit
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Maybe they could have introduced VAT
But incrementally over 3 years
The huge jump in one go is tough.
Also. Those families that left were driving Tesla’s BMW’s living in big houses spending on uniforms, sport equipment, oersonal trainers and more and employing people in businesses that are now offshore owned.
Not tax evading billionaires, just higher net tax payers.
The only way to stop populism is to cut off its supply line, I’d leave the ECHR and then in turn play hardball with the boat arrivals, either turn back or restart the Rwanda scheme.
Within a week you’ve stopped reform and restore.
If not we get reform and a tory coalition and it’ll happen anyway and an awful lot more will happen.
In these local elections I’ve heard fairness from a lot of voters being asked for, if that isn’t heeded populist and sectarian politics will take hold and a Balkanisation of voting will start, democracy will die.
So far so bad for Labour and Tories with Reform grabbing from both - Greens dont seem to gaining as much as everyone was predicting
A lot of the councils where the Greens have hopes only started counting this morning
It doesn’t matter. They had years of not paying the VAT because of charitable status, which is plainly bollocks. They had their good times, now the balance has been redressed. Tough shit.
Also, I don’t fully buy the argument about them taking kids out of the state system. The top tier establishments would always get the aristo’s / well heeled sending their kids there, irrespective of pesky VAT on fees. And on average, 70 private schools a year close (and have done well before the VAT introduction), sending those kids to either other private or, more likely, state schools.
And look at KES latest financial statements. Christ, they certainly are not poor judging by the assets on their balance sheet and have a very healthy cash and pension position. I wonder if they’ve considered benevolence in their fees? Doubtful.
There is another way, we were going to send my kids to a fee paying school but also agree in paying tax, its bollocks that they didn’t pay tax, fee paying schools closing is more to the point of we’re getting generationally poorer.
We did some work for a private school, which ended up closing (luckily we got paid albeit 6 months late). Judging from the administration and attitude we encountered, I suspect their closure was more due to ineptitude and inefficiency than it was to reducing student numbers (the numbers were buoyant).
I agree the the rich will always send their kids to Eton and Harrow irrespective of costetc, but its the middle that is squeezed by the taxes - people who previously scraped up enough to send their kids can no longer do so.
KES is well run and when I was there had scholarships and assisted places - not sure what they do these days, but I imagine this would be the first thing they cut if they needed to. KES were also the beneficiary of some significant lumps of money from EP Abraham who was an OB and went on to make a fortune from fucking about with drug research - he funded the science block for instance.
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Also, a lot of squeezed midfle class families have a choice.
Private School or County Lines style schools
In many parts of the Country
And im guessing raising safety/standards in schools is nowhere on a Reform manifesto
What tends to happen is that the good state schools eg Taunton become super popular and the parents move into the catchment driving up house prices to the extent poorer families cannot afford and they have to send their kids to the shittier schools
Yeah - Salisbury - Grammar on one side and lets just say lower results on the other.
What is different is around London, the ability to move is lower, and the schools are rated more by violence cases than academia.
Friends of the family had a 2 bed terrace a mile walk to a station to commute. Simply could not move to a safer school area & find a way to commute.
Ended up in a 1 bed flat for 5 years with 2 kids.
There are bad schools everywhere but unsafe reputations are something “our” more rural up bringing don’t think about so much
I am one of those kids out of the state system who went to a top tier public school.
Completely changed my life prospects and worked out very well
Ask @PhilippineSaint about Hardley, which is where I was in the state system
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Lucky you.