To wonder if Private School parents think we can’t read?

[Captainmycaptains]

Work/volunteer in Education so following the whole VAT debate.

SM is full of private parent groups ‘organising’ to get the proposed VAT on fees cancelled - fine you would, wouldn’t you esp.if you’re used to getting your own way.

They’re advocating hassling local schools, councils, demanding stats and figures that don’t exist, wiring to MPs - telling people to ‘claim’ their state place to ‘disrupt’ the ‘system’ while also saying ‘ Obvs we won’t be taking Charlotte and Hugo out of school, we’ll find the money’ etc strive harder, getting granny to chip in’ but this might make the council ‘panic’.

Do they think that people in support of the VAT aren’t seeing/hearing/reading all of these plans???

the funniest one yet is the poster who said ‘ well going to claim our state school places then! See how they like that! We’ll going holiday, pay the mortgage down, shop at Waitrose and save £700k in the process, ha!’
I. no you aren’t 2. Okay - go for it! Who on earth would think £700k is worth it?? Behave like a normal person then…

YANBU - yeah, they’re noisy as expected but the rest of us are as think/ concerned as they seem to think. Also - it’s too late for Sept - waiting lists only…

YABU - applying for school places you have no intention of using is daft, and of course everyone can see what they’re trying to do.

Isn’t that precisely what the Tories have been doing for many years?

Is it? I don't vote Tory

In France you can't register at a state school unless you have a document from the previous (state or private school) stating that the child has been withdrawn, or proof that the child only recently arrived in France.
This is not an unsolvable problem.

Edit: I was planning to quote from a post in which someone was concerned about state schools being flooded with applications that parents wouldn't follow up on.

You don’t have to vote Tory to know that. Unless you are only interested in this one policy rather than polirics in general?

They want to do more than raise funds from the private sector. At one point they voted to abolish them entirely. Supporters of that included Angela Rayner. Let’s not pretend that Labour are doing this to improve the state system. They openly despise the private sector and are doing all they can to destroy them. They are scrabbling around trying to find any way that can help towards this aim.

amp.theguardian.com/education/2019/sep/22/labour-delegates-vote-in-favour-of-abolishing-private-schools

I think Starmer is more measured than that. He is neither stupid nor radical and will take a far more tempered approach,

Apologies I was bring flippant because the usual accusation for anyone opposing this policy is that they are a Tory.
I agree the Tories have fucked this country up but Labour aren't promising any money for state education other than this policy which is likely to bring in £0. People should be challenging this and asking them why, instead of the distraction of VAT.
It is dog whistle politics driven by ideology rather than properly considered thought.

Raynor isn't though

She won’t be PM

But she is a driving force in the party

We know you can read. Doesn't stop us having an opinion.

Why are you so angry about it?

Send your kids to private school if you're so so riled by it.

Personally this will just make the elite more elite. What's the problem?

She is a useful nod to the Left but Starmer is not stupid and is his own man. It’s a balancing act but he won’t fuck it up by going too far Left. He knows keeping things just Left of Centre is the only way they would get a second term. The UK has no appetite for far Left politics. Corbyn proved that.

Yet he is already alienating small (at the moment) groups of left wing voters (you only have to look at the thread about his discussion with a MNetter yesterday). Raynor will push for hard left policies and it is clear she wants to get rid of all independent schools.
IMO Starmer is going along with this policy knowing it won't happen OR that it will happen but he knows it will only bring in a tiny fraction of what was promised which was only 1.5% of the education budget anyway at its maximum (currently stands at around 0.8-1% and likely to reduce much further). Either way it is a pointless exercise that won't actually help the state sector. But hey at least they can say that they socked it to the rich/elite!

I think he is walking a tightrope and it is part of an election strategy more than anything else. . Once he is elected I think it will be watered down significantly - already kicked into the long grass by a year in its implementation.

That is my hope but then you can see how disingenuous he is being at the moment?

There is a disconnect between the requisite skill set to have been very successful in his previous career and the current apparent flimsiness of thinking around this policy/disingenuity if you like. I think it is an act. I believe he is actually in full lawyer mode. I think he knows very well that there are issues with the policy and once he is elected and they becomes apparent. well in good faith they explored all avenues and it just couldn’t be implemented properly. That’s my hunch.

What 'net contributions' are you talking about? I'm not following.

I'm not convinced that he is as benign as he is coming across. I feel that all the champagne socialists happy to vote for him will have a big shock coming their way.

Aside from any ideological second guesses, I think he is fully aware that the country needs unity and economic stability above all else now or he is toast. That in itself is enough to mitigate the risk of any jolt to the Left in policies. I think the ‘Change’ will be cautious/measured with the majority in the Middle in mind.

Standard vocab around fiscal policy

"net contributors" refers to people living in households paying more in direct and indirect taxes than they receive in cash benefits and benefits-in-kind.

I know what net contributions are. I'm wondering on what basis you feel they should be refunded by the state.

Huh?! Not what you said but ok.

I currently dont make use of them, I intend to now make use of them. No refund just no more not claiming what I can from the education budget.

“Aside from any ideological second guesses, I think he is fully aware that the country needs unity and economic stability above all else now or he is toast. That in itself is enough to mitigate the risk of any jolt to the Left in policies. I think the ‘Change’ will be cautious/measured with the majority in the Middle in mind.“

That it what I am hoping for too - but I still voted LD because too much of a Labour majority will be just as dangerous as the Tory majority we had under Bojo. If you give them too many seats you give the far left more of a voice/power and members can always get rid of their own leader. I mean we have just had years of exactly that.

Moreover, we don’t operate in a vacuum. Look at the extremism potentially coming in just across the channel and both the far left and far right are as nutty as each other. It’s not a safe time at all with all the wars going on and frankly, most of us just want a grown up sensible party to run the country.

Posters such as OP always talk about the “7% who use independent schools.” This is a misleading statistic. At sixth form, it’s more like 17-20% using independent schools. But more importantly, it’s not as if the 7% or the 17-20% are evenly distributed among the U.K. There will be parts of the U.K. where next to nobody uses independent schools. Conversely, there are parts of London where maybe 50% or more of people are using independent schools. Realistically, I doubt the policy will make too much difference to these people because school fees go up every year anyway and fees vary between schools as it is. But, where I live, god knows what tje LA would do if (theoretically) everyone with kids in independent schools suddenly decided to use state schools instead. Nobody can get a state school place as it is! People pay inflated amounts to move into ever-shrinking catchments; or they jump through ridiculous hoops to get into certain schools - or, failing that, they move away. If all the independent schools within a 3 mile radius of my house closed tomorrow, there would be no state provision, or nothing that could remotely cope. Parents would probably have to start their own schools or something. I can’t imagine where they would put thousands of students, when places are already so oversubscribed as it is.

A job was recently posted on RIBA’s website offering a tutor £2 million to help a teen looking to study architecture at university.

Why can’t people see that tax needs to raised from the super rich.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/jun/26/the-booming-world-of-specialised-private-education-for-super-rich

The super rich can spare the money. Why aren’t they being targeted?

The ire of the OP is misdirected. Privilege and entrenched privilege and wealth is far more dangerous and immovable as it skews more and more towards a 0.5% of the population.

The next tranche down at 7% at private school is just bread and butter.

Why no anger or contempt for this segment who will eventually squash the 7% into surfdom also? Why no bitterness? It’s because your friends the Labour Party cosy up to them for donations so they are let off scot free.

There will be no middle class before long. Just trillionaires and no jobs and a ‘living wage’ which is just another name for surfs.

This war between state and private is deliberately divisive because it stops you thinking about what’s really going through on which is that they are taxing everyone more and more while failing to redistribute the wealth of the super rich.

Wouldn’t you prefer the full £14b from the super rich than £1.7b from private school VAT?

The problem is that no party ever asks you this because they’re not willing to tax the super rich.

And so society slowly crumbles, the nation gets sicker and you can welcome more pot holes etc and more tax you can’t afford whilst some one else is sailing round the world with a £200k a year tutor on board to teach their kids from someone who is a polyglot and went to Oxbridge.