To finally be looking forward to a GE?

[Cadela]

The past election/PM changes have been horrendous. The visceral disappointment was awful each time.

I can’t wait to actually celebrate this year. I know, I know, Labour are going to set fire to the economy and tax everyone £3mil each and it’ll cost you 4 trillion a month to send you kid to private school, and all women will perish immediately because only Tories know what a woman is

But finally! It’s been a long fucking time coming.

I think everyone needs to add up the tax they pay and think realistically does that cover the public services they use - because for a lot of people it won’t and every country needs high earners to put more money into the public system to ensure everyone has a decent standard of living. Your aggressive stance towards high earners makes no sense you clearly have a chip on your shoulder.

@IamfeelingSad Until last year - when I became semi-retired at the age of 53, after paying off a mortgage on a 5 bed detached house in a very expensive town - I was on the 40% tax rate.

So look elsewhere for chips on shoulders.

Can't wait till the GE.

Once upon a time I was a die hard Tory voter (for my sins) & I was dismayed that Labour won the 1997 election.
My dismay was misplaced as after a couple of years I realised that we had the best party in charge.
Financially & society wise New Labour were the best government we've had so far (in my lifetime)

And apart from the Jeremy Corbin years which set the party back decades I've been a Labour voter since the early 2000s.

I'm absolutely praying to any higher power that the tories will be on their arses.

@ComeAlongPeggy if you can afford to pay for two sets of school fees then you are wealthy.

It's very disappointing that you are working in the NHS and still think it's OK to vote Tory.

I can't wait for the GE. It's possible that DH and I will pay more tax under a Labour government and that's fine with me if public services improve. Sadly, as demonstrated here, some people vote according to whether they personally will benefit, rather than whether society as a whole will benefit. Which is why we've been stuck with the Tories for so long.

I think most people vote for what is best for them. To pretend otherwise is silly.

A huge amount of private schools don’t have charitable status. It isn’t to do with that. The vast majority of countries in the world don’t tax education and nor do we at the moment. If we were still in the EU, Labour wouldn’t be able to do this.

I'm excited for a general election but maybe for different reasons.

I run apprenticeship nursing programmes. I've had to cancel a programme starting September because the hospitals are awaiting news of funding that is being held up because the shite Tories won't announce a general election.

Their inadequacies really do impact on people's lives and I'm sick to the teeth of them!

Sorry @ComeAlongPeggy I find it really difficult to imagine how much you have to sacrifice to send both your children to independent schools as I presume a single parent family on an NHS wage?

Being able to do this is still an incredible privilege, despite the 'sacrifices' you make.

But I could never experience the lack of SEN support in state schools and turn my back on that. I could never vote for a party who has demolished support for SEN kids in favour of something that only benefited me. I couldn't morally do that.

For the many, not the few.

Totally agree with this - I’ve chosen to bow out of the UK all together rather than live under the current shitshow and what I suspect will be an even bigger one under Starmer. I don’t mind paying tax and paying more if I can see any benefit. I’ve no faith in Labour whatsoever and was reluctant to continue pouring tax into a failing system.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I am looking forward to a change and really hope Labour are better than what we have now (can't be any worse, let's face it!) I just wish they would hurry up and announce the date.

For example, the £1bn planning scheme Robert Jenrick awarded to a developer who had donated £12,000 to the Conservative Party two weeks before. The PPE contracts scandal - ‘Baroness’ Michelle Mone’s (a Conservative Party member at the time and made a peer by Cameron) company made about £60 million profit even though lots of the PPE was defective and unused. Dido Harding and her dual roles appointment by Johnson, which Lord Falconer described as ‘corrupting our constitution’… The implications made in The Pandora Papers relating to Tory party donors. Owen Paterson and his paid lobbying/advocacy against the rules of parliament; not sure on the exact figures but it’s estimated that he made about three times his salary promoting two companies. I’ll end with Frank Hester who is estimated to have made £10 million donations to the Tory Party and whose company has profited from £135 million from NHS outsourcing by that same party’s government - you may remember him, as he’s also the man who made the abhorrent racist and misogynistic comments about Diane Abbot. This is who and how - I think the why is quite clearly implicated. Like lots of the population I’m wondering why this has been allowed to happen and why our current government think this is acceptable.

You may find this link helpful.

https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/10-labour-policies-to-change-britain/

I live in an area where our LA is run by Lib Dem's who are dire. We currently have a Tory MP who is 99% likely to be ousted by a Lib Dem. The Tories stand no chance of election in our area and Labour have always been a third party in the area. For the first time ever I feel unable to vote.

I would be interested in Labour's plans as so far apart from VAT on school fees all they appear to have done is criticise the Tories and have given no detail on their proposals. Everyone seems to think life will change overnight. It won't.

Here is a link you might find helpful.

https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/10-labour-policies-to-change-britain/

Your family are obviously more wealthy than the average family if you can afford to privately educate your children. Also the narrative that's it's because you are prepared to make huge sacrifices basically says that families that can't afford it are just not making enough sacrifices!

I run apprenticeship nursing programmes. I've had to cancel a programme starting September because the hospitals are awaiting news of funding that is being held up because the shite Tories won't announce a general election

Exactly - spending allocations go out to March 25 and even more problems and waste is being caused by the failure to do anything. It’s probably because they can’t do another budget and meet the ridiculous implied cuts they have baked in. Salting the earth.

If you can afford two sets of private school fees, yes, you are wealthy. Baffling that you think having £40k to drop on school fees (yearly average is just over £20k a year) makes you not wealthy. The average uk salary is £34k.

You can't just take off everything you choose to pay for and say "I'm not wealthy". Why do tories always think they're so hard done by?

Also, I do not see these results as hugely successful for Labour - turnout was woeful, and I think the apathy towards both parties is palpable. Current polls suggest Starmer won’t get a majority to govern. Harking back to the glory days of 1997 is misplaced optimism at best.

I am excited for the first time in a while too, I'm even contemplating joining a party and supporting the campaign this time which I have never done.

I agree with PP who said that state schools (which are already on their knees, as we all know) can't cope with the extra students if private school fees are subject to VAT.

I hope that Labour will prioritize sorting out state schools as so many children are being let down, before looking to private schools as a source of income.

I also hope that they will put some money back into the NHS. My parents can never get to see their GP, in a small rural village.

I cannot wait for the GE too (even though I don't get to vote, I have been out of the UK for too long, thank you to the conservatives for implementing that rule!). Each time we come back to visit, we can feel the UK getting worse and worse and as it stands would never consider returning. I hate the facts that my parents can never get medical appointments and that my family and friends are really struggling to make ends meet. A lot of them are teachers and the stories they tell me are horrific.

@BIWI

when many kids are then sent into the state system, how's that going to help the state system?

our school donates a LOT of money to various charities and sponsors/buddies with a couple of local schools.

that will have to stop if it can no longer be afforded.

Where is the funding coming from for all these plans? There seems to be a fair few spending plans and just one single tax raising idea; taxing private school fees. It’s fairly easy in opposition to say “we’ll improve everything”, but how are they going to do it? VAT on education is expected to raise the equivalent of around 1% of the current state education budget. Even then, that IFS forecast is based on assumptions that mean the tax take will be even less than that.

The Labour Party don’t even understand their own policy. they say “Private schools currently benefit from an unfair tax break that means they avoid paying VAT on fees. Through closing this loophole…..”. They seem to think that it’s the schools which will have to pay the VAT. It’s not. It’s the parents; a fairly basic concept which they don’t understand. In addition, the tax position isn’t a “loophole”. It’s specifically enshrined in legislation; education is exempt. It’s illegal to tax education in the EU. Starmer has already said that he has no plans to diverge from EU law. How does this policy align with this?

Don’t get me wrong. The current state of affairs is far from ideal and things need to improve. We should be told how this is going to be achieved.

yearly average is just over £20k a year

It’s not. The average is around £15k. Many are less than that.