I can believe that, sadly. I used to live near Gosport. Every day there is a long queue outside the food bank, and yet I imagine it is still a safe Tory seat.
General Election 2024
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And where are they going to teach them? In what classrooms? With what facilities? The immediate effect would be to make the already stretched state school even more stretched. Kids there get even less attention and opportunities than before. Then the private school kids kicked out of their existing schools go down into an underfunded state system. Everybody loses. Everybody except the genuinely rich who will keep their kids at the remaining private schools whatever the cost. It would take a decade or two to get the state system sorted, that's a good generation or two you want to sacrifice so you can have your ideological system.
There isn't one. They aren't operated as businesses but that's not the story that plays well to the Green Eyed Monster.
They do receive public funding but for specific reasons:
- mainly its giving free and subsidised places to bright and special requirements kids who couldn't afford to go otherwise.
- boarding places for military and diplomatic kids whose parents move home so often it would mean new schools every year otherwise.
- investment in facilities that are used for free by state schools and communities.
All of those things will disappear if the VAT rise comes in. Honestly I'm shocked Labour is already going down this route but you can see from the vitriol in this thread it works with their voter base. I dont have so you must not either, but when youre arguing to take away opportunities for children you can never be in the right.
If you're Kier Starmer, what do you do about Diane Abbott?
Politically she is a walking disaster area, but no matter which way Starmer decides to go, he's getting criticism.
According to the BBC this morning, Abbotts investigation was completed in December 2023 and she was given a formal warning and told to complete an antisemitism course, which she completed in February 2024.
So what does he do? If he reinstates her and she runs as a Labour candidate then I see that being problematic in terms of criticism from the other parties.
Another obvious issue is that while Starmer has been promoting the labour party as 'changed' can he really risk reinstating the biggest ally to the former leader? especially one that wrote something so fundamentally stupid.
Then again let's say he chooses not to reinstate her, that gives the left wing a real stick to beat him with. They'll be accusing him of being a red tory again, but to be fair, they do that anyway.
I've said before and I'll say again. You can't do anything in opposition, so he has to make gains in the most sensible places possible. Distancing himself from Abbot and Corbyn is most definitely the right thing to do as far as I can see.
Politically she is a walking disaster area, but no matter which way Starmer decides to go, he's getting criticism.
According to the BBC this morning, Abbotts investigation was completed in December 2023 and she was given a formal warning and told to complete an antisemitism course, which she completed in February 2024.
So what does he do? If he reinstates her and she runs as a Labour candidate then I see that being problematic in terms of criticism from the other parties.
Another obvious issue is that while Starmer has been promoting the labour party as 'changed' can he really risk reinstating the biggest ally to the former leader? especially one that wrote something so fundamentally stupid.
Then again let's say he chooses not to reinstate her, that gives the left wing a real stick to beat him with. They'll be accusing him of being a red tory again, but to be fair, they do that anyway.
I've said before and I'll say again. You can't do anything in opposition, so he has to make gains in the most sensible places possible. Distancing himself from Abbot and Corbyn is most definitely the right thing to do as far as I can see.
Is Sunak's idea of introducing a period of National Service for 18 year old's anything to do with his warning about the next decade being an unsettled and dangerous period? Is it preparing us for actual conscription to be reintroduced, e.g. are we going to need more 'cannon fodder'?
The mind boggles, is it just one final throw of the dice on his part.... or are there more (desperate) surprises awaiting , e.g. suggesting the re-introduction of the death penalty, for specific ghastly crimes and/or involving the deliberate taking of a life (where would that leave assisted dying??). Proposals (if Rwanda scheme fails) to put "Shots across the bows " of the small boats, with all the maritime implications that follow thereafter... wonder if any of these 'last chance' saloon ideas figure in his last final efforts to save the complete collapse of the Tory vote in the GE, will ever find the light of day?
Scary days indeed!
The mind boggles, is it just one final throw of the dice on his part.... or are there more (desperate) surprises awaiting , e.g. suggesting the re-introduction of the death penalty, for specific ghastly crimes and/or involving the deliberate taking of a life (where would that leave assisted dying??). Proposals (if Rwanda scheme fails) to put "Shots across the bows " of the small boats, with all the maritime implications that follow thereafter... wonder if any of these 'last chance' saloon ideas figure in his last final efforts to save the complete collapse of the Tory vote in the GE, will ever find the light of day?
Scary days indeed!
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It's a judgement call like many others he will have to make, does Labour gain or lose more votes and what will be the impact on actual seats gained or lost.... isn't that what he gets the 'big bucks' for?
If he leaves her out the far left will complain but they will still vote Labour. If he reinstates her a lot of those coming from elsewhere reconsider.
Leaving her out loses no votes. Reinstating her does. It's an easy decision, shes poison.
Get a grip of yourself.
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Yep it’s very depressing. Where I currently live there’s been a few long food bank lines yet it will likely stay Tory.
The reasoning the people in the video give is so strange and funny. Sunak standing in the rain and spending a long time in failed Tory governments is somehow relatable and positive to these people.
To be fair, that was almost exactly why I asked the question.
I suspect she is viewed as political poison at the moment. That's not a shot at her personally, but she has to be considered a vote loser you'd imagine?
I love how parliamentary sovereignty is sacrosanct, except when politicians decide otherwise.
She should be reinstated. She won't be.
Considering we have had other Labour MPs admit to racist behaviour, be punished and be reinstated in the time Abbott has been suspended, this is so obviously a move to avoid criticism by the right wing press and Tory party.
Honestly they have benefitted from having so many Prime Ministers in the last 14 years. It has enabled the new PM to present themselves as a change and a new start.
Do you have examples?
Have any of the politicians that have said racist things and been reinstated had anywhere near as much stick as Abbott gets?
And again, is it not sensible to not upset the tories or right wing BEFORE you go into an election? You can't do anything in opposition, you have to win ti be able to actually do anything at all.
So, the question is, does reinstating Diane Abbott become more problematic to a victory than excluding her and her sit as an independent?
This is ridiculous, Diane Abbott is someone to be admired rather than slagged off.
She has said some stupid things, the racism comment definitely high up among them, and I understand Starmer's reluctance to reinstate her (though I don't personally agree with it) but to say she is poison is idiotic, but doesn't surprise me as she has faced more vitriol and abuse than almost any other MP.
This is so disingenuous. The private schools can just cut costs. Like state schools.
If parents can’t afford the increase, they can get a second job. Like other people are told to.
I’m sick of these false equivalencies. Private schools should not be subsidised. They currently are.
Means test the parents at the school for five years. If you earn over a threshold, you see 25% fee increases. If it’s at a lower earning band you get a year at 10% increase, then another year at that and so on. Slide the numbers and make them fit.
They are private businesses and need to react to market forces. If they can’t, they’re bad at business and should be left to go under.
Pearl clutching at private schools is utterly insane. Blame them for increasing costs, not Labour for applying right headed levels of fairness that the Tories won’t.
Exactly her past utterances and at times silly behaviour means she is an 'aunt sally' the perfect target for the right wing press, she will serve Labour best behind the scenes. Starmer has to take no risks at this stage, and this would be a big one if he brought her back now.
If she was to wear 'sack-clothe and ashes' in a sort of 'St Diane of the Abbott' style and throw herself into support for the leadership, then a few years/bye-elections, down the line Starmer could risk bringing her back.
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Neil Coyle racially abused a journalist, was told to undertake an anti-racism awareness course, did so, and then got the taxpayers to cover the £295 cost. He was reinstated.
Kate Osamor was suspended and reinstated within five months.
The Labour complaints process is also not fit for purpose given the number of complaints which have not been resolved after months or years. But that is another matter.
Abbott was the first Black woman MP. She has been a lightening rod for criticism since 1987. I cannot see why Coyle and Osamor were readmitted and she cannot be (other than for political reasons).
Indeed, what pisses me off the most is the scholarships, "look at us, we allow poor people to attend"
I always remember playing cricket for the town schools team, every year we played Bury Grammar, these were games after school hours and tea was provided by the home team, on our side we got sandwiches and cakes that had been made and served by the girls in their domestic science classes, Bury Grammar had catered food, sandwiches with the crusts cut off and such ike, served up by external staff, admittingly not in penguin suits, it was chalk and cheese
There’s was an interview clip doing the rounds online last week showing a elder woman having no idea who Sunak is. Also I can’t forget in the last election reading stories about people voting Tory in order to get rid of a Labour government!
Of course these cases are rare and overall millions do tend to vote for their interests. But still it’s amazing how some people can be so out of the loop.
Wow.
Do you genuinely believe if he reinstated Abbott it would make any significant impact on Labour's electoral hopes? What percentage of people are basing their vote in the next GE on who stands as a backbench MP for Hackney? I doubt there is a single seat in the country that would swing one way or the other based on Diane Abbott... other than Hackney.
Without doubt. All Starmer has to do is sit on his hands and let the votes come to him. Abbott jeopardises that, as do any of the others that were close to Corbyn.
Many will cut costs. The ones I know of plan to increase class sizes and cut the free services they offer to the outside. But you understand what that means? Worse outcomes for the pupils, no more scholarships for disadvantaged kids, no more facilities for state schools to use. Drag everybody down. Upward mobility is key to a successful society and this aims for the total opposite of that. It aims to stop anybody getting ahead and make sure everybody stays with the lowest common denominator. And these are children ffs.
ONLY if they choose to do that.
You’ve drank some poisoned water mate. They will CHOOSE to immediately cut the only good they do for society (which is only lipstick on a pig anyway) to appease rich people that pay.
It’s a disgusting model. They have the money to retain those services and find the money, or adapt. Or die.
But no. They cut everything good and tell people like you that it’s the only way.
It’s like advocating for BP cutting their paper thin green initiatives in the face of new fossil fuel taxes, to keep petrol prices down.
It’s sales pitch, and you’re buying it. Why?
It's a bit of hyperbole, VAT added to school fees isn't going to dramatically mean over 500k students, of which 60k are international students, are going to have to find a new home as every private school is going to close. At most they'll review their commercials and make the necessary adjustments to balance.
Let's not forget that private schools get other tax breaks like CGT relief, business rates relief and gift aid as a small, but non-exhaustive list, but I would say you're getting a bit carried away if you suddenly thing that the whole education sector as a whole is going to be worse off by 20% being added to private school fees.
Thank you.
You're absolutely right by the way, it is political. But we're discussing politics. The fact of the matter is that neither of those MPs are associated with Jeremy Corbyn or the extreme left. They may have those views, but the electorate don't associate them as losers in the same way they do with corbyn and Abbott.
To be fair, the people of Hackney (me included) hold Dianne Abbott in high regard for her past. Not who she is right now. She’s loved for that, and rightly so. She IS a victim of circumstance but politically, people in the area see both sides of it.
Good thing he's cleaned up the party image then by welcoming in real upstanding politicians like Natalie Elphicke. And no he's not going garner votes from the left by default. As someone who considers themselves center left he's already lost my vote, and there will be countless others he will have driven away, and they're not entirely far left radicals either.
Who will you vote for in your constituency?
If they need to cut costs they're going to cut the ancillary services. They're going to do as little as possible to impact the people who pay them, that much is obvious. Any organisation works the same way.
There are two forms of elitism here. First you will push out the parents who already make sacrifices and can't stomach then extra fees. The private schools become more elite as the richer parents stay put.
Then you have the secondary elitism. Those middle parents who can't afford an extra 3 or 4k per year (double it if 2 kids) can afford an extra 2 or 3k on their mortgages, so they will use that extra money to buy within the residential catchment areas of the best state schools. The lower earners get pushed out and their kids lose the opportunity to be in a good state school.
None of this is speculation as we have been able to see it all play out in miniature as private school fees have risen above inflation. Adding VAT will push it into overdrive. It's just an ill thought through policy in every aspect but I am in no way surprised it plays well to Labour's traditional voter base.
You are making the assumption that private schools are good for people. They are academically terrible given the resources they have, they block social and economic mobility and contribute to the deeply destructive class system that have infected the UK since forever. Education needs to be for everyone and not just the wealthy who can afford private school fees. Throwing a few breadcrumbs to the plebs doesn't make that any less true.
It's bollocks.
So you’re saying that all parents want is good schools?……..
And that private schools don’t care about society as a whole……..
Forgive me for not giving a feck about people with wealth losing out and having to cut their cloth accordingly.
This ‘if the wealthy people can’t have their barely affordable school then they’ll just buy poorer peoples houses and go to the school they want’…. Oh how noble and inspirational and avante garde. They could do this already and don’t. feck them. Every single one of them.
Bear in mind… I FULLY understand that that could have been me. Had my child been faced with a shit school and I could afford a great private… OF COURSE I would have made the difficult but easy choice.
But that’s only as valid as ‘If someone killed my family member I’d want them dead’ while also being against the death penalty.
The Tories have destroyed society. Not just the economy and services. But society. The constant pursuit of ‘Me first, I have money, you can wait’. It’s broken everything.
So, for the few single digit thousands of people that are now fecked with a private school cost increase? Cry me a river. For every one of them, there are HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of kids that can’t eat enough every day.
Schools wailing ‘but if our parents have to pay VAT then we have to cut swimming pool usage by the local state school’. Nope. Burn.
The whole private/state education sector needs revolution and a sharp, short and painful solution is absolutely necessary. Let’s see the size of the hearts and analyse the politics of the people that have helped ruin it.
Cossetting a tiny demographic to the detriment of a gigantic one is pathetically silly.
I’m sorry if it’s you or anyone here. I’m sorry for all strangers affected. But I’m not sorry beyond the personal level. The system is broken and the people running it are garbage.
It's disgraceful that you can expense a racism awareness course you've been sent onto after using a slur. Either him or the party has to pay that.
If you're paying £15k a year for education, an additional £3k isn't going to cause the meltdown you seem to be inferring will happen in terms of moving kids to state school. Even the IFS states that it has a relatively low responsiveness, whereby that 20-40k fall in pupils will be spread out over time rather than overnight. Even on a crass calculation/weighting we're talking 1 student per every state school.
On scholarships there's been enough research done to highlight that a lot of what they do is overstated - https://www.britsoc.co.uk/media-cen...-schools-more-socially-inclusive-study-finds/
The Greens most likely.
I'm sure it would for lower earners putting their kids through private school already at the threshold of what they can afford.
As an example, I dated a girl whose mum did this for her sister. I'm not entirely sure why but she was working secondary jobs to pay tuition which included cleaning and doing bar work. We talked about it a few times because I always found it a little barmy she was sending her sister to private school despite not having a huge amount of money. She said her mum was adamant she wanted her to have the head-start in life that she didn't get (admirable, I suppose).
My immediate ex also went to private school, as did her siblings, so that would have been an extra 9k a year for the family but in all honesty I'm less sympathetic with this one as they were loaded and probably could have afforded it
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How so?
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