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 ..

I completely agree with your first paragraph! Getting rid of the Winter Fuel Allowance without announcing any measures to cut energy bills has left a lot of people worried. Trying to get people to claim pension credit has been a hard task for years so that won’t be enough on its own.

I’m a bit confused by your second though. My understanding is that the money from private school VAT will be channeled towards state schools? Where the majority of the population go. And we don’t know yet how many kids will be pulled out of private into state, clearly they think the risk is minimal but only time will tell.

Labour may think the risk is minimal but many private school parents who are the ones paying the fees and therefore the VAT disagree. I am on a support group for parents and some are applying for state places and being told that there aren’t in their area or that their LEA is inundated with enquiries and that it will be weeks before they can get back to them.

Also, Labour based their figures on a report that said if people withdrew their DC from private schools they would spend their spare money on other VATable discretionary spending. However, based on surveys of actual private school parents, it’s more likely to be used to pay off mortgages earlier, invested into pensions or as an opportunity to work less (and therefore pay less tax).

We were talking about it last night with my husband and think that the January start to this legislation was very intentional. Plus the fact it was done over the summer holidays. Labour know that it will be incredibly hard, almost impossible for people to secure a place for September at this stage. And they know that many people will be very worried about unsettling their children by moving them half way through the tear, especially if they are in the exam year or have just started their GCSE / a level courses. So they want to push parents to stay where they are, at least for the two terms of this year so they can demonstrate 1. That they were right and not many people moved their kids out and 2. How much money they raised. This doesn't mean people won't move them next year. It's a very short term strategy to create PR soundbites they will use to show that the policy has been successful when, in fact and in the longer term, it won't be. It's cruel, heartless and Machiavellian. There is no thought given to the children involved. It's coldhearted ideology led politics and the children are it's casualties

There are state schools, and there are state schools. The primary his children went to has a catchment radius of about 150m, with average house prices in the region of £900k. It’s where the rich move to to school their children all-but privately, so they can say their kids don’t go to private school.

@usernamealreadytaken KS and his wife bought their house years before having children. If you buy a house 10 years or whatever before your(yet to be born) children are due to attend, you're probably not buying for the local school. A school rated Outstanding can be RI 10 years later and vice versa. I suspect they bought their house for other reasons.

It is not a month’s notice - it is a term’s notice.

Obviously all schools have slightly different term dates - but where we live we would have had to give notice in April that our next term (Sept-December) would be our last to avoid the increased costs associated with the vat increase.

Sunak only announced election in May - so unless someone has a time machine or a crystal ball - there would not have been a single uk private school parent in the whole of the uk who has been able to give a term’s notice if they could not avoid the vat increase in January.

It is not a failure of private school parents to prepare - it’s a failure of the government to not have some decency and at least allow parents who are struggling with the vat increase to have a window to give that term’s notice.

Once again, it’s the people who can least afford it who will be affected by this. The parents who have only put their kids into private school because of Sen needs or bullying - who now can’t afford the vat increase and so have to move these kids back to the state school system and, because of the timing of the whole thing, they might have to move their kids in Sept and still pay a term’s private school fees 24 they won’t be using.

We have a child in a brilliant government school (which we donate to I might add but now will stop that). And we have our daughter with sen needs in a local private school who is in her final year of 6th form so we can’t exactly pull her out. Her local private school gave some six Ukraine refugees free places and these kids have not yet finished their education, so it’s going to be interesting for the school to balance this generosity with now dealing with fee paying students whose parents can’t afford the increase.

The only fair thing for the government to do would have been to bring this in on Sept 25 so if any kids education were going to be interrupted they had a chance to start at a new school in a new school year.

If you have moved your kids school - you know what it’s like and it’s even harder for kids who have Sen needs to do it.

Yes, but this policy expects only one section of society to pay an additional contribution.
Education benefits the whole, the whole should pay. If you decide that more is needed then you should raise the burden across ALL tax payers.

Voted Labour in 2001,2010,2015,2017,2019 and 2024.
Not regretted a single vote!

The eagle-eyed will see not in 2005- voted Lib Dem as a protest vote against Iraq.
I think I enjoyed voting Labour the most in 2024 as let's not forget just how shambolic, xenophobic and incompetent the last government had become.
I think Keir is doing a pretty good job so far, dealing well with events that have not been of his making.

I do not regret it…am massively relieved that we have got shot of the Tories who have systematically destroyed this country. Look at us now, we reap what we sow. Hopefully Labour will have time to turn things around a bit. We all need to pay higher taxes to improve our woefully underfunded services. Can’t bare all this bleating from the over-privileged about private school tax. Maybe you’ll have to forgoe your skiing trip #firstworldproblems

There's a lot of bleating about this from people who have thousands each term in spare cash to pay for advantage. There are people in society who struggle to feed their children or heat their homes or even have a home of their own. You'll all be bleating next about building homes to house poor people who don't have a home.

IIRC the bursaries for Reigate Grammar did not come in until Starmer was in the sixth form, as transition from state to independent takes time. Surrey County Council was involved in supporting existing state school pupils. So calling him privately school educated is pushing it a bit, very unlikely that his cohort would have seen much change.

Keir Starmer was about fourteen when Reigate went private, Hilary, probably doing his options so not a good time to change school I don't understand why anyone cares, in the past many prime ministers were privately educated, and tried to improve state education when they were in power. It is how they perform now that matters. It never occurred to me to look at how Keir Starmer was educated before seeing this thread.

‘It is not a month’s notice - it is a term’s notice. ’

These businesses, sorry I mean schools, have got you lot over a barrel but for some reason it’s not their fault that they have these conditions, charge a fortune for extra curriculars and trips, have a uniform that’s 3 or 4 times more expensive than any local state school and have put their fees up by an average of 8% year after year.

That’s the real reason so many people are struggling but yet you all pay it without much complaint, convinced that it’s the only way…

A lot of families are going to be free from these shackles soon, and the myth that private school is so much better that it’s worth practically bankrupting a whole family, grandparents included, for.

@Kitte321
"Education benefits the whole, the whole should pay"

Education benefits the whole. Private education benefits a vanishingly small minority.

Exactly. Just look at the state that an overwhelming privately educated Tory government left us in.
A dangerous mix of lack of empathy, superiority complexes, distance from the realities of ordinary people, lack of intelligence and urge to prop up the establishments they grew up in and that benefitted them, has left our country divided and morally bankrupt.

If people are showing distain for the privately educated, and a lack of empathy for your ‘plight’ now - you know where to look.

This.

Mmm. I’ve just been reading another thread about the imminent financial collapse of most UK universities. Perhaps they are not the best business model to aspire to!

But this is all very well but incredibly emotive and doesn’t answer the question -
will removing VAT exemptions fix the problem. It just won’t.
The disdain for private education/the privately educated is quite irrational and ignores the nuance. What about the 11+, what about the inequality in the current state system re catchment? The latter has a much, much bigger Impact on inequality in education provision.
Labour have taken the easy option and hit the easy target. It’s all so divisive and doesn’t go anywhere close to fixing the huge systematic problems.
But as long as we don’t miss the opportunity for a good headline 👍

Do you believe everything you read on here? Yes many are struggling but imminent? Really?

"Some" UK universities, not "most".

But possibly you're right. The business model of UK universities is far from ideal. But what's better as a consumer-friendly business practise:

a) trapping customers into paying for a service way in advance, whether or not they can take advantage of that service, and offering no refunds, or

b) paying for that service when you start using it and offering refunds if you get buyer's remorse?

@Kitte321 "The disdain for private education/the privately educated is quite irrational and ignores the nuance. What about the 11+, what about the inequality in the current state system re catchment?"

I have distain for the system but not the privately educated. And I am happy to be vocal on the 11+ and any equality in the state system. It's not one or the other.

‘The disdain for private education/the privately educated’

My only distain is for those people trying to paint themselves as victims or discriminated against. I know quite a few private school parents who both voted for Labour and aren’t whinges about losing tax breaks for private services.

And it’s beyond your comprehension that not all private school parents have access to the same amount of funds and for some this means that they cannot afford the fees anymore? You feel disdain for these people?

It’s not a ‘tax break’. But you’re allowed to ‘whinge’ on I see 🤷‍♀️

I don't think it is an opportunity for a 'good headline' actually. It's asking for trouble in fact from the right wing media. It would have been far easier not to have taken this measure.
But it's a good measure. The state system is creaking, and in the decade I've been in primary there has been a notable decline in resources.
I agree about the grammar schools (state); here's to hoping Labour will tackle that next.