[Politics] Starmer v Sunak *** Official Match Thread ***

[chickens]

No I don't agree it will get improved at all. If you have a break even business and the government announce they're getting an extra 20% in tax from you, they don't equate the cost of you going tits up snd then costing even more money. And not only do they get an extra 20% of f**k all, you now cost them.

There's no argument against your first statement that state schools require more funding, but the aspiration tax of VAT on private schools will end up being a bigger burden on the state than leaving it alone in a few years from now.

Just wait and see. Greece decision is entirely relevant, nobody is talking about the wider differences of our system and theirs, of course their tax system is rubbish. (And its not only Greece that did it and it failed).

It's more simplistic, Labour take the numbers as they are today and assume by adding tax everything else stays the same in which case your sums work, but they don't stay the same and private schools going to the wall of which many will isn't part of the back of a fag packet policy that will cost billions not raise it.

It's a class warfare tax.

Schools need proper funding of course, this isn't the way to do it.

Um, you’re taxed on profits, so if you have a breakeven business you’re not getting taxed on £0.

 

[peterward]

Um, you’re taxed on profits, so if you have a breakeven business you’re not getting taxed on £0.

VAT is not a tax on profits

 

[WATFORD zero]

That's quite a disingenuous last sentence from you. SKS was already at a State grammar school when it went private two years into his secondary education. Those who were already there, continued their syllabus with a bursary, until they took their exams.

Yeah, but you can prove anything with facts

 

[Pevenseagull]

Rishi is telling porky pies , he is only 5 foot 6 tall and if you've noticed he wears trousers 4 inches too short for him as an optical illusion to make him appear taller.

I really don't think that his height is the problem.

I'm 6ft and I'd be a shit prime minister.

Probably better than him, but still really shit.

 

[A1X]

Form goes out of the window when rivals meet, Sunak the underdog but it’s his cup final so anything could happen. The important thing for him is to keep his discipline and not do something rash early on and lose it with the ref.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I really don't think that his height is the problem.

I'm 6ft and I'd be a shit prime minister.

Probably better than him, but still really shit.

Being 5’ 7” doesn’t help though. How can you take any man who’s so small seriously?

 

[Pevenseagull]

Being 5’ 7” doesn’t help though. How can you take any man who’s so small seriously?

Jeff Minton was 5' 7" and sine days he was the only person who gave me hope.

 

[peterward]

That's quite a disingenuous last sentence from you. SKS was already at a State grammar school when it went private two years into his secondary education. Those who were already there, continued their syllabus with a bursary, until they took their exams.

Really? and what of those parents who are scrimping and saving every penny to put their kids through private school, and have put every spare penny in their kids education............ kids who may have 2 years left of their education and cant afford an extra 20% stealth tax, do they also get a guaranteed Bursary?

 

[London Irish]

 

[Is it PotG?]

What time are these two clowns on?

 

[WATFORD zero]

Really? and what of those parents who are scrimping and saving every penny to put their kids through private school, and have put every spare penny in their kids education............ kids who may have 2 years left of their education and cant afford an extra 20% stealth tax, do they also get a guaranteed Bursary?

I do wonder why all these free marketeers hate the idea of any sort of state support, until it comes to begging from taxpayers to subsidise them for something they can't afford without the poorest in the state subsidising them

'Stealth Tax' ? It used to be called paying your way

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Really? and what of those parents who are scrimping and saving every penny to put their kids through private school, and have put every spare penny in their kids education............ kids who may have 2 years left of their education and cant afford an extra 20% stealth tax, do they also get a guaranteed Bursary?

I was correcting your half truth about Keir Starmer, as I’m sure you didn’t mean to mislead anyone.

How many parents scrimp and save every penny and sacrifice everything to make sure their offspring go to a private school? Percentages please.

I‘ve already seen suggestions that children could be sent to France or Spain to board. Diplomats, military officers etc will get more help towards school fees.

I‘m not against private schools, as 2 of my 3 grandchildren were educated privately, but like everything else, it is a choice.
You pays your money etc.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

What time are these two clowns on?

View attachment 183464

Minnie Caldwell & Ena Sharples? Clowns?
They’d have eaten you for breakfast!

 

[Is it PotG?]

They’d have eaten you for breakfast!

Something I still dream about

 

[A1X]

 

[chickens]

VAT is not a tax on profits

No, VAT is added to the bill presented to the customer, so it’s a pretty poor product the private school is offering if it can’t jolly its clients into paying for it.

Private schools can pay their damn tax bills just like everybody else has to. State schools need funding too. It’s up to parents to decide whether to educate their children privately, but it’s a luxury alternative to the already present state provision, and a business like any other, it does not deserve tax exemptions that other businesses do not enjoy.

 

[Is it PotG?]

For those fortunate enough to have enjoyed 'Spin' (Fra) and the far superior 'Borgen' (Den) you can only smile at the behind the scenes shenanigans going on right now.

 

[peterward]

I do wonder why all these free marketeers hate the idea of any sort of state support, until it comes to begging taxpayers to subsidise them for something they can't afford without state help

'Stealth Tax' ? It's called paying your way

No, No its not. Its eduction, its the countries future. From a moral standpoint, the idea of taxing education is regressive. Education is the foundation of the future, and the notion that the government should benefit financially from an individual’s decision to pay for their children’s education which isnt always toffs going to Eton but Muslims/Christians/Hindus etc or parents of disabled kids is at odds with the wider consensus that colleges and universities are exempt from VAT because education should not be taxed. Pricing potential students out of education, especially in niche areas or hitting hard smaller local indepedent private schools who are on the borderline is not something society should be aiming for. There will be 1000's of parents right now who aren't millionaires whose kids wont be going to Eton, they may be going to a those private faith schools, they may be going to a specialsed school based on a disability, they have a totally rubbish secondary school for attaintment in their local area, or the quality of service their child needs just isnt available in the state sytem, they have one chance and one chance only for their child, They've put everything they have into their childs future only to have that future priced out by a "tax grab on the rich" that wont actually bring the long term benefits it claims and be destructive.

Not all schools are Eton and not all attendees from proper wealth, but this one size fits all policy goes after them all. The head of private schools has urged Starmer to wait first for the OBR to report, btw The OBR has not ruled that this will achieve anything like the fag packet sums being mentioned and most believe, correctly in my opinion, it will actually do the opposite and end up costing the state more.

Its the old Labour class war politics of envy raising its ugly head. In Scotland right now, theres a movement to get all such people who cant genuinely afford the 20% hike to register with state schools to make the point.

This is from the idependent: are they wrong?

"There is no such thing as a free tax hit and there are also inconvenient truths Labour is ducking in this argument. The first is that all “privates” are not the same. Lower-cost ones often cater to gaps – either where good-quality education is scarce or fewer state schools are within an easily accessible distance.

They also absorb some of the pupils that state schools struggle to provide for – the Downham prep school in Norfolk is a prime example of the kind of set-up which credibly says it will not survive the 20 per cent VAT hike and which keeps a third of its places for special needs children with autism and other social and emotional complexities. Where does Labour propose they go – given that this is exactly the areas in which state schools struggle to fund and staff facilities?

My own background is fully state-educated and I have found that professional milieus dominated by too many cliquey private school alums tend to an irksome self-satisfaction and group think. But being allergic to an overdose of public school folk doesn’t make clumsy policy a sound one – and Labour should make more distinction in the size of the schools it is targeting and take account of those who offer clearly useful social services. They are often a very different profile to the elite Etons, Harrows and Westminster Schools Labour is tilting at.

The other alarm bell which will ring here is that Starmer is himself keen to offset the more dour egalitarian strains in Labour by saying that his “user one mission” is wealth creation. It’s going to come as quite a shock then that many parents who have any excess funds start to be attracted to private education.

There’s a bit of a habit in the party of declaring itself comfortable with people getting rich and then being sniffy about their choices. Life is complex. Starmer himself attended Reigate Grammar, an excellent selective school (Labour is against creating more of these) and had his sixth-form fees paid by the local authority when it turned private. Many senior Labour figures down the years opted for private provision when the going got tough for their children (Abbott argued that her son was a black child in the inner city with a hard-working single mum and his school “was the making of him”). In one sense, it is “indefensible” as she admitted. Back on Planet Real though, many people would understand her view.


There are lots of circumstances whereby children end up in the private sector, apart from the tradition and snobbery. Otherwise, despite the national figure of around 7 per cent of pupils in private education, there would not be the demand for private sixth forms and the urban skew of private schools (around 15 per cent of the school population in London and 25-30 per cent in Edinburgh).

So a Labour government will see a backlash in communities where the many private schools without famous names find themselves short. There are no easy answers for Labour, but I think it will also regret a frankly lazy schools policy of simply promising to add 6,500 secondary school teachers in “key subjects” when the scale of the recruitment and retention pressure are already immense and there is no clear plan or resourcing to deliver on this.

Hitting private schools with VAT is simply a chunk of red meat thrown to the Labour grassroots. But even acknowledging that it is not unreasonable for expensive, privileged institutions to contribute more to the broader well-being, this is a blunt and counter-productive cudgel. If the schools close – and this indiscriminate approach will hit those with lower margins far more than the ones catering to the upper classes – pupils have to go somewhere. So the “saving” to the Treasury on VAT (tiny in the scheme of public finance), will end up pushing an extra cost on the state sector, which can barely resource schools in staffing terms as it is.

The other awkward truth for Labour’s better-off supporters, including their own front bench ranks, is that they can move houses or “gentrify” areas with the best state schools, so are paying a premium for education through their property choices. That is not the case for many parents scrabbling to afford the lower end of school fees. It’s a bumper-sticker policy for a much more serious question – which is, what does Labour really want to do to consolidate educational opportunity and by what means? A hard one. Much easier to bash the private schools, in the hope that we won’t press the question."

 

[Dave the OAP]

Great British sewing bee for us

 

[Bozza]

They do seem to be about the same height. which is a surprise.