How long do you give Andy Burnham as PM?

[AndyBurnham2L]

Build ‘em up.
Knock ‘em down.

Short honeymoon and then the grumbling will start. It will all be over for him by Christmas.

So, who’s next?

To be honest the amount of money @PinkFruitbat brings in to pay nearly £100,000 in schools fees she can probably afford a tub or two of caviar. Or perhaps that’s the issue she can no longer afford her caviar - the horror! No wonder she wants all those pound shop mums starved into submission.

£100k in school fees?

No, more like £55k; that’s for two kids.

I am against taxing education because education is a public good - it benefits society as a whole.
By breaking the principle of not taxing education (by adding VAT to private fees) we open the door to more taxes being imposed at a later date eg to university fees.
Also, making private education more expensive increases inequality by making it accessible to an even smaller minority.

No doubt the costs will have her queuing at the foodbank.

Well funded education benefits all of us.

Maybe it make is harder to justify paying for private? The main reason on MN used to be living near dire failing state schools.

I think it is fine to mention what has been said on other threads. Not a problem. Good to see you now agree, although you were quite firmly against it yesterday. I am just surprised at the swift u-turn. Are you related to Starmer? 😁

So why are you whinging now?

Also, making private education more expensive increases inequality by making it accessible to an even smaller minority.

Surely the smaller the privileged minority, the greater the equality?

But more people will be educated at state school and that makes it more equal.

Private school will always be for the few. That is its USP

Snap @hedgeknight.

I think you need to look up "whinging" in the dictionary. It does not mean the same thing as "querying" ☺️.

The inequality is greater if something is only available to the very rich as opposed to being available to the “normal” rich.

No.

You might like to think you are merely querying things, but you’d be wrong.

HTH.

That isn’t how equality works.

No, this is how inequality works.

Polarising what used to be available to many causes more inequality.

Indeed.

A great many other ‘services’ are VAT zero rated. This includes Sport Clubs, Funeral Services, and Universities.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander; why should your mother’s coffin not include VAT? Why should your rowing club membership fees not include VAT? Why should University exclude VAT; if it sets you back £30k in fees what’s another £6k in VAT?

At the end of the day VAT is a minacious tax; especially when set at 20%. But the government needs to raise revenue. However what is and isn’t charged VAT is an absolute minefield of contradiction. Which means little logic and tremendous bias; which is ultimately unfair.

It does make society more equal if more more people are educated at state school, but if fewer people are educated at private school the advantage they receive becomes more pronounced.

I agree that we are the poorer for an academic subject now not being offered to state school pupils. I chose a particular school (state) because I knew Latin would enhance the education of a certain child. Unfortunately, the numbers benefitting are so low that I have to accept it is not for the greater good.

I think you've lost sight of what inequality actually means. The real inequality isn't whether private schools are affordable to the top 1% or the top 5% it's that the vast majority of families can't afford them at all. A VAT exemption for private school fees wasn't reducing that inequality; it was benefiting people who were already able to pay for a private service.

I understand that it’s unequal for only 5 per cent to be able to afford something, but it is even more unequal if only one per cent can afford it. So VAT on private school fees increases inequality - and no amount of obfuscation will change that fact.

To be clear, taxing education is illegal under EU law. An unfortunate consequence of Brexit is the removal of that protection.

CHAPTER 2 - Exemptions for certain activities in the public interest

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSLEG:2006L0112:20100115:en:PDF

I am smiling at lex europa ...

Campaign for the UK to rejoin the EU

You will have my support.

Noteworthy also that Education (even private) is deemed by the EU to be in the public good and it is for that reason why it is illegal to tax it.