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.

You can piss off until you learn to debate properly.

This is absurd and completely distorts the reality of the situation.

Parents that use private schools will be foregoing a state place for their child and therefore saving the state (and therefore other tax payers) money. They are effectively subsidising state school pupils by not taking up a place that they are legally entitled to. We need to encourage more people to do this in order to save the tax payer more money. We absolutely don't want to disincentive this through adding VAT and pretending that state school parents are somehow subsidising private schools. It is absolutely the other way around and no matter what your ideological leanings it is vital that we don't lose sight of economic reality.

VAT isn't paid on loads of things that deemed to be essential. Education is undoubtedly an essential. The fact that you are paying for a better quality version of something that can be found cheaper normally wouldn't mean that the product or service automatically becomes subject to VAT. For example, if I go to the supermarket and buy some luxury biscuits they won't charge me VAT just because someone else can't afford these biscuits and is buying the value range.

What are the double standards?

That is very misleading.
It was a state school when he went not a fee paying private school. It converted while he was there and he was able to finish his studies.
It's not the same as him going to Eton or Harrow.
His children go to a state school.

You've had it now 😆 🤣

Don't be ridiculous.

It doesn't work like that; schools still have to be built, maintained and staffed regardless of whether a tiny number if parents choose not to take up a place. It's like saying you're saving the NHS money by not calling an ambulance.

Can you spell out what you mean here? Until now governments have chosen not to apply VAT to private school fees. The current government has chosen not to make private music teachers and tutors apply VAT. Are parents paying for those services also being subsidised by all other parents?

It is beyond dispute, surely, that we all pay taxes which go to fund state education. This is because it's important for our economy and culture. People with no children in the state sector are all subsidising the parents who do have children there. This includes parents who have chosen to pay school fees or home educate instead of taking up their entitlement to a free state school place for their children. These people are making a double contribution because they're paying taxes and not claiming a benefit to which they're entitled.

Perhaps you mean that people who can lay their hands on enough money to pay school fees should be paying more in tax, but this applies to plenty of wealthy people who don't pay school fees because they bought an expensive house in the catchment of a good state school, and/or pay enormous sums on private tuition and extra-curricular activities for their children to supplement what they get at their state school.

A wealth tax wouldn't be a bad idea. We could start by making inheritance tax more widely applicable. At the moment a married couple can leave up to £1m to their children and grandchildren if it includes the family home and pay no IHT. This is absurd. That is a life-changing amount and taking part of it as tax seems perfectly reasonable to me (and I speak as a London homeowner who might fall into that bracket eventually if my husband and I don't need nursing care in later years).

QED

Having attended the Girls Grammar, Reigate County School, at the very same time as Keir I can categorically state that neither were private schools but 11+ entry only.

The County phased into a mixed Sixth Form College, co-existing in the same buildings and my sympathies lie with those first 12 male sixth formers who literally had a trail of grammar school girl following them around like ducklings.

The Boys went Independent. Wouldn't it be a little be wrong to chuck out an able existing student because the Govt at the time (Labour) wanted to end Grammar Schools.

Exactly.

If parents' choices actions are irrelevant to MPs, why isn't that belief applied consistently? Then again, with any Tory bashing thread, you have to unweave all the hyperbole before you can start to take it seriously.

The fact remains that if the state sector is so depleted it will need to be funded by those that use it. I would politely suggest that all state parents pay a surcharge of £2,000 per child per place, this should help fund state schools and those that use them will be funding the change. Sounds very empowering to me. Ultimately many private school parents have and will continue to pull out of private setting and this is far more likely to cost the state than save the state any money.

I presume MMM was being sarcastic.

When you were 16 were all your behaviours in complete alignment with the person you are today?

Maybe if @Asking4afrend had had a better education they'd be able to look into the education system prior to getting rid of direct grant grammar schools in 1979

There was very little you could do before then - in a lot of places you did the 11+ and ended up in a grammar school, otherwise it was the Secondary Modern and practical subjects. There were very few comprehensive schools. And once the 11+ was abolished, a lot of the direct grant schools went private.

As for him leaving the school for the 6th form, where do you expect him to have gone? Most 6th forms in those days were part of schools, 6th form colleges weren't widely established!

Oh god not this argument..."can't you see that we are helping you poor plebs and being so selfless by paying for elite education with access to resources your children could never dream of? "

Did you go to a state school? Would your state school ever have been turned into a private school? Did it have the buildings, facilities and history to facilitate this?

My criticism of Starmer is that he is a huge hypocrite who enjoyed a massively privileged education. The fact his school was well regarded enough to turn private shows that it was a great school that benefited from many things that most of us who used the state system didn't enjoy. I went to a bog standard state school that would never turn private in a month of Sundays. So my question is, why isn't his focus on improving and equalising state provision? Why focus on private schools when they aren't going to be even a small part of the solution for those who are stuck in crap schools? He doesn't care. He has done less than nothing and wants to distract us all with this hopeless, red herring policy.

That’s not how VAT works
nobody has to pay for a ‘tax exemption’ on education.
VAT is a discretionary tax - hence the argument about whether Jaffa Cakes should have VAT added or not depending on whether they were a cake (0 rated) or biscuit (standard rated)
That’s how random it is.

This!

KS a similar age to my DB who went to a boys' grammar that changed to private when when the comprehensive system replaced grammar and secondary modern schools in our area. He did his final year at a private school, but he was a state school kid.

Bore off

🙄

But they aren’t then increasing fees to the extent that schools are closing.

its the hypocrisy of Two Tier Keir which grates.

i literally cannot wait for him to leave and start making his millions of the after dinner circuit.

Shocked? Really? You've seriously never heard of the term "champagne socialist". It's hardly a new thing

No, he isn't. There is nothing to stop schools offering bursaries if they want to.