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.

This should have more visibility in the news - what an utterly stupid decision.

And yet Keir with his merry band of Wankers claimed to be oh so different. That's what they were saying! 'We're not like those greedy Tories', 'we're just like you'.

I read it is so many times, Labour voters wanted a man of integrity, principled, the total opposite to Boris. That's what they were voting for. Apparently.

Thousands of children? Are there really thousands of families with children in Year 11 whose finances are so much on a knife-edge that they will take their children out of school rather than pay VAT for two terms?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

Are you ok? Obviously it’s not just Y11. And it’s not just the private school pupils. The issue is much wider than that. Think about it, a little more.

Who was gullible enough to believe this though?

They really are. Why cause the damage to some children for such a bad policy whilst taking money because disrupting dc is difficult

Total arsewipes

It’s like they read Animal Farm as a blueprint of what to do once you’re in power. The optics of “I HAD to have a box at the football” instead of even slightly considering that maybe he just couldn’t go. “It’s normal for politicians to accept donations” - well that might be true, but if your chancellor is banging on how “we’re all in this together, we all have to bear the brunt” and then having a millionaire pay for your clothes, birthday parties and holidays? It just looks absolutely terrible.

I cannot believe there wasn’t one person there saying “accepting 100k of donations for fripperies at the same time as taking 300 away from pensioners is a bad look”

Well that is the point why he does the same? If you accept this why you criticised Boris? Or is ok if it is a left winger hypocrite?

This thread is about disrupting exam years, and @coruscations is absolutely right that bringing in VAT on private school fees won't force the vast majority of private school parents to disrupt their children's exam years.

Is it not the parents that'll be stressed rather than the kids?

If it were my child I'd be not talking about my money worries in front of them, I'd just be encouraging them to do their best.

And if they were part way through the year I'd be moving heaven and earth to find the money to finish their year.

If I'd already found £17k to pay for the year I'm sure I could find a further £4k to pay for the vat.

It's what, £300 a month for a year? That could go on a 0% credit card worst case scenario.

I'd say loads of people did, I mean look on here pre GE

I don't get the false equivalence here. He shouldn't have taken so many donations but as he was in opposition none of them influenced gov policy. And the vat thing is fine in my opinion.

Boris got more donations for decorating his flat alone than the donations keir got in 5 years.

I see stats twisted to make out he got more but he really didn't. Boris had holidays, organic food deliveries, baby stuff, the works too.

That's massively less disruptive than having to change your school, friends, GCSE courses/subjects/exam boards during Y10 or Y11! And to accept £20k to compensate for your Dad being a politician while adding 20% to school fees for thousands of children is hugely hypocritical.

OP the situations are not comparable at all
The donation was the loan of a flat so his son wasn't interested by constantly by news reporters outside the house. His child is at a state school .
Vat on private schools is fair. I have never understood why they were vat exempt anyway.

You think that the son of Keir Starmer would have been left in peace to study in the library in the run up to the election? How naive of you.

Well not which is why it does not happened in any other country.

Did you get this indignant about Johnson taking millions whilst rewarding donors with fat government contracts?

If a hypothetical (ish) family can afford 60k a year for private school fees then they can put that money towards the SAHM educating them.

Who was gullible enough to believe this though?

@DysonSphere Oh so so many people! The posts on here were hilarious. I think half of them genuinely felt they were voting for the next Messiah.

One reason is that it's against EU law to tax education. So they wouldn't have been able to do it without Brexit.

It's also not an exemption. VAT has never been charged to education.

I can never understand why people are perfectly happy (and justify) Labour corruption because the Tories did corruption too.

Any corruption is bad in my opinion. But so many people are happy with Labour corruption because that's their tribe and the other tribe were worse. Jeez, quit being tribal and follow a decent moral compass.

So include Year 10 as well, it is still not running to thousands of pupils.

If you're trying to contend that pupils outside private schools will be affected by virtue of their classes being expanded slightly by ex-private school pupils, you really are clutching at straws.

Private schools should never have been exempt from VAT in the first place so it’s only right the loophole has been closed.

Happened under the wrong party and to the wrong sort of kids.

I would said he is worse than Boris. Purely because he is a double standards politician who got in by selling us on his integrity. Now we see how he looks so much better groomed than Boris with so much stuff given for free even his glasses. He makes me sick!