The Irony.. PM's donation was for ‘son to study for GCSEs’

[JustSpeechless]

PM suggests £20,000 donation was for ‘son to study for GCSEs’ | The Independent

Sorry if there are other threads, but I did search and nothing came up.

“My boy, 16, was in the middle of his GCSEs. I made him a promise, a promise that he would be able to get to his school, do his exams, without being disturbed,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“But if you’re a 16-year-old trying to do your GCSEs and it’s your one chance in life – I promised him we would move somewhere, get out of the house and go somewhere where he could be peacefully studying.

So its OK for the PM to be worried about his child's "one chance" GCSE year being disturbed ...but he's not so worried about other people's children feeling stressed during their GCSEs by introducing the private school VAT during an academic school year.

I don't have a child in private school doing their GCSEs. And I know that there are lots of people who support the VAT and those who don't.

But I think there is a midline where lots of people on both sides of the fence agree making this change during an academic year is not fair on the kids in key exam years...and I am one of them because not all parents have a Lord Alli to step in to ensure their child's "one chance" GCSE year is not being disturbed.

For Voting:

Unreasonable - I am with Keir and I am not really bothered with other people's children's "one chance" school year being interrupted.

Not Unreasonable - I agree Labour should not interrupt the academic school year and introduce the VAT in September 2025.

I didn't vote Tory this time, but you are missing the point.
I don't care if Starmer accepts gifts and I didn't care what Boris did either, as long as they are declared.
What I do care about is hypocrisy and that's what's going on here. Labour have spent the last 14 years carping about Tories accepting gifts and hospitality, so to now be exposed as doing exactly the same themselves is hypocrisy.
I find it strange that ps don't get this and furthermore seem to think it's ok on the basis 'the Tories were worse'. Would it have been OK if Boris has accepted free clothing and spectacles? Or would that have been Tory sleaze?
Is it OK for Labour politicians to accept as many gifts as the want as long as it's not as many as the Tories?

You're missing the point. My post wasn't aimed at you.

I know it wasn't but I was pointing out that the point is hypocrisy not that the Tories were worse or people weren't bothered by them taking gifts
They were and were loud about in on here - which makes it all the more ridiculous that some are attempting to justify Starmer's behaviour now

It’s the hypocrisy with Labour. Telling the public that we must all prepare for things to get worse, lecturing certain sections of society on “privilege”, calling for a more equal society, all whilst living the life of luxury thanks to freebies.

oh yes, me personally, I couldnt care and didnt mention about the child's results and don't bare any relevance to my concern about the double standards of parent mentioned in the thread topic. I'm sure we are all used to MP's and double standards, I was just hoping for a change regardless of party. I'm not very political but concerned that these 'leaders' and news channels think this is acceptable and how that rubs off and shapes younger generations who don't know any different. Of course some of the older generations seem to buy into these wish washy messages / answers as well rather than actually call it for what it is. I hope our children learn to be truthful, questioning and challenge while understanding that some times you need to be tactful as not everyone wants or likes to be told their baby is ugly however true it is or not (poor metaphor maybe as I dont believe a person is more or less ugly than another but a metaphor that is used often to briefly describe / outline the more detailed meaning, goggle 'what is ugly baby phrase' for the underlying real meaning if you haven't heard it or before any replies about it being prejudice or 'lookism' )

Yes but we all knew Boris and his friends took gifts and bungs, but Sir Kier claimed he was different and would stamp out 'tory sleaze'. So he's replaced it with Labour Sleaze instead.... the hypocrisy!
And the OP refers to Kier paying £20k for his son's GCSE's whilst trying to tax parents out of private education - more hypocrisy and double standards!

People talking about hypocrisy - that’s fine, I totally get that.

The posters I’m laughing at weren’t doing that.

yes, I dont want to go near or into a Tory / Labour / Whatever, all these MP's within Westminster walls without public or shareholder access seem to have a different life and play by different rules. So am sterotyping them all which is unfair but I'm defo not saying this party or that party, i have no desire for anyone of them but more for trying something different as it doesnt seem to matter which is in 'power' they are broadly as good or bad as each other with regards to 'sleaze' etc type situations and aren't tackling the tough problems, which to be fair is linked to a fickle voter bank that doesnt want life to be harder, when it probably needs to be for awhile as we get back to something better. But one of them has to be in power even if only 1 voter voted. Something more radical where there is a scenario that none of them can be in power until they get votes of X % of the country, anything less than that, power is temporarily held by something else. This would free them up to be able to tackle the non popular challenges without fear of losing out to a popular manifesto's that never truly gets delivered as it was just used as the most popular manifesto regardless of what it fixes or not. Now others may think 'oh no, this is mums net not question time :) , but i think it is relevant in that this culture of being the popular option through smoke and mirror use of words that will later be used to paint a different picture with a message of it not being a lie is really going to hurt our future generations if it becomes the norm as we'll never move forward and be just talking in spin and high level subjectivism rather than addressing the real challenges and doing of leadership, innovation, meaningful sharing of the burden and creating a community where it is ok for someone to be better than someone else at things. We are not all equal in our abilities, wants and needs otherwise we might as well be replaced by robots, but we should strive for everyone getting opportunities to understand what they are great at, building on that and applying it relevantly. I am rubbish at many things and others are better than me at those things, does it bother me, no as I am great at other things. I'm not sure it's 'ok' to say nowadays, but whatever happens there will be competition and someone will always have a bigger house, car whatever but the divide needs to converge not diverge while understanding they will never be equal, it is built into human DNA (i'm paraphrasing as I am not an expert) to survive, thrive, protect our own first before others and the sooner we find different, better ways to respect these differences and support one another better the less concerned we will all be about what someone has and why. Its not simple but a mind set that understands this and strives to converge as best as possible rather than smoke and mirroring why there isnt a problem or why it will converge under their plans, the sooner we can make real progress towards the never ending journey to the north star.

Do you really want our country’s representatives to fly budget or walk to places. The things you quote are legitimate. Government expenses. We have to keep our politicians safe even if we don’t like them.

Sunak was flying all over the UK in helicopters when in most cases a train or car would have sufficed.
Heaven forbid that Little Rishi gets on a train.

What a silly and spiteful comment.
Do you think Rishi is/was the only politician to use helicopters?

I actually have no problem with the PM using a helicopter whoever is the PM of the day.

I do have a problem with the PM and his wife (who are also considerably wealthy) having their clothes and spectacles bought for them by a man who also has a pass of entry into Downing Street even though he’s not in government.

Quite.
It's as if Starmer's blind supporters think that by declaring he isn't as bad as Rishi/Boris/Truss, it makes it OK.
Like they wouldn't be banging on about Rishi's free clothes and specs 😂

It looks increasingly like religious cult...

I think it's vanishingly rare, yes. Especially for short hops within the UK.

But this sort of thing is fine apparently.
https://goodlawproject.org/sunak-took-16000-helicopter-ride-from-firm-who-won-huge-government-contracts/

Starmer cancelled the helicopter contract almost immediately.

And I found this.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1905695/Keir-Starmer-private-jet-hypocrisy
Look, we could go on sharing links all night, but I stand by my comment that 'Heaven forbid that Little Rishi gets on a train' is an extraordinary childish thing for a (presumably) grown woman to say, as well as being spiteful and rather silly.