Starmer son finds a quiet place to study for GCSEs

Otherwise what we are really saying is that the super rich play by their own rules and moral obligations are for the little people.

What do you mean that’s not what we are discussing.

We are discussing the (now) labour Party leader using his position to give his child an educational advantages and all the implications that come with it.

Including the fact that he believes that parents who can get their children an educational advantage should pay 20% VAT on top. So he should pay 4k in VAT for this educational advantage.

Agree with you.

Don’t buy that at all. Financial donations directly to a campaign (donations that are heavily scrutinised) is different. This is politicians using their position to procure free goods and services. It immediately makes them conflicted.
it also looks terrible because it’s this exact stuff that he has banged on about being ‘corrupt’ (rightly in my opinion).

Covent Garden is one of the most expensive areas in London. That makes it even worse. Maybe Starmer should offer a 20k donation to one of the state schools he wants to help? So keen he is to help them, that he himself has forgotten to ‘pay it forward’. Honestly @BIossomtoes give over will you.

As long as we agree moral obligations are for everyone, that would be fair enough. But that’s not what we are discussing, is it? Maybe Starmer should offer a 20k donation to an under-performing state school of his choice?

Since when has Covent Garden been the location of a “summer home”? It doesn’t look like much of an advantage from where I’m sitting.

Surely any child whose education has been disrupted should benefit from such an advantage? Otherwise Starmer is using his own privilege to further that of his children. Which Labour believes is wrong. So wrong, in fact, that it’s their flagship (read dog whistle) policy.

Yup. Absolutely.

I don’t have skin in the game as I couldn’t afford private school. But it does sound like his moral obligation to me.

If he's being bothered at school because of who his Dad is then the school should address it, just as they would with any other student. The children of other politicians and royal children manage to go to school and, I assume, use libraries on occasion.

How did his son having somewhere quiet to study help the Labour Party get elected?

I think it’s probably his moral obligation- don’t you? Most kids don’t get a summer home to revise in - sounds like an unfair advantage from where I’m sitting.

I think a lot of people on here don't actually understand how election campaigns work...
The Labour Party (and every other political party at the same time) were literally sending out emails saying 'if you want us to win this election, send us money'. They were begging for donations because election campaigns are expensive. People donated to the Labour Party, or any other party because they want to support their ability to win that election.

Rich people who also want Labour to win the election can equally choose to donate, just like me or any other person on the Labour Party mailing list. And some supporters chose to support the election campaign with different kinds of help - clothes or a quiet house away from the press (which is recorded with a notional value assigned just like any other 'donation' would be).

Honestly, I'm really not sure how anyone can get themselves worked up about this, unless of course you're just anti Labour and being extremely disingenuous (much like the daily mail).

The only thing Labour are guilty of on this subject is appalling PR management of the story!

He is a hypocrite.

So his position got him an educational advantage for his son. Does that mean he will be paying 20% VAT on it? To improve the education of all other children?

Just like he is insisting parents, whose positions mean they can afford the educational advantage for their children, pay 20% VAT?

Money may not have changed hands but his job is buying his children and educational advantage. Seems only fair he puts his hand in his own deep pockets and pays the 20% out.

No worries. Apologies if I jumped in.

i really think the optics of this, following the clothes donations and Angela Rayners US trip, isn't great to be honest. Starmer has spent the last several years calling into question corruption in politics and pointing at he fingers. He ran on a promise of ‘putting politics back into the service of people’.
He looks like a hypocrite.

Isn’t he the gift that just keeps on giving? Vile, arrogant and grabby.

They weren’t. Those dates are smack in the middle of the exam window. It’s here in black and white.

Any gifts to doctors can’t be more than a token amount. Any more than that - it has to be reported to the GMC and you wouldn’t be allowed to accept it. It wouldn’t constitute professional practice.

Why being Prime Minister of the UK doesn’t command the same professional conduct I do not know.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

At least I'm now fully convinced that Starmer's father was indeed a maker of tools.

As others have pointed out, public libraries are available. But not good enough for Keir's boy.

https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1838964556934041688

also looks like he used Lord Alli’s penthouse for his 2021 Christmas message - despite work from home regulations

The problem is the conflict of interest, regardless of the reason he accepted any of the gifts.

People aren't giving him things out of the goodness of their heart, they're giving them to him because he's PM (or was likely to become PM). They are doing it because they want something in return.

Accepting gifts from donors who obviously want to influence policy is a clear conflict of interest. Doing this and claiming it's fine because you are K Starmer and a good person is worryingly naive.

The fact of accepting all these gifts - and continuing to do so despite the questions raised - is the problem. The reason is beside the point.

I could say I stole money to buy a bigger house for my son to have room to study for his exams. It wouldn't change the fact stealing is wrong.