Election 2024
- Thread starter Grasshopper
- Start date
Coach miguel
Apprentice
Bloody right. Sets my pulse racing. Where's my medication.
Ian_Davies
Apprentice
Quite apart from being the sexiest lady in political history (source: the walsworth sexy politician christmas compendium 2023), Angela is living proof that most parents can't afford to send their children to a private educational establishment, no matter how much they "scrimp and save," yet it's still possible to have none of life's advantages and still make something of yourself.
Those who deride her accent or supposed IQ disgust me tbh because I'd bet tens on they nearly all had more privileged starts in life than she had.
Those who deride her accent or supposed IQ disgust me tbh because I'd bet tens on they nearly all had more privileged starts in life than she had.
Coach miguel
Apprentice
Exactly. A smart,streetwise lady who scares the crap out the posh boys.
Frankel
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Coach miguel
Apprentice
What a stunner. She's got my ear anytime.
Frankel
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This topic was on Question Time the other week with Wes Streeting bleeting on.
Piers Morgan replied well you should be apologetic as it's the worst kind of politics of envy.
Correct!
Len Madeiros
Rookie
If the parents can’t afford the additional VAT - assuming the school passes on the full amount - I suggest they cancel Netflix and go without the occasional Costa Coffee.
Ian_Davies
Apprentice
I agree, Moehat.
As stated, the vast majority in this country simply can't afford to privately educate their children no matter how many sacrifices they make.
And a nation where children from more privileged backgrounds get better starts in life and get catapulted into jobs beyond their capabilities is no recipe for an efficient economy.
"Politics of envy" = the start of an end to this gross inequality after 45 years of it since 1979.
The rich and privileged have had it their own way most of my adult lifetime - well, they're about to become a little bit less rich and privileged so the poor can be a little bit less poor and unprivileged.
I shan't be shedding any tears for any of them
As stated, the vast majority in this country simply can't afford to privately educate their children no matter how many sacrifices they make.
And a nation where children from more privileged backgrounds get better starts in life and get catapulted into jobs beyond their capabilities is no recipe for an efficient economy.
"Politics of envy" = the start of an end to this gross inequality after 45 years of it since 1979.
The rich and privileged have had it their own way most of my adult lifetime - well, they're about to become a little bit less rich and privileged so the poor can be a little bit less poor and unprivileged.
I shan't be shedding any tears for any of them
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Ian_Davies
Apprentice
Just a week to go to Polling Day, and the latest updated poll-of-poll numbers suggest a slight ease in Labour support, ditto Reform UK (though the vagaries of first-past-the-post ironically giving them more Seats) and a strengthening of the Liberal Democrats, increasing their prospects of incredibly ending up as the Official Opposition. The Conservatives will no doubt be praying for a collapse in support for Reform UK in the final week....
Betting
Most Seats
Labour 1.01
Reform UK 120
Conservatives 190
Overall Majority
Labour 1.04
No Overall Majority 26
Reform UK 150
Conservatives 260
Conservative Seats
50-99 2.1
100-149 3.65
0-49 6
150-199 13
Conservatives to lose 201+ Seats: 1.11
Labour Seats
450-499 2.24
400-449 2.88
350-399 8.4
500+ 17.5
Source: "The Machine"
Latest (27th June) BBC Poll Tracker
Labour 40%
Conservatives 20%
Reform UK 16%
Liberal Democrats 12%
Green 6%
Electoral Calculus User-Defined
Seats Prediction Based On Above
Labour 450
Liberal Democrats 75
Conservatives 57
Reform UK 18
Green 4
Labour Majority: 250
jinnyj
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Absolutely pathetic comment. If you read my comment, my parents and grandparents sacrificed a huge amount so we could have the best education possible. Compared to my contemporaries from the primary school I left to go there, we had very little. Clothes were second hand (including school uniform), one UK based holiday a year and we didnt even own a tv until I was about 13. My mother used to save up Green Shield stamps to buy items like a spin dryer.
Maybe have a look at some of these on full benefits and see what they have in their houses!
But people shouldn’t have to make sacrifices so their child can have a good education. State schools should be given the funds to provide that. My daughter didn’t even have school books for her pupils.At one time she didn’t even have a desk. Like many teachers she just burnt out but hopes to go back to teaching under a Labour government.
Desert Orchid
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According to the High School of Glasgow (private) website:
Broadly speaking, the average cost for private day schools is £4,980 per term, or £14,940 per school year.
(20% VAT on top of that would amount to just under £3k.)
That doesn't include boarding. I am definitely all in favour of imposing VAT on private schools. VAT is meant to be a tax on luxury items and it would indeed be a luxury in the eyes of many working class - and even middle-class - families to be able to afford to educate one's children privately, and if they can afford £15k per year they can almost certainly afford another £3k.
A lot of the typical private-school users are very like the family of some of my friends at uni. They were lovely guys and very down to earth but their families' businesses meant their accountants could work the books in such a way that everyone in the family was privately educated yet they still managed to get a grant to attend uni.
And, of course, there's more to the education than the teaching, learning, facilities, etc. It also buys certain privileges via 'the old school tie' connections.
The guys I knew at uni were more than aware of this. When we were applying for teacher training we had to go through a 40-minute rigorous interview. The head of the panel was a senior member of staff at the private school these guys attended. We were coming out of these interviews pretty shell-shocked. These guys were telling us their interview consisted of a handshake (not a masonic one, just an 'old friend' one) and a "How's it going? You're in, by the way." That is a verbatim repetition of what one of them said to us.
Education has changed, though, beyond recognition. I went to a Senior Secondary (a Catholic one for the best qualified boys in the Catholic primaries in the entire county). It was harsh, disciplined - not that we didn't get up to stuff - and very focused but I was doing stuff in first year that I ended up trying to teach to senior pupils at comprehensive schools without much success.
I put that down to Primary Education of the era. I was doing long division in P3 or P4 and was parsing sentences in P5. (For the uninitiated, imagine the scene from The Shawshank Redemption when Andy is trying to teach the young gallus inmate how to break down a sentence. Expressions like "subordinate clause of reason" were no strangers to us.
I was doing subjunctive verbs in my second year of Spanish. By the time I was finishing teaching I wasn't having to teach them at Higher level in a language in which they are in common usage.
But these are all symptoms of a society that is in freefall.
All the great civilizations bring about their own downfall. Modern Western society is heading the same way.
Rant only just started but I'll restrain myself...
Broadly speaking, the average cost for private day schools is £4,980 per term, or £14,940 per school year.
(20% VAT on top of that would amount to just under £3k.)
That doesn't include boarding. I am definitely all in favour of imposing VAT on private schools. VAT is meant to be a tax on luxury items and it would indeed be a luxury in the eyes of many working class - and even middle-class - families to be able to afford to educate one's children privately, and if they can afford £15k per year they can almost certainly afford another £3k.
A lot of the typical private-school users are very like the family of some of my friends at uni. They were lovely guys and very down to earth but their families' businesses meant their accountants could work the books in such a way that everyone in the family was privately educated yet they still managed to get a grant to attend uni.
And, of course, there's more to the education than the teaching, learning, facilities, etc. It also buys certain privileges via 'the old school tie' connections.
The guys I knew at uni were more than aware of this. When we were applying for teacher training we had to go through a 40-minute rigorous interview. The head of the panel was a senior member of staff at the private school these guys attended. We were coming out of these interviews pretty shell-shocked. These guys were telling us their interview consisted of a handshake (not a masonic one, just an 'old friend' one) and a "How's it going? You're in, by the way." That is a verbatim repetition of what one of them said to us.
Education has changed, though, beyond recognition. I went to a Senior Secondary (a Catholic one for the best qualified boys in the Catholic primaries in the entire county). It was harsh, disciplined - not that we didn't get up to stuff - and very focused but I was doing stuff in first year that I ended up trying to teach to senior pupils at comprehensive schools without much success.
I put that down to Primary Education of the era. I was doing long division in P3 or P4 and was parsing sentences in P5. (For the uninitiated, imagine the scene from The Shawshank Redemption when Andy is trying to teach the young gallus inmate how to break down a sentence. Expressions like "subordinate clause of reason" were no strangers to us.
I was doing subjunctive verbs in my second year of Spanish. By the time I was finishing teaching I wasn't having to teach them at Higher level in a language in which they are in common usage.
But these are all symptoms of a society that is in freefall.
All the great civilizations bring about their own downfall. Modern Western society is heading the same way.
Rant only just started but I'll restrain myself...
barjon
Rookie
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Interesting, desert, not much doubt that the Old Boy network was about the best qualification you could get 
. Just a slight correction, it was Purchase Tax that was a tax on luxury items (Gerald Nabarro MP had a fine old time in the commons displaying similar items - I recall curtain rings - and questioning why one was taxed and the other not). VAT replaced Purchase Tax and was lauded as 10% on everything and thus easy to administer with no complication about what was liable and what not. That didn’t hold, of course, and our revered leaders couldn’t wait to start tinkering with it - and edge it up to the 20% we suffer today.
. Just a slight correction, it was Purchase Tax that was a tax on luxury items (Gerald Nabarro MP had a fine old time in the commons displaying similar items - I recall curtain rings - and questioning why one was taxed and the other not). VAT replaced Purchase Tax and was lauded as 10% on everything and thus easy to administer with no complication about what was liable and what not. That didn’t hold, of course, and our revered leaders couldn’t wait to start tinkering with it - and edge it up to the 20% we suffer today.
Ian_Davies
Apprentice
As stated, the private education system is a recipe for idiots from wealthy families ending up running the country and that's bad for the economy.
Call this the politics of envy if you like, but I call it the economics of pragmatism.
Everything is relative and, by definition, wanting the "best" for your child is wanting the "worst" for somebody else's - it's human nature to want to do it, but society needs to put strict limits on the ability to do it for the good of society overall.
Call this the politics of envy if you like, but I call it the economics of pragmatism.
Everything is relative and, by definition, wanting the "best" for your child is wanting the "worst" for somebody else's - it's human nature to want to do it, but society needs to put strict limits on the ability to do it for the good of society overall.
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Ian_Davies
Apprentice
But by definition wanting the best for your children means wanting something better than what other children get.
It's normal, everyone thinks like that, but it's not good for society and the economy.
It's a recipe for propelling people into positions of power because of family wealth, not calibre.
Society works best when there is equality of educational opportunity and the smartest, most hard working, call the shots, not those from wealthy families.
And anyone privately educated wasn't from a genuinely "poor" background - private education simply isn't an option for the genuinely poor, or indeed most of the country.
Meritocracy brings its own issues - everyone gets a fair chance and those who fail don't have the old "not for the likes of us" excuse for failing to get on in life anymore.
But meritocracy is the only way to have an efficient economy, led by the smartest, long term and private education is a barrier to meritocracy.
It's normal, everyone thinks like that, but it's not good for society and the economy.
It's a recipe for propelling people into positions of power because of family wealth, not calibre.
Society works best when there is equality of educational opportunity and the smartest, most hard working, call the shots, not those from wealthy families.
And anyone privately educated wasn't from a genuinely "poor" background - private education simply isn't an option for the genuinely poor, or indeed most of the country.
Meritocracy brings its own issues - everyone gets a fair chance and those who fail don't have the old "not for the likes of us" excuse for failing to get on in life anymore.
But meritocracy is the only way to have an efficient economy, led by the smartest, long term and private education is a barrier to meritocracy.
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100% correct Barjon most of us want the BEST for ALL children !!
Some just have The Green Eyed Monster called ENVY but can’t see it or admit to it.
Ian_Davies
Apprentice
How is sending a child to private school wanting the best for ALL children?
It's a recipe for people like Matt Hancock and Dido Harding holding positions of power - I rest my case.
Some people just don't want a fair society, with equal opportunity for all.
But can't see it or admit to it.
It's a recipe for people like Matt Hancock and Dido Harding holding positions of power - I rest my case.
Some people just don't want a fair society, with equal opportunity for all.
But can't see it or admit to it.