We know all the anti Labour posts are really just about VAT on school fees!

[YouOnlyHateStarmerForVATOnSchoolFees]

Day in day out whining about Labour and looking for any reason to moan about Starmer, I’m honestly expecting to see a “Starmer ate my dog” post soon! 🙄

We all know you’re just upset as you’ll be charged VAT on little Arabella’s school fees!

So my AIBU…

YABU - It is not just the school fees, honest! I preferred ‘honest Boris’ and ‘man of the people’ Rishi. Or that lovely Liz, we were so much safer with them!

YANBU - The posts are so blatantly motivated by the VAT on school fees that it has becoming utterly boring. Jog on ‘disgusted of Hampstead’ and join the local comp!

😘

Well I am paying school fees and am not happy about VAT on them BUT I am also not criticising Starmer or labour
So how does that fit your theory?

I think a fair few now are about winter fuel and taking ‘gifts’

There’s taking away for the wfa to wealthy pensioners too. You forgot that.

Yep, and if the op looked off mn they'd see even more of the same

I'm English, but didn't grow up in the UK, so realise my perspective may not match. But it seems so odd to me that politics in England is always presented a two horse race, as in this post. It's perfectly possible to not want Boris in power but to also be slightly disappointed with Labour at the moment. Those opinions are not mutually exclusive, and are nothing to do with private school fees (at least, not from me, as I don't have a child in private education). And what if you're a Lib Dem supporter (I'm not - I like my politicians to know what a woman is) - you could surely then be equally disappointed in both Boris and Keir, without considering VAT on school fees at all. I think the OP conflates too many differing issues here.

I'm very annoyed that they're going to give the DWP access to people's bank accounts.

Even the unions aren’t on Keirs side.

Neither of your options work as an AIBU.

What is boring is the tedious use of “posh” names like Arabella when supporting VAT on school fees

Its not just about the VAT that has people questioning them.

Here's a list of policies they have moved to implement so far:
Cut at least £3bn in departmental spendings
Cut Winter Fuel Payment
Criminalise puberty blocker usage indefinitely
Back Tory's anti-protest laws in court
Stop building the new hospitals
Stop railway upgrade plans
Crackdown on benefit fraud
Reduce sickness benefits claimants

If I showed you that list 12 months ago while saying the party in question was under scrutiny for excessive expenses claims and donations 99% of people would say it would be the tories I was talking about.

Why? I couldn’t care less if they could see my bank accounts. I have absolutely nothing to hide. I think this is a vital tool to be able to clamp down on tax evasion and money laundering.

You obviously don't believe in the right to privacy.

People are complaining about much more than VAT on school fees on threads about Labour. Removing WFA from pensioners on £12k a year isn’t particularly popular. Nor is lecturing everyone on tightening our belts whilst accepting huge donations of luxury clothes, holidays and accommodation.

Nobody is under investigation for excessive expenses claims @Ijustdontcare , that’s just nonsense. People have got worked up because Labour have done something perfectly within the rules (even though I wish they hadn’t).
They can’t stop building hospitals that were fictional in the first place. There were no plans.

YABU. If you think that Starmer taking £20k in donations because his son had to revise for his exams and needed a hotel room is acceptable then you need to have a good look at yourself. Our children don't get that treatment so don't kid yourself that he's trying to level the playing field when it comes to private schools because I just don't buy it. And I say that as someone who now has adult state educated children so I have no bias towards private schools.

No. No I don’t. Not if that ‘privacy’ allows people to cheat the exchequer. £26bn tax was evaded by small business owners last year. We need all the help we can get to stop them.

My kids won't go private but we're edge of catchment and the alternatives are awful, so I'll be really pissed off if they don't get spaces. That said I thought he started OK, but having been very sanctimonious about the last government the relationship with Lord Ali and grabbing everything he can for him and his family if not a good look. The amount they are paying to settle the pay disputes is OTT and then taking money from pensioners to do so is just dumb. The Tories deserved to go, but having thought he would get 2 or even 3 terms I wonder if he may not.

@ poppyzbrite4

In Norway, everyone’s tax return is published - these days, they’re all put online - so everyone knows how much everyone else earns. I have no problem with this - if it stops fraud, so much the better.

That poster said they are under “scrutiny” for expensive expenses claims. Well they are! Not one single person seems happy about it.

I am fully supportive of VAT on schools, but removing the pensioners' winter fuel allowance is completely cack-handed.

They did not do an impact assessment. This is very basic.
There are plenty of non-headline making ways of clawing the same amount of money back from wealthy pensioners.
It has a cliff-edge cut off, and will directly impact poorer pensioners.
The take up of UC by poorer pensioners is a good, but unintended consequence which means that it will probably not raise much money.
Pensioners vote, and they will hate Labour for this.
It's picking an entirely unnecessary fight with backbenchers and members who are against it.

Governments need to make necessary but unpopular decisions early in the their term, but this is both unpopular and unnecessary, damages Labour's reputation and raises only £1.5bn at the most.

Couldn’t care less about expenses claims. Are they acting legally? Yes. Fine. Surely the country has more important things to talk about. Everything has gone to shut and people are bickering about expenses claims? Grow up.

Aw. Tell people you’re bitter about not being wealthy without telling people you’re bitter about not being wealthy

Why don’t you and everyone else carping on about being happy with the VAT on education, think about how you could help to improve all shitty state schools.

Perhaps you might campaign for a universal tax increase, to improve all state schools. Then everyone is happy and reaps the benefit.

No? Thought not.

PS. Of course you know that Starmer and his party are really quite useless, all the mistakes they’ve made to date.. but shhhh it’s all Boris’s fault!! Starmer sausage said as such this morning.

Raises about the same as vat on school fees then. Not a lot.

Nicely said

It was straightforwardly stupid, even if it was within the rules. Starmer isn't that popular, but one thing he stood up for, and built his reputation on, was probity in public life. Taking a huge wadge of gifts from a donor just crushes that. They aren't all the same, but this plays into the narrative of "they are all the same."

You might think the country has more important things to talk about, but the papers and opposition parties disagree. It was an unforced error.

A lot of it is very bitter - and the comms strategy is terrible, but who can really object to transparency of your account if you get public benefits? The Tories were doing the same.

It is the sound of people who have largely been catered to and accommodated for many years. Some of that is ending; public finances dictate that. They do not like that.