Starmer says we are going to have more money in our pockets (new year's speach

@MarieG10 The quality of MPs has beeen going down. In my view and it’s the view of plenty of others too. I think there are a number of reasons for this. Many successful bright people with a solid career behind them earn more by staying put and are politically homeless. Women are put off. There’s too much emphasis on politics and advocating for constituents and insufficient attention on thinking about what we need to do or actually having in depth knowledge about anything such as business. Labour play to the baying crowds and always do and then recruit them. The Cons still have a few moderates and the raging Right. They won’t have depth of knowledge either even if they get some seats back next time.

Labour has a huge majority but no brilliant people coming through. I think it’s been striking how dogma has ruled the day and salary rises for unionized staff making the grey hole bigger. And that’s not looking at the pensions liability which is the blackest hole ever.

@TizerorFizz …what is even more depressing is the lack of any decent opposition in parliament. Education is now going to be reshaped for political thought. We are an academy and the intention is now to start removing a lot of freedom so we are going back to the bad old days of the council new best…certainly ours didn’t!!

@MarieG10 Politicians don’t think - full stop. This is the problem we have when policy is based on dogma. Don’t like private schools and believe all parents who use them are rich with dc gaining an advantage over everyone else. It’s a form of punishment and certainly they haven’t thought of the consequences to state schools. I too think there could be some scrambling for places in YR this year.

Its like the Reeves budget. All about a minor black hole (that is at worst pale grey) and believing all business is bouyant and making squillions. So up goes the tax but the consequences get them further away than ever from achieving economic growth in a fragile economy that she must have known was the case.

@TizerorFizz* *
”Lots of SEN dc’s parents scrape the money together to go to private schools. Lots of posters have mentioned this on threads. So it’s likely these dc will have to come back to state.”

Yes. This is what we are seeing. As a governing body we spent over half our our last meeting before Christmas reviewing the issues coming from already known inflow in applications made or already moved, plus ongoing almost certain moves being planned either for the summer or autumn term. There is a vast disproportionality with children with SEN, some had financial support from their private school with fees but basically parents just can’t make it work any more. They were not rich by any means and were making huge sacrifices in the main to pay for private provision. The head described how some parents were extremely emotional at the impact this is having on already challenged children and them as a result.
The impact on our school is very very significant as we are no way able currently to give anywhere near the support required and will potentially require a doubling of our SEN provision within a year which we have no money for. Those coming in Sept will only displace other children from the locality that would have got places so it is not that the school roll and funding increases as we are pretty much full each year.

if the transfer of students with SEN in particular continues for the next few years, ie never go to private school but straight to state school, the the funding implications are even more severe. Our local private school obviously has several funding issues from the VAT increase but wha5 they have confidentially shared is that they will make significant reductions in their SEN as the demand is being transferred back to the state. I don’t think any politicians thought this aspect through at all

The priority of politics over reality and pragmatism is simply dreadful.

It’s in the article I linked to, here are the key points around why more children are starting primary school than were predicted previously.

The drops in numbers are also highly localised with some Counties having growing numbers.

@MarieG10 Lots of SEN dc’s parents scrape the money together to go to private schools. Lots of posters have mentioned this on threads. So it’s likely these dc will have to come back to state.

I also think a novice but dogmatic government is making it worse by being illiterate in terms of growing the economy. New Labour from 1997 did have far more idea but had better economic conditions. This one is not capable of understanding business. They understood what to say to get elected but not rebuild the services we expect. They see business as a cash cow. They have taken the union view about employment and more employment laws are coming soon so business does not feel supported of encouraged.

@ThisPageIsBlank I agree that higher taxes are not the way forward and it has to be growth. We cannot keep services running if no one is able to do well and pay for it. Squeezing the economy helps no one. We are going to have to accept some change to services but Labour won’t accept change. It just promises better days ahead and has its head in the sand. They are looking poorly prepared and deluded.

Food costs to rise by 4.2% by the end of the year, water bills by 7% and council tax by 5% nobody is going to be better of this year. Why does he come out with this crap when it is so obviously untrue.

We have a government that has a cabinet with virtually no government experience or experience of running any large organisations. Cooper had some previous experience and Starmer ran the CPS…not commercial in any sense.

We can now see the lies all told to get into power. Govt borrowing is now at the highest cost since 1998. Is far worse than the Truss roller coaster. Reeves is completely out of her depth and it shows. The NI raid is such an example. A pub local to me announced its closure yesterday due to this. Tipped it over the edge with huge additional costs as most of their staff were lower hours flexible workers which suited them. The vat raidon private schools. The good state school my kids attend (I’m on the governing body) have a significant inflow and kids now awaiting places being moved from private schools, interestingly a significant number with SEN needs so that will be a huge impact and cost being moved. The govt is in total denial but it doesn’t matter to them as it is politics

All of this feeds through to us in additional costs for us. The long suffering hard working middle earners. Don’t be fooled by the rhetoric that the rich are being made to pay as it is rubbish…there isn’t enough to pay and certainly not now as we have had the biggest exodus t of them since the 1970s.

I now see they have dumped the promise to have the highest growth in the G7. Not that I believed it but many did

Welcome back to a Labour government

Raising taxes more would just harm growth and productivity even more, and lower tax revenues and the available money for services. This is what they've just done and it has made things worse, and that's before the real effect kicks in, in April. There's going to be a shitshow because many businesses arr going to start folding and laying off staff. Borrowing more isn't going to fix anything especially now that Reeves has managed to push gilt rates above those the lettuce managed to create, and the annual interest payment on debt is over £100bn.

The only way out is productivity growth. You have to actually generate some additional revenues before you can tax them, not the other way around! Before the election Labour stated that they understood this and it would be the focus of economic policy but they've done the precise opposite and made a catastrophic mess even worse.

It seems no Government will take the obvious steps to create the conditions where productivity rises can happen, so the doom loop will continue with ongoing falling living standards.

@1dayatatime I get that. That is why Starmer and others come along with slogans and lies. They know that many voters know next to nothing about economics (I once saw it was 5%) so they spin a story,

I would say some people could be persuaded to have insurance. Plus we have a government that’s kicked social care into the long grass - again. We know we need solutions to this and it’s not cheap. We are inevitably declining but we will have Trump bellowing for more defence spending soon. We surely will have to make economies for this protection too.

@TizerorFizz

I don't disagree with you but no voter is ever going to vote for a political party that offers them less services. Even if that is the harsh reality of what is needed to stop the managed economic decline.

@1dayatatime Which means tinkering with VAT on school fees and stalling growth by employer taxation is doubly misguided. We all probably agree that to flourish we need growth so promoting anti growth policies is inexplicable.

It’s hugely unfortunate but we need to accept we cannot have all we want. As a country we expect the state to do more and more. I think I would like choices. Look at state backed insurance for social care and some health issues. We certainly need to alter what the state can do and stop thinking we are rich and it’s everything.

@TizerorFizz

"The other big elephant in the room is borrowing costs. We are maxed out. There’s nowhere to go except cutting services or higher taxes. "

Yep - sadly not everyone can see this, including Liz Truss who found out the hard way that increasing debt is no longer an option.

Currently the Government spends about the same in just the interest bill for the national debt as it does for the entire education budget.

@misty64 The other big elephant in the room is borrowing costs. We are maxed out. There’s nowhere to go except cutting services or higher taxes. To be honest they might as well be Conservative. They are unaware of how dogmatic decisions can have unintended consequences, eg slam taxes on business and private schools. They won’t tackle social care and everyone knows it’s a barrier to release from hospital. Any nhs review is alarmingly slow and it just feels that everything they talk about is electioneering rhetoric. They need to be moving on into the business of governing. The majority of them need a rocket under them! Oh I forgot. They just did - the Elon Musk rocket.

Misty I agree with you

I really dont understand the way the government are running the economy, nothing seems well thought out and the consequences of their decisions seem to be completely ignored.
VAT on schools will raise very little and do nothing to help the state sector. Promised breakfast clubs are now delayed and god knows where the teachers are coming from
WFA is also not saving what they thought it would as pension credit applications have gone up rapidly and that is a gateway benefit.
NI insurance increase is the real killer for our economy , our bills are going to soar come April, do they really think the likes of Tesco and the other large businesses are just going to absorb these costs. They have made it quite clear they will not and job losses and higher prices are to come.
I am no economist but pretty sure that nothing they have done is going to make anyone better of.

He's a liar and wouldn't tell the truth about anything.

@Iwanttoliveonamountain Thsts besides the point. We all know they cannot recruit teachers for Stem subjects, MFL and a few others. Therefore saying you will recruit thousands more when you are very short in the first place is hopeful at best. Grads don’t like the idea of teaching. People with decent stem degrees will get jobs they consider better in other forms of business and industry. Mostly earning more and less hassle. Teaching has better holidays and better pensions but working with grumpy people who go on strike is a turn off. Any decent teachers from private schools will be absorbed by private schools.

Have you ever visited state School secondary school?

@Applepoop Many private schools will remain and maths teachers are always in demand. If available, 6th form colleges teaching A level maths are calmer.

That's right - I know someone who used to teach Maths in a state secondary school. Kids behaved monstrously, including following the teacher home and pissing around with bins, windows at home! Got told to fuck off by a parent. Now teaches in private. If the private closes, will move to private tutoring. Unless Starmer is going to double the salary, there will be no enticing teachers like this back.

@ThisPageIsBlank He can explain it! It’s the black hole they didn’t know about! That old chestnut. Of course they had plans to hit private school parents but it’s illiterate to hit business and expect growth. Your summary is otherwise correct. It feels like many Labour voters were too trusting and were duped. Our politics is at a very low ebb.

Plus the people supporting the vat in education are deluded. Dangerous people and policies like this are going to take this country to the pits.