Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 6

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Continuation of previous threads to discuss VAT on independent school fees.

It's absolutely true that if anyone was on the fence or disinterested in the VAT on private schools policy (and that would include the majority of the people in the country), you could invite them to spend 20 minutes flicking through this thread and most of them would come out thinking VAT should be at least 50% or that private schools should be abolished altogether. And that's not because of the few posts with arguments for the tax either.

I think this is over egged by a few posters who don't want to see Labour criticised.

I have no idea why it matters that much that Labour poor policies are not scrutinised but it keeps a few posts like this coming up.

Or it might be nice to have a bit of empathy for people who are really hard hit by this whether you agree with vat or not. And a bit of understanding about why they are so upset. Perhaps show a bit of kindness - a lot of people have had to withdraw children from schools they are settled in.

If someone is that much of a dick, there's nothing we can say that will change that. So I'm certainly not going to try.

Luckily, their opinion matters as little as ours does.

@tortoise18 - where I live in London all the sports grounds and pools are in private schools pretty much. If they were abolished completely, the kids in the wider public would not learn to swim at all, hardly any would do cricket/netball/rugby, even a lot of the summer camps are run there. So speak for yourself.

Forgot hockey, of course! That is where Bridget Phillipson happily goes and plays too. There are not enough facilities in many communities. So if the private schools close, what exactly is the plan? Retirement homes instead? Nothing left for the kids at all?

On the one hand, you could say that school playing fields being sold off BY CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENTS leaving the majority of kids reliant on noblesse oblige would be exactly the sort of politically motivated engineering and "warfare" on educational opportunity that would inspire 7,000 posts on here if it was directed to a privileged minority, rather than the plurality, of kids. It could also be read as a wilful and partisan strengthening of private schools' position through a dismantling of the state.

On the other hand, I don't know what part of London you're in that doesn't have any swimming pools. My kids can access three council pools in our borough, another half dozen or more in the boroughs next door, and learnt to swim in an admittedly rare state school pool (not at the school they attended).

@tortoise18 - if there are hardly any playing fields left, the remaining ones need protecting! And swimming pools too. Outside of Westminster nobody cares about the petty blue vs red chat which is downright childish. Most of us just want preserving of what little is left to allow kids to flourish, all kids, state school kids and private school kids, all our kids.
Most of us simply fed up with kids always coming as an after thought because they do not get a vote!

Most of us simply fed up with kids always coming as an after thought because they do not get a vote!

This is simply not true. Parents' own children are usually at or near the very top of their concerns and they vote accordingly. Policy makers obviously know this so children are not an afterthought because they themselves can't vote.

Children were an afterthought during COVID and failed en masse and politically they should be the absolute priority and state education should have gotten a massive boost with a Labour Government, but they aren’t doing this at all. Decided on a divisive policy towards a minority of children instead in private schools as a distraction. Even grooming gangs has taken months to get a u-turn. It’s a complete and utter joke how our children are being failed.
And the pensioners are getting their winter fuel back but no child benefit cap lifted, just some meals for some.
This is why a lot of youngsters are fed up with the UK and those who can will leave for countries where they and their future children will matter more.

So what about pensioners and disabled people. They are also groups that have been affected since Labour came to power. They do have votes so your logic is flawed.

Haven't ever heard anyone mention the school fields being sold off. Ever. No, no. These things are never mentioned when they affect Labour's in-group 'our kids'.

Now just remind me, did selling off state school playing fields disrupt kids education during their public exam years? No?

Was it driven by spite - and did it actually lose the state money... in addition to deliberately levelling down hated students? No? Oh, I see - it was actually an (arguably misplaced) attempt to provide funding to the schools themselves - which were already funded by the state on a per student basis - for additional capital works projects?

So completely different from deliberately reducing opportunities for a hated group of kids - for its own sake - with no benefit to anyone. Certainly not benefitting their own schools.

Great that your kids have all these state-funded facilities. Funded by all of us, including private school parents. I hope you show some self-respect and consistency and never make use of a single private school facility or summer camp.

Selling off thousands of state school playing fields was indefensible. To have been vindictive, the Tories would need to have cared in the first place.

Vindictively destroying hundreds of private schools which were saving the state money is even more indefensible.

You have no moral high ground. None.

@strawberrybubblegum Good that your argument seems to have expanded from private school parents shouldn't have to pay value added tax to private school parents shouldn't pay council tax. Heaven forbid that we might actually live in a society.

No, my kids haven't, as far as I know, used private school facilities or camps, I wouldn't even know that these are available, so commonplace are they. I would also wager that I'm in the fortunate position of having paid more tax over a lifetime than most private school parents, including whatever they pay in VAT, and, you know what? Lucky me. I'm glad that money is being used on other people, because unlike some, I know the difference between self-respect and self-absorbtion.

Dear goddess @strawberrybubblegum you get that the poster isn’t actually the Chancellor, right?

Why are you talking about the moral high ground in such a way? IIRC selling off playgrounds had quite a big impact on child health so did affect a lot of kids. But I don’t ascribe maliciousness to the policy, possibly short-sightedness.

Plenty of school fields were sold off under the Blair Labour Government. The fields at my school certainly were! And some of us don’t vote either Tory or Labour. Responding to the criticism of one party by saying the other party did this, it a pathetic cop out as far as I am concerned. As my mum would have said, two wrongs don’t make a right!

Well quite - selling off the playing fields was a bad policy, but not malicious - unlike Labour's now.

Of course I don't think the pp is the chancellor. But re-read her posts. Her own spite is evident. She gets no moral high ground.

Actually, apologies @walkaround - your posts are not spiteful (although I disagree with them) but you jumped in on @tortoise18 's line of argument, and hers are.

Hmm. Approximately 10,000 more under the Tories. And then a few hundred under new Labour who, to be fair, specialised in doing what the Tories would have done on a lot of issues as a means of demonstrating that they weren’t old Labour and to annoy the Tories when they couldn’t hold them to account for it 🤣.

To be fair, my posts are somewhat cynical, although no, they are certainly not spiteful.

Why wouldn’t you be for picking up paying the extra tax for the state sector rather than ask of it from those who don’t use it?

I don't understand how you decide that one policy is "malicious" and the other one isn't. The distinction seems to have no relation to reality. But neither does your also entirely subjective definition of "spite".

VAT is a tax on the consumer for value added. Most people agree private schools are adding value.

Me individually? I'm sorry, but I don't earn that much. I do, however, indirectly help pay for many things I don't and will never use, and that's absolutely fine.