The UK now taxes the education of 550,000 children and we should all be ashamed of that. Note - I have 2 children in state school
England, United Kingdom
Joined April 2024
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More information emerging about the conviction of Del Somerville (jailed for two years for throwing a plastic bottle and telling police officers to 'F**k off' at a protest against the small boats).
The court heard that Somerville had played a relatively minor role at the incident, had tried to pull another protester away when he confronted police, actually lived at the marina rather than travelled there for the purpose of protesting, and that the plastic bottle he threw was 'small' or 'empty'.
It's impossible, in the context of wider sentencing policy in this country, to avoid the conclusion that the sanction handed down to Somerville amounts to two-tier justice.
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This is novel. “Sorry you were murdered in your homes, but national security cannot come before welfare payments”
🚨 BREAKING: Andy Burnham suggests he won't cut benefits to pay for defence spending
"National security cannot come at the expense of social security"
#PMQs
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Private school parents pay for the private sector (their own kids and bursary/scholarship kids) and the state sector plus VAT.
State school parents take from the state sector. Bridget Phillipson doesn’t even cover the cost of her own kids.
Perhaps she should pay her fair share.
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Far right = "holds national flag"
Sensible centre = "holds any other flag"
Is that it?
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If parents aren’t paying for their kid’s education, then the tax payer is.
So of course this means state education is now MORE expensive for the tax payer!
But government doesn’t mind because they have forced those ‘rich’ kids back into the state sector.
Social justice! 🙄
🚨 Labour’s private school VAT raid is pushing over 65,000 children out of independent education
1 in 10 pupils.
The Adam Smith Institute says this is 3x worse than the government predicted, with 115 schools already closed.
These kids aren’t disappearing they’re flooding into already oversubscribed state schools. Bigger classes, longer waiting lists, overstretched teachers, and crumbling buildings. Standards will fall for every child.
Taxpayers face an extra £500m+ bill a year, while the policy likely loses money overall.
Ideological vandalism that punishes aspiration.
Britain’s children deserve better.
#EducationFail #StateSchoolCrisis
#LabourFail
#VATRaid
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I am genuinely terrified by the number of people who think that increasing the minimum wage (and by extension other wages as others would want pay rises too) by 18% wouldn’t cause inflation.
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I’m sure we have all now seen the footage of Metropolitan rozzers kicking a suspected terrorist in the head, repeatedly, when he was down.
We can all play a part in putting an end to this sort of police brutality. Mainly by not going around stabbing people.
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Established 631AD...
... now killed off by a gormless ex-charity worker who's never had a job in education and a woman who lied on her CV.
Reeves and Philipson should face civil damages case for the harm they are causing to tens of thousands of lives/families... 133 schools and counting.
Another bit of History being closed because of labours tax raids
A 1,400-year-old school has been forced to shut down as a result of Chancellor Rachel Reeves's VAT raid on parents, according to the institution's governors.
Thetford Grammar School joins the list of more than 100 independent establishments that have shut down since the Labour Government's imposition of 20 per cent VAT on private school fees.
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Now this "policy" is exposed not only as a failure, but *actually a huge cost to the taxpayer*, it must be reversed immediately before any more damage is done.
I also think Reeves and Philipson should be considered for civil damages cases.
An exceptional article from @DrNickA on Labour’s VAT on private schools policy.
“If @bphillipsonMP had actually done any work as an educationalist she might have balked at the idea of directly harming tens of thousands of kids educational lives.”
A must read.
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VAT on private school fees was sold as a policy on two grounds.
1) Taxpayers were “subsidising” private education of the wealthy.
2) The policy would raise £1.5 billion a year and fund 6,500 new teachers.
These were both lies, and have been proven to be so.
The Adam Smith Institute (ASI) suggests that the net cost to the economy of this crazy policy could reach as much as £1.58 billion.
In other words
1. Private schools were actually already subsidising state education.
2. Rather than filling the public purse with extra revenue this policy is sucking funds out of the public sector pot.
Once again, as with every major government policy, these people were elected on a raft of lies and invalidated assumptions.
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A friend has been waiting for an operation on his spleen. Every time he waits for up to 3 months, his appointment is cancelled and then rearranged. Meaning he never appears on the system to be waiting longer than 3 months, NHS fraud on an Industrial scale.
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A Restore Britain Government would immediately reverse Labour's cruel VAT raid on private schools.
It is leading to school closures, job losses and more pupils being forced into state schools that simply cannot cope with the additional demand - everyone then suffers, obviously.
With so many students now being lumped into state schools that are already struggling, what's the result for children in those institutions? Less teacher time and stretched resources. Worse outcomes.
We're told the funds raised are being used to 'support public services'.
Total bollocks and we all know it.
The staggering lack of any logic from this Government is so painful.
Labour's private school VAT raid is really nasty politics.
Restore Britain would reverse it.
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Unemployment in the UK rose to a five-year high in the three months to December as the labour market continues to weaken. The number of people on payrolls dropped by 134,000 in the year to January.
The unemployment rate rose to 5.2% in the three months to December, up from 5.1%. Unemployment was 4.4% when Labour took office July 2024.
There are now just shy of 2m unemployed in the UK.
In addition there are around 5m of working age who are not working but claiming various welfare benefits who do not show up in the unemployment figures because they are not looking for work.
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@bphillipsonMP says she wants to improve opportunities for all children—so why make top sixth forms even harder to get into? #SchoolFeeVAT is forcing more students into state schools, but places haven’t increased. One child’s gain is another’s loss. Independent schools (used to) educate ~12% of sixth formers—now, if your child misses out, blame @UKLabour. They did this. #EducationNotTax
@MailOnline @ISC_schools @LauraTrottMP
Record numbers of pupils apply to top state sixth forms for A-levels after VAT was introduced on private school fees, heads say trib.al/PCbmgCb
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Shocking footage emerges of Rachel Reeves sister, Ellie Reeves, boasting of karaoke sessions with Ed Miliband.
Asked if she was PM for one day what would she do, she didn't say look for a cure for cancer or end wars, she says she would abolish private schools.
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That’s £111,111 per home. Including land purchase and build plus your (ridiculous) net zero requirements (on the build and contractors), this is laughably unachievable
My local council have spent £350k per house on 6 social homes achieving net zero on land that was gifted to them.
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.@educationgovuk has spent £90m on PR & £50m on solar panels.
Meanwhile, it has scrapped the Latin Excellence Prog. (£4m), language hubs (£5m), computing hubs (£4m), behavior hubs (£10m), the Physics Network (£3m) & Adv. Maths Support Prog. (£8m), citing a need to cut spending..
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I asked Oxford educated economist @garyseconomics how he would fix wealth inequality.
Gary says a 1% tax on people who have more than £10M net worth will fix our issues.
In the UK there are about 30,000 people who have £10M or more. Let's say each of them has an average net worth of £25M and would have to pay £150K more in taxes per year than they already do (1% of the £15M above £10M).
Let's also say that none of them leave the UK as a result of wealth taxes (which historically cause a wealth exodus).
If all goes to his plan we would collect £4.5B in new taxes.
The UK Government spends over £23Billion per week. Gary's plan would cover 36 hours of government spending ... while making the UK one of the most anti-wealth places on earth.
It wouldn't change the £10B+ per month of additional debt we are running up
Gary says he's a master at mathematics. He has a degree from LSE and Oxford. I have a no qualifications other than a drivers license and I can see this plan won't work.
