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!

😘

There are people so rabidly supportive of their Labour tribe that, as far as they're concerned, Starmer could call a news conference in order to announce he enjoys drowning kittens and turning their meat into sausages and still be admired as the best thing going.

They'd be on here, claiming it's not a big deal, can't the poor overworked man be allowed to relieve his stress in peace. Besides, there are too many kittens about and he'd just been helping to keep the population under control. Also, drowning kittens sounds like so much fun and he has helped launch a multimillion pound industry selling kitten sausages which will boost tax revenues like the tories never did nor ever could.

This kind of tribal loyalty, where one can see nothing Dear Leader does as wrong, has historically lead to some very dark places.

Also, just because various tories are sleazy wankers doesn't obsolve Labour party members of sleaze when doing the same shitty things. If you claim to be better than XYZ, don't copy XYZ's behaviour as soon as the opportunity arises. Hypocrisy isn't a good look.

I just think it’s scutty having someone pay for your clothes and your wifes clothes when you are a millionaire. If he hadn’t been banging on about being the adult in the room and claiming that labour are moral and virtuous in comparison to the tories then I don’t think it would have been so bad for him. Angela Rayner as well who was happy to lay into Boris Johnson for the wallpaper thing (rightly so) came off as an utter hypocrite. Reeves has claimed thousands for heating her own home. I also think that removing the WFA from people who only have a sate pension is just cruel.

It smacks of moral self licensing, it’s fine when we do it because we are the good guys! I think the left suffers from this deeply, it’s ok for me to spit on someone and call them scum because I am GOOD and I am on the side of justice, if a tory does it it’s because they are BAD.

They just look like hypocrites. I’m not affected by the VAT thing at all. I also thought it was time for the conservatives to leave government.

Yes but it only requires a tiny bit of thinking really, which they should be able to manage. Like you it worries me that they don’t think anything through, the budget should be….. interesting. Lets hope they just had a bumpy start and it improves.

"It smacks of moral self licensing, it’s fine when we do it because we are the good guys! I think the left suffers from this deeply, it’s ok for me to spit on someone and call them scum because I am GOOD and I am on the side of justice, if a tory does it it’s because they are BAD"

It's this entirely. When May floated the idea of restricting the WFA to the poorest pensioners in 2017 the Labour government was up in arms, saying that it would kill 4000 people. Apparently that's fine now. No, let's go further, it's actually a good and fair policy.

What amazes me is that the hypocrisy doesn't seem to even stick in their throat. And how the supporters would rather watch the winter excess deaths climb unnecessarily than express any shred of buyers remorse.

Do you think that they would have stood by, nodding approval for this, were it delivered from the other side of the house. Were they muttering disapprovingly at the shadow cabinet in 2017 when Labour were calling this move morally repugnant?

The clothing and glasses were ridiculous. It is of course nice to have to nice designer items. But previously Labour PMs were careful about their image because even if they were brandy and cigars in private the public image is beer, sandwiches and pipes. Modesty.

Even the Camerons knew that - Samantha Cameron wearing M&S to conference for that reason. Does she really wear that? Does she hell.

A Labour PM should avoid the impression that even his underpants are on a donor ticket. It’s not a new attack because the allegation of fat living is made against every PM. It is a markedly stupid episode and displays a lack of political nous.

I'm moaning about Starmer but I prefer him to the last lot.

I don't have kids at school anymore and so the VAT rise doesn't affect me in the slightest

I hope they use the money to improve state schools like they said they would.

I think the influence of Waheed Ali is concerning and the 18million flat so Starmwrs dc could revise in peace is ludicrous.

Lucky you. We're clearly feckless wasters who should have been on 6 figures and planning from the age of 18 with a perfect support back up.
I honestly think some people walk around in their little privileged lalaland assuming everyone has the same opportunities and life chances.

Absolutely not, you must have me confused with someone else.
My daughter went to Private school and my son is still there and I have no hesitation in saying that on MN or IRL.
So you are either wrong or have some sort of strange agenda by saying this

Pro labour and Starmer - but anti VAT on school fees - so neither of your options.

Ps your Arabella comment was pathetic inverted snobbery.

Nope. I'm a state school educated state school teacher whose dc went to state school, I voted for Labour and I'm very unimpressed with freebie-gate.

Awful

I’m all those things, including being disappointed about some of the gifts. It’s not a -gate of any sort though. No impropriety. No corruption. Rules all followed.

I don’t care about it, my DC are in state schools. I still dislike Starmer and his version of the Labour Party. I don’t agree with cutting the winter fuel allowance and I think he should have axed the two child benefit rule straight away. I don’t think going after the poorest and most vulnerable in society is ever the way to go and I don’t think it’s what the Labour Party has ever been about. Many pensioners don’t meet the threshold for pension credit or don’t know how to apply for it if they do.

I am worried what they intend for the NHS. Blair did a lot of sly privatization and carried on with PFIs, which are now costing the NHS millions, just to keep the cost of new hospitals off the books for Mr Brown.
As balance, I think there are Tories who really hate the NHS and that everyone is entitled to health care at need - they are on the far right of the party and mostly forget that their voters are also dependent on the NHS.
Also forgot, Blair was a Tory.

Starmer isn't Labour in the way that I knew as a young socialist. He's a centrist-ish social democrat - which is fine, but not socialist.

Mis-categorising yet another donation for clothing as 'funding for his private office' will be viewed extremely harshly by the British public. If you recall, Starmer was found guilty of breaking the MPs’ code of conduct regarding registering interests in 2022 and insisted his office processes had been reviewed at the time. He can't keep rolling out the 'oversight' excuse time and again without being held accountable at some point.

he Should declare things as what they are. Happy for any censure or fine or whatever for things which were deliberate rather than errors. Let’s not forget, though, that he did declare the sum and the donor. Funding transparency isn’t really affected. If the donor gets unfair advantage, we can all see the links and take action.

Of course funding transparency is affected by wrongly categorising a donation.

In terms of who is funding politicians it isn’t. That’s all I really care about. Though as I said he should receive whatever the consequence is for repeated error, deliberate or otherwise.

The consequences are of no relevance. This is a man who repeatedly claimed he had 'honesty' and 'integrity' and yet there are now have countless instances where he has been found to have acted without both. The loyalty from some Labour supporters is admirable but doesn't change the fact that his reputation is damaged beyond repair in the eyes of the British public.

It's a massive own goal though. What I am seeing is Private schools cutting back on scholarships for kids whose parents can't afford private school. They are looking at cutting charitable bursaries etc to control fees.

I have DD15 who has ADHD and ASD in private school as the local state is a shitshow for SEN

Only 1% of bursaries are fully funded. Private schools charitable works are crumbs on the table.

I agree it’s an own goal. I don’t think it says quite as much about honesty and integrity as you obviously do, but I can understand your feelings. It’s not really loyalty - I’ll call them out when I don’t like what they are doing - more that I think it’s been whipped up into more of an issue than it really is.

I agree, private schools cutting back on bursaries IS a massive own goal - the next thing to go will be their charity status.
No-one outside of the private school anti-VAR bubble really believes that private schools have any real benefit to communities, any real charity status or any interest outside of their own.
Why should they? They’re business that cater to the well off - which is fine, do that. Just don’t pretend to be anything else.