Play date with mum who agrees with education tax

[BonnuitMy]

Please let me know if I’m overreacting. I recently overheard a new mum at school talking about a local private school closing down due to the education tax and how this is somehow a good thing. She’s now invited my DD for a play date, would you accept?

Which statement is inaccurate?

When I was at university I didn't have a clue what people's parents' political views were. We all sorts of mucked in and got on. I think university must have changed. People.seem to get their knickers in a twist about everything nowadays..

It’s pretty dependent upon the means someone has to pay it back though. Only a lot people don’t know whether they’ll have those means or not until after they’ve left.

My only thoughts when DC were invited to a friend's house was "do they want to go? Do I trust the parent(s) to keep them safe? Is it at a convenient time? Eg not when we have cubs/dance class"
Other than that I have no idea what the parents political beliefs were.

FWIW I don't agree with private school. My best friend was privately educated. As were lots of my other friends, including Eton/Harrow. Another friend of mine teaches in a private school. I have friends who's DC are currently in private school. I would feel deeply sorry for them if their schools had to close, it would be a horrible situation to be in, and possibly quite scary for the children who have to change schools. But I still have a moral objection to the whole system.

Most people in the UK do agree with it, OP.

Ok, please try and understand this. The schools have paid VAT for decades, the ones ran as a business pay tax on any profits and they pay business rates (previously at reduced rate). The education tax is paid by the children (fee payers) on education services, not the school. The school I’m taking about had a 25% drop in children for next year, it had no choice but to close.

Thank you for saving me from replying. Although, you could have stopped after your first sentence. It was quite enough to illustrate my sentiment.

When I was a kid, my parents were lefties and my best friend's father was a very right-wing Tory.

It never occurred to either family to stop us playing with each other.

Decades on, we're still friends (and incidentally both fairly left)._

That's just the one where her dad was vocal enough for us to know his views. With most of my childhood friends, I have (and my parents had) not a CLUE what their mum's or dad's views were on any political issue.

Is that a thing now?

It’s not an education tax it’s VAT, so previously a select few could afford to privately educate their children with most people priced out, now it’s an even smaller number who can afford it, but 100% of kids will still get an education and now some of the wealthier ones will have spare money to spend on tutors. I can’t get upset about it 🤷‍♀️

I home ed, have for 5 years. I think everyone I've said this to thinks all home edders get on great because we all share the same views, but I have experienced some whacking huge gulf level differences of opinion within it all. Currently friends with someone because his kid and mine get on well and he's had an exceedingly different life to mine (periods of homelessness, nomadic times, experiences that would make your toes curl) and shares different views to mine, but we gab like grannies about films and music while the kids run around in the park or whatever. His partner is a teacher, too. There's nothing like speaking to people with different views to you. In fact I'd argue you do it every day, you just don't bloody know about it.

Hell no, OP, she might turn your child in a person who believes that all kids should start on a level playing field. Imagine the horror.

(For clarity, I'm being sarcastic)

Not quite. The parents of children can make the choice to pay for a luxury and therefore have to pay vat, like everyone else on luxury items. If I buy a yacht tomorrow, I will pay vat. It isn't an essential as there is state education available. It is sad when a school has to close, of course, but children are resilient and a change of school need not the end of the world.

God forbid someone has a different opinion ! Are you going to police all your child’s friends parents ?

Education is a luxury now comrade?

Yes. She's entitled to her views. Why make your kid miss out on playing with their friend just because you don't like what the friends parents think?!
(Although I'd change my answer if my kid was expected to be around racist/bigoted views)

I know! That's my question.
Perhaps @BonnuitMy could prepare a Microsoft form for parents to fill in, to check whether her child can play with their child or not.
I wonder what views would be deemed acceptable?.

I disagree with private education but my child had a friend who went to the local fee paying school, they played together. My views were irrelevant to their friendship.

And it is not an "education tax", it is VAT. I recently bought a new washing machine and the price included VAT, I did not think of it as a "washing tax", when i bought my new summer sandals I didn't think about the "Shoe taX" or should that be the "foot tax" or would we get muddled due to VAT on socks and tights? Then there is make up, VAT could be called "Vanity Added Tax, there is a rich seam to mine here...

Private education is

Private education, yes of course.

😂

Refusing to let your kid play with someone whose mother has expressed support for something that (a) was in the governing party's manifesto, (b) was supported by a 3-to-1 majority among those who expressed an opinion (including 47% of 2019 Conservative voters), and (c) is now the law of the land, seems like the kind of ideological purity test normally associated with the kind of people who get called "loony lefties".

But then, using the phrase "education tax" (implying some absolute 20% uplift) rather than "VAT on school fees" (which will result in an increase of costs that will be considerably less than 20%, since schools can now deduct the VAT that they pay) makes it fairly clear that OP has a political agenda here. So I do slightly wonder how much of the original anecdote actually happened.

You know, until this thread I would have laughed at that but now I’m not so sure. God help us.

Shows how out of touch you are

It’s becoming the new road tax!

Why?
Are you not very bright?