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.

You quoted

whilst saving the taxpayer £8k a year

That doesn't use the phrase doing a favour

Well. Quite.

So many comments

saying it saves the taxpayer is a fact

saying its doing the taxpayer a favour is the bit i don’t like, when people say why they picked private education i doubt the the ‘i would like to save the taxpayer £8k’ is in the top 10 reasons

Fair point eastern 🙂

Maths doesn't care about motivation though.

The fact remains that if there were suddenly no private schools the government would have to find an extra £4.5billion to educate private school children in state schools. So those who are arguing against the very existence of private schools have to square this fact with their ideology.

bloopy

absolutely, which is one of the reasons i don’t agree with that particular policy

This is a moot point when the needle won't significantly move on kids keeping their private school places.

yes but you'd pay for it yourself.

oh I did!

Small socialist brain but large capitalist pockets..

@BIossomtoes You need to be on a reasonably high income to be able to afford a private nursery. I earn a decent wage but I live in London and if I go back to work after mat leave (with two children in nursery) I would only break even.

Re university, university attendance is much more common among the middle and upper classes, there is a reason for that. It is not just about a person’s ability to get in to university but their ability to afford it and the associated costs, and their appetite for taking on that amount in of debt if they’re from a lower socioeconomic background and the lack of financial security that affords (ie no bank of mum and dad).

The fact is that during the late 90s and early 2000s there was a baby boom. We are at the end of that now and actually there is a lot of capacity in the state system. You just have to google it and it's all there. The extra capacity needed for private school students is available.
The row about Starmer is different. It's whether you agree or not that a party that pledged to end corruption and cronyism should behave in a different way to their predecessors. It looks bad. The £4m donation from a shady hedge fund is also quite shocking.
Children have to cope with exams while their families are homeless and study in bedsits. My DS1 had to revise while the house next door had building work going on from 8am until 8pm. But I don't have a rich friend with a penthouse so like everyone else, just had to suck it up.

As a labour activist who campaigned for our new local MP I am incredibly disappointed by the donations our PM and ministers have taken. To take 100k in donations whilst refusing to lift the 2 child benefit cap and removing the winter fuel allowance from pensioners is hypocrisy in the extreme. The private school fees policy is just dog whistle politics and won't solve the problems in the state system. I had hoped for better from this government and won't be campaigning again.

I'd rather the focus is on providing more SEN support for those children who cannot manage in a mainstream secondary but for whom there is no available alternative. My daughter is getting a second chance at GCSEs, she's technically year 12 but not at college, because the LA could not provide a suitable education for her to do her GCSEs at 16.

If VAT on private schools means more funding for state education, then good. Private schools are not charitable institutions. I agree introducing it with short notice is harsh, but the schools don't have to pass all that cost on to the parents.

It's hypocritical but no different from parents whose kids go to state schools for free and want parents who already pay private school tuition to also pay VAT on top.

How about state school parents paying to improve state schools because, after all, it's their kids who go to these schools.

Everybody (incl non parents ) pay for state schools through their taxes already so they are definitely not free.

That’s not actually true - each and every private school family will be having family conversations about whether they can afford the vat / or are prepared to pay the vat and what their options are if they can’t or don’t want to. And thousands of private school children will be wondering if their place in school, where they have settled and made friends, will be disrupted and they will feel anxious about whether they might be expected to move. And there have been private school closures due to the Vat coming in.

Some kids would have moved during key exam years - some kids will have to move during key exam years.

Some will be doing their GCSEs knowing whatever outcome they have they might need to move schools for 6th form.

And the government school kids will have new children in their class mid-year - children who might need extra teacher support because that child as working under a different time table and/or exam board. And if the teacher if helping this new pupil than the other existing kids will get less attention.

Any decent parent knows it’s best to avoid disruption during any school year - but as Keir himself knows disruption during key exam years is to be avoided.

I like what one other poster said above - Keir’s son could have studied in the library like other children with busy homes do.

Some will be doing their GCSEs knowing whatever outcome they have they might need to move schools for 6th form.

A lot of children have to move schools for 6th form. Quite a few state schools don’t even have 6th forms.

Nottodaythankyou123 ·
And the £100k Keir figure is 2019-2024, so the vast majority of that was before he was leader so it’s irrelevant. The £6.4m was also 2019-2024 so a lot of that was whilst Boris was PM.

You are comparing apples with pears. The amount quoted for Boris Johnson obviously includes secondary earnings e.g.

Shock and awe in Britain as it is announced that Boris Johnson's extra-curricular earnings, since he left office in September, are approaching £5m.
https://www.newstatesman.com/thestaggers/2023/02/boris-johnson-earning-5-million-corruption-conspiracy

Plus the £1m donation to Johnson's office -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64257007

Whereas the £100k you are quoting for Keir Starmer clearly doesn't include secondary earnings or donations to his office e.g. a selection from Starmer's leadership campaign:

Name of donor: Robert Latham
Address of donor: private
Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind: £100,000 for my campaign for leadership of the Labour Party
Date received: 2 January 2020

Name of donor: Clive Hollick
Address of donor: private
Amount of donation, or nature and value if donation in kind: £25,000 for my campaign for leadership of the Labour Party
Date received: 23 January 2020

Name of donor: Martin Taylor
Address of donor: private
Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind: £95,000 for my campaign for leadership of the Labour Party
Date received: 12 February 2020

Name of donor: Waheed Alli
Address of donor: private
Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind: £100,000 for my campaign for leadership of the Labour Party
Date received: 24 February 2020

Name of donor: Trevor Chinn
Address of donor: private
Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind: £50,000 for my campaign for leadership of the Labour Party
Date received: 26 February 2020

Name of donor: Ecotricity Group Ltd
Address of donor: Lion House, Rowcroft, Stroud GL5 3BY
Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind: £20,000 for my campaign for leadership of the Labour Party
Date received: 27 February 2020

Name of donor: USDAW
Address of donor: 188 Wilmslow Road, Manchester, M14 6LJ
Amount of donation, or nature and value if donation in kind: £25,000 for my campaign for leadership of the Labour Party
Date received: 27 February 2020

(there are loads more - £25k, £12k, multiple £10k and £5k...)
https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/mp/keir-starmer/financial-disclosure

I reposted Keir’s direct quotes - it’s what he said that painted a picture of who he is - not me.

GCSEs finished 19th June.

some of the parents won't notice.

A lot will do.

I was forced to move my happily settled SEN DC from their private to state. They are really struggling with class size and environment in general.
Thanks to Free Gear Keir.

Edited to add - we're still "lucky" that I made them sit grammar exam last year and kept the place just in case. That "just in case" spared them from going to a sink secondary local to us. Many other private kids aren't so lucky.

But yeah, Starmer Junior deserves penthouse for his GCSE prep.

Give over.

If I had put my child into private school in year 7 or year 9 (or whenever), I'd have budgeted and planned for how I was going to pay their school fees up until the end of year 13. Let's say that child is in year 11 now and VAT is imposed on school fees from January, and the school passed the VAT cost on to all parents immediately.

If that VAT made it unaffordable for me to send my child to the same school up until the end of year 13, I'd just pay the VAT on the year 11 fees from the money I had earmarked for year 12 and year 13 fees. If I was paying school fees out of income rather than capital then worst comes to worst, I'd put the VAT element of the year 11 fees on an interest free credit card or take out a low interest loan for it and pay it off while my child was in year 12. That would still be much less than the school fees I'd have been planning to pay up until this year. I would thereby avoid disruption to my child's GCSE year.

The majority of private school families with children in exam years will be able to afford to do this or something similar. Some private schools have hardship funds for children whose families suddenly can't afford their fees; that might be helpful in some cases within that minority. I'd hope the parents in such cases would have these conversations between themselves and with the school and work out a plan before worrying their children in GCSE year with "family conversations" about money.

Yes, some children will have to move schools after year 11 and they might be anxious about that, but it's not hugely unusual. 20 years ago my husband was on an assisted place at a private school up until the end of year 11, when he had to move to a state sixth form college. He did fine. Several of his friends moved with him and he made new friends too.