Tag Archives: status

Labour’s plan for public schools is controversial; here’s why

Eton: it’s just a school. Why should it have charitable status or VAT exemptions to make the £50,000-per-year tuition fees go even further than they already do?

On one hand, it’s just another broken Keir Starmer promise.

But it seems to have created a lot more heat than might be expected.

Here’s what’s going on:

Labour has dropped plans to end charitable status for private schools but says it will still remove other tax breaks if it wins the next general election.

The status exempts some private schools in England and Wales from taxes.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had previously said charitable status for private schools could not be justified.

The party now says it can remove “unfair tax breaks” without changing the rules on charitable status.

There are about 2,500 private schools in England and Wales and the government says half are registered as charities.

Having charitable status means schools can not operate for a profit and are eligible to claim some tax exemptions, for example, on donations and business rates.

Since 2006, private schools have had to demonstrate they were creating “public benefit” to maintain their charitable status.

Labour says it would charge private schools 20% VAT, as well as ending business rates relief, to raise an estimated £1.7bn.

It’s the last bit that is causing trouble among some commentators, it seems.

Labour is saying its plan was always to remove tax breaks that the party seems to believe give private schools an advantage over state-run schools.

In fact, education in the UK is a mess – due in part to the encroachment of privatisation into the state sector, with privately-run academies whose owners seem to collapse with alarming regularity, only to be replaced with more doomed privateers.

A few decades ago, some corner-cutting government (does it matter whether it was Labour or Tory?) decided to build new schools using RAAC concrete, and now those buildings are falling down. This does not improve the state of, well, state education either.

Meanwhile, on the private side, we have seen schools like Eton unleash one dunce after another into the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. Boris Johnson is living proof that an Eton education is not the gold standard it once was.

But the “Old School Tie” network means these numbskulls can climb the slippery pole to success with much less effort than the rest of us, despite being far less deserving of it.

Result: well, you can see it all around you. The UK is on the brink of collapse.

The fact is that neither Labour nor the Tories have anything like a decent grip on what needs to be done.

So they argue about side issues like VAT as if they matter, and then fall to personal insults:

Time to let somebody else make an educated guess at how to solve this?


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Is Labour really planning to scrap – or protect – non-dom tax status?

Is Labour’s plan for a short-term replacement for non-dom tax status just a way of dressing up protection for the earnings of rich foreigners earning money in the UK?

When the party was mooted to be considering changes, This Writer’s understanding was that non-doms would be protected so the party could seek donations from grateful beneficiaries.

Now, following the scandal of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, who was avoiding huge tax bills by claiming non-dom status, Labour is saying it will abolish the status and replace it with a shorter-term scheme for temporary residents, lasting up to five years.

The party is claiming that this is in line with similar schemes in other countries.

But here’s a question: what happens, under Labour’s plan, when the five-year period is up? Could the person claiming the tax perk not take a break from the UK and then come back and claim it again – or find some other dodge?

If Labour is serious about this – and it should be welcomed if so – then let’s be sure that it actually does what the party says it does.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Letters wrongly demanding that UK citizens seek ‘settled’ status could be part of established Tory plan

Around six months ago, This Writer received a form letter from the Department for Work and Pensions, demanding details of my self-employed earnings from me (if I recall correctly) and saying my claim for Carers’ Allowance was in danger if I didn’t respond.

I found this behaviour extremely odd as I had quit Carers’ Allowance more than a year previously.

I wrote back, pointing this out, and also the fact that we had agreed at the time that I had done the right thing and that my finances were in order.

I did not receive a reply – neither acknowledgement nor apology.

I mention this because yesterday, on Twitter, I read the following:

It seems there are more such cases:

The Home Office letter, according to the article, tells long-term British citizens they risk losing the right to work, benefits and free healthcare unless they apply for UK immigration status in the next six weeks.

The article states that people are concerned that it reveals weaknesses in the Home Office’s databases, but I don’t think that’s right.

It seems more likely to be an attempt to repeat what I think the DWP was trying to do to me – catch me out by inducing me to provide evidence that could be used against me; a fishing expedition.

And the Home Office has the perfect cover for it at the moment: Brexit.

So officers can say (as they have) that they are using every avenue available to ensure that everyone who needs to apply for the EU settlement scheme may do so, before it is too late and they have to face other consequences.

They say the letter does include a paragraph stating that those who already have citizenship that they do not need to apply – but this is buried on page two, far below the shock announcement that recipients may lose their right to work, benefits and free healthcare (free? It’s supported by our taxes/NI).

It seems clear to me that the Conservatives are abusing their control of the UK’s bureaucracy in order to cause as much fear and confusion as possible, keeping the public off-balance.

This makes people more susceptible to manipulation – and more likely to accept that they deserve punishment when they haven’t done anything wrong.

It’s gaslighting – and right on the border of fraud.

It could be interpreted as a new development of the Tory government’s racist “hostile environment” policy.

I wonder how many people have been fooled by it – and how many other such scams are being run by the Tories?

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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CBI head calls for GCSEs to be scrapped – BBC News

What do we think of this – the CBI splitting with the government and calling for vocational qualifications to have equal status with academic GCSEs?

The head of the CBI says a date must be set in the next five years to scrap GCSEs and introduce an exam system with equal status for vocational subjects.

John Cridland, director general of the employers’ group, says England’s exam system is narrow and out of date.

He proposes a system in which the most important exams would be A-levels, including both academic and vocational subjects, taken at the age of 18.

Ministers are pushing for all pupils to take a core group of academic GCSEs.

Source: CBI head calls for GCSEs to be scrapped – BBC News

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