The Irony.. PM's donation was for ‘son to study for GCSEs’

One good reason to have left the EU.
Nobody has to send their dc to private school and the way they masquerade as charities is sickening.

I saw a figure - between 2019-2024 Boris received £6.4m from donors, Keir received £100k. I don’t remember any mainstream media outrage over his £100k worth of takeaways, £200k donation to decorating n10, the funding of his wedding - but Keir gets all the outrage for the equivalent of £20k per year. It’s disingenuous at best!

This. Its tiresome.

Wrong. He's repeatedly trotted out that line as an excuse. Every time he's pulled up on it it's 'muh BOY' as if using his own child as a shield wasn't really low. So yes that is the reason. Sunak sat in the stands as PM. Prince William sits in the stands with his son. Starmer would be absolutely fine and he knows it, he's just got a taste for the high life and all those lovely freebies - and we all know that.

Rishi Sunak stood in the stands at Southampton. Why can't Keir stand at Arsenal?

@godmum56 Someone I know who used to work with him very many years ago said he was smug and stupid. They told me this before he was elected, but it does seem to now be playing out that way.

are there any competent people in the Labour party at present?

Sheer incompetence from Labour. Which is a terrible thought, when they are now our leaders..

How long until the competent people get rid of Starmer. Hopefully not too long.

Any decent parent will try to do their best for their children. I don’t have any issue with anyone doing anything they can with whatever resources they have available. What I do have an issue with is being lectured to about “privilege” by politicians taking whatever they can - be that luxury holidays, clothes or expensive accommodation.

The Prime Minister…..saying he was “not going to apologise for not doing anything wrong” and the freebies did not “cost the taxpayer a penny”.

Private education doesn’t cost the taxpayer a penny. It does, however, cost parents a fortune, and the Labour Party are now penalising those parents further through the tax system.

My boy, 16, was in the middle of his GCSEs. I made him a promise, a promise that he would be able to get to his school, do his exams, without being disturbed

So his child has a right not to be disturbed, but any other child just has to put up with disruption? It’s ok for children to be forced to have their education disrupted by a spiteful Labour tax policy?

But if you’re a 16-year-old trying to do your GCSEs and it’s your one chance in life

Yes, all children have once chance in life to get a decent education. Why is it only his child who deserves that?

It has been tough for the kids. I’m not pleading a special case but they’re 16 and 13,” he said. “That’s a very important time.”

So that age is an important time for his kids, but not for anyone else’s?

It’s bad enough to accept these enormous, tax free donations. To defend it and suggest that his children deserve special treatment is an absolute disgrace.

They ought to be utterly ashamed of themselves. To accept luxurious gifts whilst taking money off struggling pensioners and parents trying to get their child a decent education is an absolute disgrace.

obvs enough for them to get in with a massive majority. What i don't get is how the people who took gifts of clothes, glasses (glasses FFS?) and holidays EVER thought that A) it was a good idea considering their stance on freebies, B) that it wouldn't be noticed and C) that it wouldn't annoy people especially in the face of their "its going to be tough but we are all in it together" message. Its like the old saying about breakfast, the chicken may be involved but the pig is committed.

I can't vote for either of those options

He used taking his son to watch the football as justification for accepting free tickets to that too

No he didn’t. The reason for his paid for season ticket being upgraded to a box was because his security detail couldn’t protect him adequately on the stands. Nothing to do with his son.

The problem is the hypocrisy.

This.

@HistoryMmam As PP said it wasn’t a loophole, EU law forbids tax on education. Starmer has singled out private schools because it gets headlines. Why aren’t universities being forced to charge VAT?

Kindly stop clouding the issue with facts..

‘Keir and his merry band of wankers’ 😂😂😂

I would said he is worse than Boris. Purely because he is a double standards politician who got in by selling us on his integrity. Now we see how he looks so much better groomed than Boris with so much stuff given for free even his glasses. He makes me sick!

Happened under the wrong party and to the wrong sort of kids.

Private schools should never have been exempt from VAT in the first place so it’s only right the loophole has been closed.

So include Year 10 as well, it is still not running to thousands of pupils.

If you're trying to contend that pupils outside private schools will be affected by virtue of their classes being expanded slightly by ex-private school pupils, you really are clutching at straws.

I can never understand why people are perfectly happy (and justify) Labour corruption because the Tories did corruption too.

Any corruption is bad in my opinion. But so many people are happy with Labour corruption because that's their tribe and the other tribe were worse. Jeez, quit being tribal and follow a decent moral compass.

One reason is that it's against EU law to tax education. So they wouldn't have been able to do it without Brexit.

It's also not an exemption. VAT has never been charged to education.

Who was gullible enough to believe this though?

@DysonSphere Oh so so many people! The posts on here were hilarious. I think half of them genuinely felt they were voting for the next Messiah.

If a hypothetical (ish) family can afford 60k a year for private school fees then they can put that money towards the SAHM educating them.