Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse”

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Whitehall ‘braced for private schools collapse’ due to fee rises

Worth reading the whole article, it’s not quite as alarmist as the headline suggests. But as you’d expect, gov sources are talking it all down while the ISC is ringing the alarm bell.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/e6465c9e-d462-48cb-a73e-74480059a1f3?shareToken=05bf599cd4a2376fe3ce83cdce607100

I’d be quite surprised if some of the schools near us don't fold tbh. There will definitely be a contraction in the sector, I just hope those that hold on can remain a viable concern.

That's where the political failure is. Nothing will improve, and the tinkering would have been for nought - in fact actively destructive. The risk is that it may end up being electoral suicide anyway.

I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood most of the context and information provided in the many responses on here. Such is life.

@Sasskitty - I am simply responding to a group of social media agitators busy discrediting the Labour Party - such is life!

As a state school teacher and parent I have seen what previous political parties have done to state schools in the past 20 years. I've seen the impact on all children and how the education was can provide is far from what we could and what we could with proper funding.

Lots of people are angry and emotional about education and how all of our children have been insulted. This isn't solely reserved for private school children.

Then pay for the improvements you want yourself.

2% added to basic rate income tax would raise £15bn per year.

That's literally 10 times more than even the imaginary pot-of-gold amount Labour are pretending could be raised from VAT, if a 20% increase miraculously didn't change behaviour.🤔

Start with that.

Labour discredit themselves.

£15bn is a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of electoral damage that would do.

And for the record I am very happy to pay more income tax, but also recognise that this position is coming from a place of privilege.

Why do you think my mention of my DC being in a top state grammar is so funny? It impacts on our decision to stay or leave the UK. He’s getting an excellent education with a pathway to top universities. If I was paying out of pocket for his education (like I am for our younger child), I would be looking at alternatives. The UK is already very bad value for money for higher earners, poor services for a high level of tax. The VAT on school fees is another nail in the coffin.

If £15bn isn't worth having, then why is a maximum of £1.6bn worth all the harm and disruption? Let alone the much smaller amount (£0.4bn?) they're now saying they expect in the first few years (incidentally the time period where the maximum harm to children will occur)

I suppose it depends whether you actually want workable solutions which benefit the UK long term...or whether you will do anything - however damaging - for the populist vote.

Income tax is progressive. People on low income would pay nothing extra. Those on full-time NMW would pay an extra £160 per year and someone on the UK average £35k salary would pay an extra £448 per year.

That would raise £15bn per year. Why so much more? Because the cost would be shared (progressively) between 37.4 million UK citizens- all of whom benefit from an educated population. As taxes to support state services should be. Not arbitrarily subsidised entirely by an unpopular 0.5 million citizens who are already paying the most and getting the least back. Surely you can see what nonsense that approach is!

Bridget, is that you?

I think she meant it would piss 37 million people off and some of them vote Labour, instead of pissing off the parents of 5/600k children more of whom vote Conservative anyway. So not that the money wasn't worth having, but the impact on thier voter base wasn't worth the benefit of the tax raised.

I actually agree that the country appears to need a penny in income tax but it's really not a vote winner.

Sooner or later this country needs to acknowledge that it can't have the public services it appears to want unless they are paid for by the broader population through taxation.

Exactly what I was getting at @Frowningprovidence , thank you 😊

£15bn is less than 1.5% of the government's revenue budget and would therefore never be worth making themselves unelectable for. And which is also why none of the political parties with a realistic chance of ever getting into government have increasing basic income tax as a policy.

I agree with your analysis of what PP was trying to say.

But equally I’m struggling to see how Labour think it will be a vote winner, come the next election, to have left state education in the same dire straits it’s in now, if not worse, because they’ve made no meaningful effort to improve it.

For all the seal-clapping of the toff-bashing VAT policy, surely supporters do expect more and indeed have been led to expect more.

I don't disagree with this, I'm just not sure how or when that's ever actually going to happen.

Yes extra income tax will never be a vote winner with the majority. What's the old definition of a fair tax? Something somebody else has to pay.

I dont think they are getting a second term. I felt none of the parties were honest about the mess or had any ideas to sort it. I am concerned that with Elon musk money, reform will do better than it should next time.

Well if the 37 million UK income tax payers don't think that investing more in education is worth the £160 - £448 extra that it would cost them to increase education funding by 12%, why on earth should I pay £4000 extra to increase education funding by an absolute maximum (in Labour's imagination) of 0.4% next year/ 1.2% long term?!?

Very funny - I was a Labour Party member for twenty years and even stood as a Labour candidate - I’m disappointed that not only has Starmer turned out to have been accepting lavish freebies from rich friends, but is also indulging in exactly the same kind of misleading, counterproductive populist policies that the Tories did (repeatedly describing the new VAT imposition as the removal of a “tax break” is outright lying, and I thought better of Labour). Been a Labour voter all my life and now am so disappointed not to have a principled Labour Party to vote for any more (it’s not just this issue either, it’s the gender nonsense, the rubbish education policy, the failure to remove the child benefit cap, the reluctance to tax unearned assets and rentierism, and the low quality of their front bench — all sorts of things). But by all means ignore all this and believe I’m a Russian bot or whatever, if that makes it easier for you to swallow the fact that Labour seem to be going out of their way to be divisive rather than offering a positive collective vision for the future!

Because that was the result of the election. This was thier flagship policy in thier manifesto and they were elected with everyone knowing that was what they were planning. So you won't get much choice. I actually disagree with the policy but I also disagreed with brexit and that happened anyway.

I meant from an ethical standpoint.

Not from a practical standpoint (which is that the government can do whatever the hell they like, no matter how unethical)

Exactly.

Starmer with his policies born out of spite and revenge, is driving the electorate into the arms of Reform. So far he's alienated...

The business community
Middle class parents
Rural communities
Pensioners
Waspi women
Next will be those claiming housing benefit

The man is a complete idiot. We badly need a decent, logic-based leader to emerge from somewhere.

Labour do pretend to be ethical, after all.

"The biggest lie that the devil ever convinced us of was that he didn't exist"

And the biggest lie Labour ever convinced us of is that the Left is more ethical than the Right.