To marvel at privately educated Keir Starmer's hypocrisy?

[Bursarysadness]

Both Kier Starmer and his wife are privately educated. Kier's senior school converted into a private school in the second year of his attendance and he has received a generous full bursary up until his A levels. He has built his life and his success on this education, supported to the end by the bursary funded by the same schools and parents he is now trying to destroy. It pains me as my children receive 50% bursaries from a brilliant local school. We've worked incredibly hard to cover the remaining 50% but it has been worth it, seeing how my children blossomed. We had a very different experience in their primary state schools, including bullying and racism. We don't live in a great area. We have just been told that the school will probably reduce all their bursaries to be able to lower the fees for the non bursary parents who are now struggling because of the VAT introduction. I don't know what the future for my children is now and they have so many close friends where they are. They are both academically brilliant and work very hard - hence the bursaries were granted. I feel so depressed that, from what is becoming obvious, they won't be able to benefit from the generosity of bursaries the same way Kier Starmer did when he was a child ..

@Whatamess0 "And yes, re: the divide - we have friends who just fell out with other friends (after 30 years friendship) over the schools and VAT debate. It was the pro VAT people who cursed and ended up being verbally abusive"

That says more about your friends than the policy. I hate talking about "bubbles"-but if that's the most important thing in your lives, you definitely live in one.

It's funny to see people being all "oh give it a rest" over the spelling of Starmer's name on a site where parents are advised to "go NC" with grandparents who fail to remember that a baby's name is Alys not Alice because it is " so disrespectful...."

It was their parents choice not Keir and his wife's. I also went to private school but that was not my choice. I was a child and it was forced upon me by my parents. I hated it there and wish I'd gone to state school where I wouldn't have to board and could have had a normal upbringing. I would never send my children to private school as I disagree with them. That is my choice as an adult.

During the election campaign they said it would be implemented in September 2025. So, yes, the January 2025 date feels very underhand. Parents thought they had a school year to sort things out and find a state school place. They are now contacting their LEAs and being told that there are huge delays due to the volume of enquiries or that there is nothing that can be done during the holidays.

MamasitaGringita
It was their parents choice not Keir and his wife's. I also went to private school but that was not my choice. I was a child and it was forced upon me by my parents.

Keir Starmer's Guardian reading, socialist father (who named his son after Keir Hardie) forced his son to go to a private school for sixth form? Righto, I think we've got the idea now.

(Starmer said his toolmaker father read the Guardian every day).

Unless your name is Gina Miller and you are not happy with the result of a referendum - although, as it turned out, her first judicial review unwittingly helped the Brexiteers.

His left-wing parents also chose to send him to grammar school, despite Labour abolishing them in most areas and there being comprehensive options within travelling distance. Similarly, Ed Balls’ father was instrumental in abolishing grammar schools in the county where they lived and then sent his children to private school. So basically, it’s do as I say, not as I do,

To add that I’m not anti-Labour, I actually voted for them, out of necessity to help oust my widely acknowledged to be awful Tory MP, I just don’t like hypocrisy in any political party.

@Clavinova "Keir Starmer's Guardian reading, socialist father (who named his son after Keir Hardie) forced his son to go to a private school for sixth form? Righto, I think we've got the idea now."

It was the school he had been at since he was 11.

And if you live in a selective area, you deal with what you've got. Deliberately sending your child to the secondary modern is participating in the selective system just as much as going to the grammar school would be.

Incidentally- the current Secretary of State for Northern Ireland's father was a Viscount.

So many attempts to derail this thread by people who voted labour and now regret it.

Starmer et al have the financial resources to move into catchment areas where the state schools are good.
Many of us don’t have that option.

@Lifelover16 <sigh> Starmer has lived in the same house for 20 odd years.

@Lifelover16 "So many attempts to derail this thread by people who voted labour and now regret it"

I suppose there is the possibility I might regret it in the future. I am not stupid enough to make that sort of decision after 4 weeks, though! So far they have done nothing I don't agree with.

But have the resources to move to where the good schools are, if they choose? Unlike many people. No need for the sigh.

But he didn't, did he? <adds to the sighs>

Not sure if that was aimed at me. I don’t regret voting for Labour, as I think that most people whatever their political persuasion were glad that my high profile Tory now ex-MP lost their previously very safe seat. I agree with lots of Labour’s other policies, but not this one, or at least not the way that it’s being implemented; however, I think whatever party you vote for there will always be things that you don’t agree with and you have to look at the bigger picture, rather than not vote at all. I am not a loyal Labour voter though, I just try to make what I consider to be the best decision at the time of voting.

How do you know why he chose to live there?

DP and I didn't choose where to live on the basis of the daughter we would have 20 years later.

Starmer's father obviously signed some sort of bursary application form for the sixth form though - it was a fee paying sixth form for most pupils. Surrey County Council announced in 1974 that they would only cover sixth form fees for those pupils who entered the sixth form in 1975 or earlier - Starmer entered the school sixth form in 1979.

If Starmer's 'socialist' father couldn't afford to pay the fees then perhaps he should have stuck to his principals and sent his son to the free sixth form college which opened in Reigate in 1976.

My point is that he and his ilk have the choice that many people don’t.

One thing that really does annoy me, is those parents who are very wealthy yet send their kids to state school and clsim it is some sort of virtuous act...but in reality they are just using up another state funded resource....and yet when the VAT comes into effect - they still won't be contributing anything more! How are they more virtuous than private school parents?

Of course he's a hypocrite, it's a pre-requisite of being in the Labour party, champagne socialists who require you to do as you are told and not as they do. The whole policy is ill thought out and is nothing more than spite and envy and will not achieve what they say it will. They will actually damage education with it and I would be surprised if it even happens given the massive stumbling blocks they face to get it through, not least that it contravenes 2 points of the ECHR, of which the UK is still a part.

My point is that he has the resources to move to be near the better schools. Many of us don’t.

Why would 'champagne socialists', if by that you mean the wealthy, successful and currently most powerful man in the country Sir Keir Starmer, be envious of people who can just about scrape together private school fees provided there is no VAT added? Just wondering.

@Heidi75 "Of course he's a hypocrite, it's a pre-requisite of being in the Labour party, champagne socialists who require you to do as you are told and not as they do."

Please could you say a bit more about this? For example, what do you mean by "champagne socialist"?

Starmer bought his current house in 2004 - I think his eldest child was born in 2007/2008 so primary schools must have been a consideration.

If I remember correctly from our previous discussions on the Education Boards you sent your daughter to a single sex secondary school 10 miles (plus?) from your home in any case.