Russian Oligarchs using UK fee paying schools

[Chocalata]

Is this really such a big thing as the papers make out? I quizzed friends with DC at boarding school and it really doesn't sound like there are many Russian children in their schools at all. I feel quite bad for any Russian children that are at the moment, it must be quite terrifying to be alone in a boarding school in another country, even if your parents are potentially money laundering and financially supporting an atrocious invasion.

My daughter was a boarder at a large international school in U.K. Quite a lot of Kazakh and Russian children. Her room mate was Russian, the daughter of a single parent business woman. Not an oligarch, but an Anglophile, who came to Chelsea Flower Show every year, and wanted her children to experience U.K. culture. Most of her money seemed to go on her children’s education. Her son had been to a minor public school and then Oxford. So I think quite a mix in the backgrounds of those kids at the school.

[quote Chocalata]@chairbumg Neither am I, but I am aware that mental health in older children and teens can lead to some pretty awful consequences. And to not have family over here to support them through feeling so hated must be pretty hard.[/quote]
Why would they feel hated? I really can’t imagine any thinking person blaming the children.

(Children that can’t exist anyway because you scientifically surveyed your friends’ DC about their boarding school enrolments. 🙄)

The least the schools should do, having taken the cash, is to provide food pastoral care for as long as they’re on roll.

So going back to the proposals, which I still can’t find properly, is it to make schools subject to the full money laundering regulations?

Brighton college is swamped with Russians. It’s widely known and why people avoid it. Regardless of oligarchs, to send your kid to a private school in Sussex costs at least £20,000 a year without boarding. Add in boarding they need to be wealthy. Cutting off anyone who is Russian and wealthy is the way forward. Slam everything down on the elite. Stop them being able to do any business or make money or access any services outside of Russia. It’s the only way to get enough bad feeling going internally so that someone overthrows Putin. The wealthy like their luxuries. He is a warmonger and is ruining Russia. It’s disgusting and abhorrent behaviour from a country especially after the pandemic this world has gone through. He has to be stopped. He will go down as the next Hitler and anyone in Russia who supports him should be disgusted in themselves. Regardless of the issues, waging war is not the way to do it. If their kids are at private schools then hopefully they will be taught ethics and morality and start to absorb that

@MadameFantabulosa

My daughter was a boarder at a large international school in U.K. Quite a lot of Kazakh and Russian children. Her room mate was Russian, the daughter of a single parent business woman. Not an oligarch, but an Anglophile, who came to Chelsea Flower Show every year, and wanted her children to experience U.K. culture. Most of her money seemed to go on her children’s education. Her son had been to a minor public school and then Oxford. So I think quite a mix in the backgrounds of those kids at the school.

The average monthly in Russia is still well under £500 Sterling per month.

www.statista.com/statistics/1010660/russia-average-monthly-nominal-wage/

Someone up post said that the Russian and Ukraine children are at each others throats. I don't think adults will be hating on these children. But children/teens don't have the maturity to see the bigger picture. I can only imagine that there is some bullying going on.
Where we live there are children who are taken fox hunting by their parents (not trail hunting, actually killing foxes.) They get teased by other children at school. Now I am far from being pro foxhunting and would love to see it banned, (or at least properly regulated) but I don't see it as the fault of these children who are taken out each week by their parents to participate in an illegal activity.

@CovidCorvid
All of them? Even those ordinary people, law abiding citizens, who are settled here for decades to work, live and raise their children?
Doctors, nurses and teachers too? Most of ordinary people don’t support what’s happening.

I'm pretty sure the oligarchs kids will be fine. Their families have enough money to pay for anything and everything that they could want.

Fox hunting HAS been banned in the United kingdom. It is illegal.

Bullying isn’t widely encouraged either.

So the gist of your posting is that you’d like people to follow existing laws and rules?

Where are you posting from OP?

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/26/the-russia-report-shows-we-have-a-security-problem-he-lives-in-no-10

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/27/our-tolerance-of-russian-corruption-in-britain-fatally-clouded-our-judgment-ukraine

Two interesting articles, the first a year or two old. While not about schools talk about MPs and others turning a blind eye to Russia because of the money coming in.

Jacob rees mogg just sold shares two weeks ago in a Russian bank, apparently making £44million profit in the process! Why with serious amounts of personal money tied up in Russia would such people speak up?

[quote okthx]@CovidCorvid
All of them? Even those ordinary people, law abiding citizens, who are settled here for decades to work, live and raise their children?
Doctors, nurses and teachers too? Most of ordinary people don’t support what’s happening.[/quote]
I haven't seen any suggestions that all schools should be banned from accepting foreign money from anyone. The only possibility is a handful of very very rich people may be sanctioned and, frankly, they probably have convoluted set ups which mean that lots of their wealth can't be touched and they'll be free to keep paying fees.

@ThymePoultice
I know it is banned, but the majority of hunts carry on regardless, participating in illegal activity on a weekly basis. And the children who are taken hunting have been subjected to some teasing at school because of their participation, which their parents encourage. I don't see that as fair.
I am in Yorkshire.

This thread is bizarre

Oh come on. I am British and send my kids to private schools. I am a high earner by Uk standards, though not inherited money or uber wealthy - I have never voted Conservative and didnt vote for Boris Johnson's government. If i sent my kids to boarding school in France or Switzerland or somewhere or they do a sandwich year from uni in Italy (not that they can anymore, thanks to Brexit, another foreign policy i did not support), are you saying they should be automatically expelled if Boris ever made some batshit decision to get involved in some ridiculous war, or NATO get involved with this one?

[quote okthx]@CovidCorvid
All of them? Even those ordinary people, law abiding citizens, who are settled here for decades to work, live and raise their children?
Doctors, nurses and teachers too? Most of ordinary people don’t support what’s happening.[/quote]
If they’re Russian citizens then yes. Putin needs to become the most hated person in Russia. It’s all very well saying he’s disliked and not supported and I get it’s very hard to protest against him but at some point there needs to be a critical mass tipping point,,,,,,safety in numbers. They can’t “disappear” every single Russian.

I mean are the fox hunting kids actually been bullied or just been told it's illegal & not a nice thing to do?

[quote Chocalata]@ThymePoultice
I know it is banned, but the majority of hunts carry on regardless, participating in illegal activity on a weekly basis. And the children who are taken hunting have been subjected to some teasing at school because of their participation, which their parents encourage. I don't see that as fair.
I am in Yorkshire.[/quote]
If you know it’s been banned, why say ”Now I am far from being pro foxhunting and would love to see it banned, (or at least properly regulated)” at 13.08?

@Pennox

Oh come on. I am British and send my kids to private schools. I am a high earner by Uk standards, though not inherited money or uber wealthy - I have never voted Conservative and didnt vote for Boris Johnson's government. If i sent my kids to boarding school in France or Switzerland or somewhere or they do a sandwich year from uni in Italy (not that they can anymore, thanks to Brexit, another foreign policy i did not support), are you saying they should be automatically expelled if Boris ever made some batshit decision to get involved in some ridiculous war, or NATO get involved with this one?

Oh my goodness. Do you not realise that Russia is a dictatorship and Britain isn’t? Of course it’s easier to get on and make money here without toadying to the rulers.

We don’t have oligarchs here. That’s why we don’t.

Most "wealthy" Russian parents do not have £££££££ and golden visas.

"Wealthy" is of course relative, but most of the Russians I know have been living in the UK a number of years (often decades) and have built lives and lifestyles here.
The wealthiest among the ones I know (and again, everyone's definition of "wealth" varies) are well off because they are part of a double income couple with jobs such as medical consultant, engineer, architect, maybe financial services.
ie, above average income but NOT mansion-in-Chelsea-and-a-super-yaght-rich.

The small minority (the elite of the elite) who do have golden visas have been welcomed into the UK. They are not just mates with Putin, they are friends with British senior politicians and our own elite (so I am not sure how school bursars can be held responsible for policing their wealth when the institutions actually responsible didn't). These people are the problem but they do NOT represent ordinary Russians in the UK.

It would be like an American assuming that as a British citizen, you must be pally with the queen.

I am scared of the knee-jerk racism that always emerges after a major world event.
Islamophobia after terrorist incidents.
A wave of anti-semitism after the Israeli government does something we disagree with.
In early 2020, there were racist attacks directed at Asian people because some knuckle draggers held random people personally responsible for Wuhan, solely on account of their ethnicity.
And now no doubt we'll see some entirely innocent Russians picked on by idiots who think they are Expressing solidarity with Ukraine, whereas in fact they are just stupid racist aresholes who couldn't find the place on a map.

At the very least, could we be careful about how we discuss things with our children?
Ie, blaming Putin and his cronies instead of demonising a whole nationality?

I’m really cocking an eyebrow about who certain posters are and where they’re posting from, TBH.

@ThymePoultice

I’m really cocking an eyebrow about who certain posters are and where they’re posting from, TBH.

It would be fascinating to see some of the IP addresses.

@ThymePoultice
So hunting is called 'trail hunting now. But most hunts don't hunt trails, they still, purposefully, hunt foxes (the vast majority do anyway.) So in Scotland last week they announced they are going to ban trail hunts altogether and instigate a licence system. The rural police in England and Wales can't (or won't) regulate trail hunting properly, so personally I think the hunts should be abolished. I feel quite strongly about that. BUT I don't think children should be called names at schools because their parents take them 'trail' hunting. The children are doing what their parents say is right and perhaps don't have the perspective to see if for themselves at the age of 10.
This thread really has gone a bit weird, sorry everyone!

At the very least, could we be careful about how we discuss things with our children?
Ie, blaming Putin and his cronies instead of demonising a whole nationality?

I very much hope and think that most people are quite able to make that distinction and explain it to their children and have already done so.

At the very least, could we be careful about how we discuss things with our children?Ie, blaming Putin and his cronies instead of demonising a whole nationality?

Who on earth is doing that

Attacking a mosque after a terror attack is nothing like sanctions against oligarchs who are tied to the Kremlin. 🙄

[quote Chocalata]@ThymePoultice
So hunting is called 'trail hunting now. But most hunts don't hunt trails, they still, purposefully, hunt foxes (the vast majority do anyway.) So in Scotland last week they announced they are going to ban trail hunts altogether and instigate a licence system. The rural police in England and Wales can't (or won't) regulate trail hunting properly, so personally I think the hunts should be abolished. I feel quite strongly about that. BUT I don't think children should be called names at schools because their parents take them 'trail' hunting. The children are doing what their parents say is right and perhaps don't have the perspective to see if for themselves at the age of 10.
This thread really has gone a bit weird, sorry everyone![/quote]
Yes I know what the legal position is.

I’m still baffled that you said you ”would love to see it banned, (or at least properly regulated)”. That’s a markedly odd thing to say if you knew all along that it had already been banned.