Kier starmer! He hates strivers!

[Bucketheadbucketbum]

He wants to introduce a policy to put up the cost of school fees 10 to 15%. This is a tax on hard-working parents! We slave away cutting cots everywhere living hand to mouth to try and improve our childrens future . Live in an average house average area 1 shit car no holidays work like a dog to get our kids through. We are easing the burden on the state system by choosing independent schools. We're not sending them to Eton paid by our trust fund! Why does he want to punish strivers! Tax the energy companies! So disappointed. We need a new political party. What's the point in trying to better your future.

jgw1
@ Clavinova Do you believe every piece of propaganda you read?

Do you believe everything you read?

"They give NOTHING back to the local
town and community"

Rest assured @Clavinova I have learnt to believe absolutely nothing of what you post.

Levelling down is depressing. Not least because it makes enemies of top tax payers. Blair knew that was a bad idea for a reason. It sows division and it will impact everyone, bar the rich who’ll find another way anyway.

Bah private schools are a privilege. There is always a class of people who use them who seem to consider themselves more virtueous because they do. This explains the endless emphasis on charity work while at the same time, demanding that there is no privilege to private schools at all.

Transparent rot.

"They subsidise the state system but don't use it"

Oh please.

By your reasoning, people who don't have children must also be subsidising the state system but not using it. They're "leaving a space" too.

Would you like a tax break for not using a bunch of other public services?

Do you congratulate yourself if you haven't been to A&E or used a library?

“Strivers”, “politics of envy” anything else to add for a full house? May I suggest “hardworking”?

You forgot 'class warfare'.

(Which is the silly bit that people keep rolling out as some kind of gotcha phrase, without realising that it kind of gives the game away and that yes, one reason people choose private education is to secure their privilege or buy into privilege.)

Labour want a race to the bottom. They are anti aspiration

OP, the irony is if anyone is stifling aspiration it’s the policies of the Tories these last 12 years. During this time under a coalition govt and then Tory government the richest have massively increased their wealth. The top 1000 richest people have accrued £500 billion since 2009 whilst wages have barely increased since the 2008 global crash. The vast majority of citizens are doing worse on many metrics and young adults as a cohort have been screwed with such issues as out of control house prices

Austerity under Cameron and Osborne decimated public services and caused sluggish growth. They could have used the v low interest rates created by quantitative easing at the time of the financial crash to finance infrastructure and research and development. As other developed countries did at that time. This would have much more likely stimulated better economic growth and benefited many more. Instead only the v rich have seen their wealth soar both after the global crash and then during covid with another round of quantitive easing which saw the biggest year single increase in billionaires during our biggest crisis since 2WW - crazy. Our focus should be on righting this massive transfer of wealth to the super rich and the ever growing inequality between the super rich and the rest of us. Soon there will not be a middle class, it will be the super rich, the just getting by and the destitute.

The BBC did a good 2 episode documentary last January on the increase in wealth of the super rich in society called The Decade the Rich Won. Link below. Tories represent the interests of these super rich and Starmer has not indicated so far that he will do anything significant to address this growing inequality either.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0013xcf

You could always read the 28 page report in the link.

I did, which is why I made those comments about its flaws.

Others don't seem to have approached it with quite the same level of analysis. Sad indictment of our education system etc etc.

Yes that’s a good one😂. The fact OP didn’t even see the problem with their thread title and it’s implication, just proves the point.

I very clearly said no to tax rebate. Some countries do this but I’m not for it. I use state anyway.

It’s people who keep saying we are subsidising private users that I have an issue with. It’s illogical. It’s the wrong way round. Why do people keep saying it?

It's a tax break. It's got nothing to do with "striving".

What is "levelling down" about removing tax breaks for some of the wealthiest people in society?

When other tax loopholes are closed, is that also "levelling down"?

I see you also congratulate yourself in your OP for "easing the burden on the state system by choosing independent schools". That's such a cliché.
Do you also give yourself a pat on the back because you've bought a book instead of going to the library?

As someone who’s planning to vote Labour again when we get the chance but also has a child at private school, I’m worried. Yes we’re very lucky to be able to pay school fees - just - but it’s also because we live in a small cheap house that we’ve paid off the mortgage on (through years of being very careful and overpaying). I used to be anti private school, until I had a child whose needs (autistic, anxious, needs lots of pastoral care but pretty bright) just wouldn’t be met in the huge state secondaries near us. I’m not trying to buy extra advantage - just the hope that she will manage to stay in school and survive relatively unscathed. So far it’s been absolutely brilliant and I don’t regret my choice at all. I do get very frustrated when people assume we’re richer than them. A mum friend last year was really off with me and kept going on about how lucky we were to be able to afford private school. They’d bought a £700,000 house the year before, have expensive cars etc.

It’s people who keep saying we are subsidising private users that I have an issue with. It’s illogical. It’s the wrong way round. Why do people keep saying it?

But they're not; they're saying that we're subsidising the institutions. Which we clearly are, given that they are not charging the same VAT for the services they provide as other private service providers, and they are exempt from business rates (unlike state schools) - in the same way as tax breaks for eg oil companies are de facto subsidies.

The question is - do these schools really do enough for the public good to really qualify as charities? If not, then they should lose those tax breaks. How they structure their business models and the fees they charge their users are a matter for them as the provider of the service.

State places are hard to come by here so when people pay tax and pay fees and take themselves out of system I have no issue with that.

The state schools do well in any case

Exactly. So many people on this thread have made so many assumptions about me and my finances/ reasons for private school etc

Such rudness and begrudgery. "poshos" "rolls royces' etc. Madness

Personally, I'm ok with them existing, but I'm not ok with them getting tax breaks as if their opting out of the state system is an act of altruism or an unarguable public good.

On the 'state places are hard to come by' question, we've got so used to upward pressure on school places that many have assumed that it will inevitably continue. But actually, we're getting close to the peak in the school age population - it will start declining in the next few years as the baby boom from the early 2000s works its way through the system.

Important to remember that the state system has added more places in the last couple of decades than the entire private school population, and is on course to decline by the same amount in the coming years.

So many people on this thread have made so many assumptions about me and my finances/ reasons for private school etc

I think it was your frankly ludicrous "hand to mouth" claim that set so many off.

Theoretically, ideologically and morally I think Starmer is right.

Private schools are businesses not charities and should be treated/taxed accordingly.

But the problem lies in the logistical reality: no matter how you argue the point, ideologically and morally, the reality is that if you remove charitable status for private schools there WILL be a significant number of families who will no longer be able to afford the fees and they WILL then have to transfer their DC into the state sector and that WILL increase pressure on the state sector because there will be no additional funds forthcoming to support the additional flow of pupils into said state sector.

Of course in theory the increased income from removing private school charitable status should be diverted into improving state education but let's face it, in reality that probably won't be the case.

I have no faith in Labour or any political party to do anything to improve state education so whilst in theory I think Starmer has an excellent point, in reality I don't think he's going to achieve anything positive.

People go to altruistic but no where do I say this is a factor. I’d leave it as it is. More people will be out of state system and pay twice.

That decline won’t help us as all dc still in oversubscribed years. If all this happens after we have left I still think there are downsides overall but will be glad to have left before it happens - hopefully.

People go to altruistic but no where do I say this is a factor.

It's the logical endpoint of the argument that people who opt out of the state system are providing a public good and that it is praiseworthy and worthy of subsidy for that reason - when the reality is that it's about using spending power to acquire access to better facilities, a more socially selective environment and/or lower class sizes.

I've no problem with private schools existing. Until very recently we were expecting to send our kids private, this policy alongside other factors (the catastrophic mess the current lot have made from the economy and some other reasons) have made us re-evaluate and decide that putting ourselves into a financially precipitous position wouldn't be in their best interests. This policy was the nail in the coffin of affordability for us and so we won't start what we would be unlikely to be able to finish for both kids. And I still think it's the right thing to do.

Why was I considering private? Not to take the pressure off the state system. Because I loved some of what they had to offer and I wanted to buy into the social privilege that came with it.

Not sure that's the sort of 'aspiration' that should get a tax break, that's all.

I’m not praising anyone. I see it as a benefit to us.. They pay twice and opt out making it easier for us to get a place.

I’m centring my family. It’s not really a value judgement on how good they are being - they get the education they want, fine by me.

And you know this is ludicrous how exactly? Do you know me? My finances? Again- making assumptions

It's never the state system users who laud the private users for "freeing up" places, it's only private users, with their preening self-regard who claim such altruism.

Oddly, you never get threads on MN where car drivers are patting themselves on the back for not using PT, thereby freeing up spaces on trains and buses.

Just so keen to paint those who prioritise private schooling as the enemy