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.

£1.7bn by removing the tax exemption.

We are not allowed to compare the UK to other countries, especially those in the EU, because then we would discover that in fact the UK is not doing very well at the moment.

I don't know why people are moaning that Starmer is choosing an easy vote winner.

It won't affect the families of about 92% of school pupils. Why is this a terrible thing?

Isn't the point of politics to please the majority.

It's when you have policies that only benefit about 8% of the population that things go wrong, surely.

So do they tax education? I’m pretty sure it was posted on here not.

I don’t think we’re an outlier in this.

Well Starmer can just keep painting Rishi Sunak as disconnected, weak, wealthy and a defender of privilege.

That is going to stick to judge from this thread.

And the great thing is, much like the threads about Boris' law breaking and parties, the more people argue that the parties were fine, or tax breaks for the rich are fine because they are charities, the more it will be in the public eye and the unfairness of it will be in people's minds.

These threads attract mostly left voters and they are already sold.

But you may well get Starmer still, Sunak has a long way to get up again.

As long as he doesn’t bring further decline by levelling down fine. I don’t love him like so many on here but I can ignore him if he wins. Just hope he can meet expectations.

On the upside I expect the U.K. is the worst place from the left will stop - finally. A like a bit of positivity, as long as it doesn’t go into further decline.

Oh and wanting the union - I’ll take silver linings.

I did a look around all the private schools in the area. They all offer bursaries. The majority of bursaries are for 25% of fee's. So yes, while these bursaries are quite numerous (not 100, but good double figures), it's still going to only be the rich that can afford these. Paying £15k a year instead of £20k really doesn't help those who couldn't afford £20k. Each school offers only 2 full bursaries.

So yes, they offer bursaries. But they're still only offering them to the rich so to me, they're pretty pointless.

@MarshaBradyo so anyone who is not in the 10% of people who think that the tax breaks private schools recieve should continue is a left voter.??
Goodness the Tories are in more trouble that I realised.

Well one wouldn't want really poor people going to those schools, because they and their children are not like us and that is why they are poor.

Did you miss the part where I said the thread attracts… I get you latch on to a poster quoting over and over with your mis-interpretation.

But go for another poster instead, I’m out. Have a good day.

Why on Earth should private schools get tax breaks - it’s not a charity it’s a business.

It’s also a business that has a massively detrimental affect on the fabric of our society- caused privilege to stay entrenched, dividing haves from have nots, and inhibiting social mobility.

There are countries where it’s illegal to charge for education and they do very well.

If I discovered any other profit-making enterprise I was regularly giving money to in exchange for a service wasn't paying taxes, I'd stop buying their services pretty sharpish.

Well it’s fairly honest description of someone who supported Johnson’s leadership and is just a slicker version.

Yes. The definition of financial need at some of these places seems pretty out of kilter.
Someone posted (way back) in this thread that the income threshold for receiving financial aid at St Paul's was £120,000

In what other area of life would having a six figure income way qualify someone as in need of financial assistance?
It's just bonkers.

Eton won't even publish their threshold; it's probably equally ridiculous.

And yet this is a demographic who apparently need charity and tax breaks.

The Tory Party are just at the stage of profound deafness. You cannot expect to put taxes up on most of the population after a massive economic cock up by your predecessor and Johnson having promised "sunlit uplands" to a lot of poor disconnected Brexit voters and then give them less and then argue private schools need tax breaks.

It is electoral poison. They are finished. You don't have to be some sort of leftie to see how bad their decisions have been since 2019.

This is a vote winner but it’s small fry in terms of economic policies.

WFT, giving people £900 these could be Labour policies. On the flip side borrowing is out due to markets so Labour will be mucking around with these types of policies - they won’t bring much benefit and even decline. Both parties are constrained by external factors. The war ending will help hugely though, whoever is in - and Ukraine overall obviously.

On the upside some of these things might not even happen and the policies are so close it’s like a positivity plaster. I don’t mind that as the whole U.K. is the worst is very tired. I expect to see these threads and posters saying how great the country is when he’s in.

If he doesn’t bring further decline (here’s hoping) I’ll take that.

I do find parents who send their kids private often justify themselves by saying the states schools near them are rubbish. I am in Surrey and I can guarantee that a high proportion of parents in this part of the country who send their kids private wouldn't have even bothered to look at the state schools near them, but are always happy to assume they are rubbish. Surrey state schools will definitely not have to worry about an influx from the private schools!

@LexMitior

But truss was cutting taxes and the market had a meltdown so how can it all be about raising taxes? She clearly wasn't going to do that.

Not agreeing with her btw but you have missed a chunk of tory chaos.

I suppose my point would be that her tax cuts were on historically high taxes anyway.

They are finished. Cut everything and did not even deliver a boom in the economy.

High tax and crap public services - yes that's an amazing vote loser.

That’s factually incorrect. Schools publish their bursary figures. From Eton’s own website “In 2020/21, 261 boys received fee reductions; 90 of these boys paid no fees at all.”

The state schools where we live are actually mostly excellent. My son's grammar school is rated outstanding.

My DDs secondary ( an academy) was also rated outstanding and we had high hopes when she started. Sadly it was her physical and mental health that prevented her from thriving there and we reluctantly switched her to a private school where she is much happier due to the small class sizes and calmer environment. She still has huge issues but school is no longer aggravating them.

I'm a life long Labour voter from a very socialist family and would always have been anti private schools had you asked me before my DD became ill.

Ditto private health care. We've had to go private three times to get her help with various things when the NHS lists were too long. I don't feel comfortable with it but seeing my DD suffer when we can afford to go private would have been worse for me.

The “rich” do not pay a lower proportion of their income in tax. They pay a higher proportion and a higher overall figure. It’s precisely how the income tax system works.

As an example, someone earning £200,000 a year pays around £85,000 in income tax and NICs. That’s an effective rate of around 42% tax.

Someone earning £20,000 pays less than £3,000 in tax. That’s an effective rate of 15%. That’s before any help by way of means tested benefits are taken into account.

Someone earning 10 times as much pays 28 times more tax in that example.

It was in response to your last paragraph.

What purpose would this tax raid serve, in your view? Any gains for the Exchequer are likely to be marginal at best.

What do you think taxes are for? Call me old-fashioned but I think that taxes exist to fund public services. If a tax doesn't gain anything for the Exchequer then there's no point in having it. I don't agree with using taxation purely to "nudge" the population.

You probably missed the post on this long thread where another poster provided Office for National Statistics data that showed that the tax burden is highest on the poorest.