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

Well you're conflating two things here. First of all Starmer had no choice in the summer election and it must be really hard for his kids, I'm not saying harder than what other kids have to deal with but still, to deal with modern day media intrusion is difficult. You might not like or agree with the PM but it is an act of public service and if he wants to protect his family then fair enough. My parents divorced and massively disrupted my A-levels, it can be really crap. VAT on private schools I don't have much sympathy with I'm afraid, private schools have continuously hiked prices and sold eye wateringly expensive kit and parents just saw that as a badge of their success.

They’re not even ashamed of their hypocrisy.

The fact he is content to, or sickeningly happy to disrupt the education of thousands of children during their GCSE years - but accepts a donation to ensure ‘his boys’ 🤢’ education is not disrupted, is despicable. Says all we need to know.

The Labour Party of today is fcking hideous.

I just heard this on the radio while I was doing the school run. Ugh! He makes me sick. It's one rule him and his kids and one rule for everyone else. He can accept donations, as long as it's to ensure his kids are happy, apparently. He used taking his son to watch the football as justification for accepting free tickets to that too. He's a fucking hypocrite! All those years he stood on the other side of the dispatch box carping at the Tories and making fun of BJ and his fancy wallpaper and here he is, doing exactly the same things. Piggies with their snouts in the trough, all of them. And they always have some bullshit reason why it's okay for them, but not for everyone else.

I hadnt heard about this

shocking and so unfair

Your voting options are ridiculous and emotive.

Why are there constant threads on here ATM trying to paint the Keir as Boris Johnson?

Is it disgruntled Tory voters sulking or something more organised by a Comms team linked somehow to Tory Party support?

I strongly disagree with charging VAT on education and I hate it every time Starmer says "my boy" (I get he doesn't want to name his DC but it sounds so dehumanising to do that in public, like Mr Banks from Mary Poppins or something).

However, I don't see the hypocrisy regarding school VAT specifically here, as he didn't accept a donation of tuition; it was accommodation and his argument is that his son wouldn't have required this had his father not been fronting an election campaign and had constant press intrusion. Which makes sense, as it's not the son's fault.

I do, however, find his accepting donations and these successive arguments he's coming out with to justify each one as hypocritical, given all his talk during the campaign of being a man of principle who wouldn't even seek out private healthcare for a family member who needed it.

To now be saying "well, obviously, you do your best for your family, don't you?" which is effectively the opposite from what he said during the campaign, reveals he's happy to find a way to justify whatever the hell he wants to do, regardless of how hypocritical it is.

This is a false equivalence.

And it is not easy to be the teenage son of the Prime Minister, studying for your GCSEs but also trying to make sense of life when you have hostile journalists and photographers outside your front door, day and night.

They're all a bunch of hypocrite champagne socialists, "do as we say, not as we do".

The PM reportedly said "I'm not pleading a special case". Mmmm yes you are mate!
No reason why his son couldn't have gone to the local library to study, just as my kids, being in London the local library probably has better opening hours than ours.
There is no space at home for the kids to work, and I'm sure we're not the only family with these difficulties (I mean my kids could lie on the floor to do their work but I'm not sure that's comfy or conducive to good study techniques!).
I wish my kids school had longer opening hours for the library (closes 15 mins after school and opens 10 mins before registration).
What gets me is the VAT won't make any difference, and I'm strongly opposed to it, not least because it's a diversionary tactic, but I want is my kid's school (and all comps) to be have proper funding. It feels like the VAT is akin to sitting in a small boat, pointing to a floating log shouting 'shark' whilst the real shark is swimming behind the boat readying its jaws whilst everyone else is looking in the wrong direction.

It certainly seems that Labour have deliberately made it much more disruptive for private pupils than it needed to be. A short consultation period over the summer holidays. Bringing in VAT in the middle of a school year. Leaving it so late that many schools and pupils don't know if they will be affected (eg the rules on SEN pupils, vocational training and military schools are still up in the air). Most private school parents and schools still have no idea at what rate their fees might go up in January but most schools stipulate giving a term's notice.

Even if you agree with the VAT in principle (I don't) the way they have gone about it is as disruptive as it's possible to be.

So yes like with a lot of what Labour does it is hypocritical of Starmer to accept £20k so his son's GCSE preparation is undisturbed while deliberately disrupting the education of thousands of pupils in Y10 and Y11. Many of whom will have to change their GCSE subjects and exam boards if they have to leave their private schools during Y10 or Y11. That's much more disruptive than your Dad being an important politician.

What about schools affected by RAAC where y11 students have had to do remote learning, and who haven’t had access to science labs for practicals etc and yet who Ofqual decided shouldn’t get any special consideration in their GCSEs?

I don’t know enough about the VAT issue it to say that it should or should not happen but i think it would have been better to start with the new intakes with each level school

or at least with the senior school so that the current year 10’s and 11’s were through

It's a false equivalence.

All this ridiculous media coverage about donations to Labour, when the Tory government was infamous for its beneficial agreements with rich people. I mean, come on... have people forgotten Boris Johnson existed? The man lives his entire life funded by other people.

I agree OP, I am not against the VAT but I think it should have been for new students only, so all pupils changing school or joining but not for those who have already committed and who are in the system.

Wow. The hypocrisy and self entitlement knows no bounds.