Keir Starmer went to private school

[Asking4afrend]

AIBU to be shocked that Keir Starmer went to private school? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. So he enjoyed an excellent education which increased his social mobility and then wants to bring down the system that helped him, even when they gave him a 100% bursary so that his parents didn’t have to pay the fees?

This is from wiki:

Starmer passed the 11-plus examination and gained entry to Reigate Grammar School, which at the time was a voluntary-aidedselective grammar school.[1][12] The school converted into an independent fee-paying school in 1976, while he was a student. The terms of the conversion were such that his parents were not required to pay for his schooling until he turned 16, and when he reached that point, the school, by now a charity, awarded him a bursary that allowed him to complete his education there without any parental contribution.

I only found out about this today when I was googling the school for another reason and looked up the alumni. What a hypocrite. You didn’t hear about this in the election during all his “my father was a toolmaker” speeches.

Not overnight, no.

Fees benefit schools by allowing them to invest in infrastructure - more classrooms and better facilities - and to hire more staff and have smaller class sizes or more wide ranging subject offerings.

When Starmer's school converted, since existing students were not paying fees, its fee income will have been incredibly small at the start while legacy pupils worked their way through the system, and the benefits of fees would have taken time to materialise in any event.

The idea that Starmer benefited from a fee paying education is just laughably wrong.

For many it was life changing though.

On both sides of my family the grammar system took families from abject poverty (12 to a room on my grandfathers side, working ‘in service’ - basically indentured - in rural Ireland on my grandmothers) to my parents being university educated professionals.

Not dissimilar on my DHs side.
Any party that promised a return to a true grammar system would have my vote instantly.

How many of the Cabinet went to private schools.

Usual level of MN logic - extrapolation of something a pp didn’t say or even imply.

None.

Where a tax applies to services, yes, the default is it should apply to all services unless there is a justification for specific exemptions, yes.

You forgot the subsidy on children’s clothing, the subsidy on basic food stuffs, the subsidy on overseas holidays, the subsidy on domestic heating fuel….

Surely the prime aim of good government isn't to make sure that other individuals can have the same benefits that those in government have had? You can't really think that? The prime aim of government has to be to look at the bigger picture and make decisions that are the best for society as a whole. Sometimes that puts those in government in the uncomfortable position of voting against benefits they themselves enjoyed, if they are doing their job properly. I'm not keen on politicians making choices for their own children that they are advocating against for other people's children, though that's not what the OP was referring to.

I've no idea what 'champagne socialism' means.

I don’t think it will result in a loss. Has that been proven? And I don’t mean just some hyperbole from pro private school people.

Yes, those things you mention all have subsidies by virtue of being exempted from a tax that would otherwise apply to them.

Some of those subsidies (food, childrens clothing) are justified. Some of them are not (private health).

You obviously don’t have a clue about private schools; my DC typical local state school has much better facilities than either of the local private schools, and a much greater range of subject offerings. The vast majority of private schools are nothing like Eton.

PP called the absence of tax a subsidy, ergo tax must be the default.

So what benefits do you think Starmer benefitted from when his school started to receive fee income?

GAMBLING???? We go after disrupting kids education before GAMBLING.

Mean, cruel, spiteful, admitting to not looking after 7% of the children in this country. Nasty and incompetent.

VAT will raise minimal to no money. It is a policy of cunts who introduced it at the most disruptive time in a school year on purpose.

Why are people sending their kids there and paying for the privilege then?

Absence of a tax that would otherwise, but for an exception, apply is, of course a subsidy.

If everyone has to pay income tax except men called Simon, of course that is a subsidy for men called Simon.

SEN support
Wrap around care
Freedom around state mandated curriculum
Extra curricular activity focus

His father was working building one of the motorways and the mobile home park was set up for the people working there. This was fairly common practice in the day.

Passed the 11+ in a different area which was accepted by the LEA. Don't think he was any more gifted than any other child who passed the 11+

I could be making it all up but not sure what the incentive would be.

Is this all part of the "Keir Starmer shouldn't be imposing VAT on school fees because his parents didn't send him to a secondary modern" argument?

This is ultimately where left vs right sits on the political spectrum:

Left: all must be taxed unless exemptions can be justified
Right: none must be taxed unless exemptions can be justified.

Yeah of course gambling should be taxed.

So should private education.

But private education first. In a disruptive way. Got it.

Freedom from state control.

No, not my preference.

But then I also don't have the view that one good idea should not be pursued unless every other good idea has also been pursued.

😂

What does that actually mean?

13 year old Keir Starmer is at his grammar school. The following day it is a fee paying school, where a small minority of pupils pay fees and it is, apparently, 'free from state control'.

In what way does that benefit him on the second day?