General Election 2024: General UK Politics Discussion here

[alchresearch]

3 hours ago, Prettytom said:

Most private schools charge £20 000+ per year. Most parents who send their kids to private school are well off by any metric you use. 
 

Let’s not pretend that this is an assault on the aspiring working and lower middle classes. It’s quite the opposite, it is the privileged, using their privilege to keep an unwarranted subsidy to their already comfortable lifestyles.

 

Private schools can keep their fees down by making efficiency savings. Meanwhile, state schools will improve as their PTR reduces.

 

I'd love to tell you how wrong you are in all those points, but it would compromise my position and betray my employer.

 

I'd love to show you where I work, get you to meet some of the parents, show you where they live, and the hard work they do in order to give their kids a better education and then you'd see they're not well off by any sense of the word.

 

But I will state that you are very wrong with your sweeping generalisations straight out of the Labour politics-of-envy playbook.

 

 

[Tony]

On 24/09/2024 at 14:03, Mister M said:

It's the system that needs to change, root and branch I think.

 

It's no good MPs of various stripes saying "it's within the rules". It might well be, however the rules need to change as it doesn't 'pass the sniff test'. It's only when it stinks to high heaven is there any movement.

I'm not over t he detail on the rules of who gets what government contract - but there should be a real oversight by something like a Public Account Committee who can scrutinise these outsourcing companies and their links to power

 

It doesn't even need a sniff test. I don't much care if they have free concert tickets, free apartments, free holidays free suits, free footy tickets, free St leger tickets, free meals, free taxies, free helicopters, free airfares, free hotels, free beer, free wine, free frocks for their wife  or even free rose tinted glasses that don't make you see more clearly.

 

And that's just the Prime Minister's recent freebies that I don't care much about. Nope, I don't care a bit.

 

What I do care is that if an MP can get a benefit, you and I should be entitled to exactly the same benefit. That's it. End of caring.

[High Chaparral]

9 minutes ago, Prettytom said:

School fees have risen by almost 10% this year.

 

Now to tax them properly 

Backpedalling I see now your original figures have been proven to be wrong.  Normally school fees rise by about 5%.  

 

VAT on school fees will affect those struggling to pay £10,000 a year for a child rather than the rich who can afford to pay £50,000 a year to send a child to Eton.  

 

My friends who are retired are planning to fund their grandchild going to a local private school. They believe it's better to send their grandchild to a private school at the youngest age possible and give them a good start early in life. Then if they can't afford the school fees when the child is older the child will still have benefited from a private education if they have to move to a state school.  Conversations like this are happening all over the country in households which are not wealthy because of the dreadful Labour government.

[Tony]

16 hours ago, Mister M said:

Agreed.

The money used from the VAT charge on private education will go to pay for circa 6,000 teachers which will also help the children of good Dads.

 

Imagine a government taxing education.

 

Just imagine what kind of government would do that. Taxing education. Amazingly regressive. 

[Baron99]

2 hours ago, Tony said:

 

It doesn't even need a sniff test. I don't much care if they have free concert tickets, free apartments, free holidays free suits, free footy tickets, free St leger tickets, free meals, free taxies, free helicopters, free airfares, free hotels, free beer, free wine, free frocks for their wife  or even free rose tinted glasses that don't make you see more clearly.

 

And that's just the Prime Minister's recent freebies that I don't care much about. Nope, I don't care a bit.

 

What I do care is that if an MP can get a benefit, you and I should be entitled to exactly the same benefit. That's it. End of caring.

And you're forgetting one thing all MP's are entitled to.  To eat & drink in a number of restaurants & bars in central London at tax payer subsidised prices, namely the Palace of Westminster. 

[crisispoint]

Should Baron Alli and the Labour party be investigated for corruption?

[Mister M]

1 hour ago, crisispoint said:

Should Baron Alli and the Labour party be investigated for corruption?

I don't know....

At the moment all we know is that Lord Alli is a financial backer of the Labour Party. Has he got anything in return - contracts, lobbying etc?

 

And if politics isn't paid for by individuals or groups, then who is going to pay for it - the taxpayer? Can't see that going down very well.

 

The argument from all sides is that if everything is declared then it is transparent. I'm sure that if Lord Alli had got something in return we would know about it, given the number of journalists dedicated to this.

 

I listened to Any Questions on the radio last week, and the complaint of the Tories isn't that Lord Alli has donated to the Labour Party, but that when in opposition the Labour Party kicked up a fuss about VIP lanes, crony PPE contracts etc. To my mind that's poor - firstly, in the case of Lord Alli, massive amounts of public money has not been abused, secondly Lord Alli hasn't got anything in return, thirdly the Labour Party haven't done anything that the Tories haven't. There is no equivalence between the two.

However whenever the opposition pointed the fingers at the Tories for dodgy deals etc, they raised the expectation that they would be upright.

 

As I said earlier in the thread it doesn't pass the sniff test for many, nor for me either, and the claim that it's "in the rules" might be technically true, but it just means that the rules need tightening up.

[hackey lad]

Back tracking on the homes for heroes already . Only took two days. 

[Baron99]

2 hours ago, crisispoint said:

Should Baron Alli and the Labour party be investigated for corruption?

Well no because according to Dep PM, Angela Rayner, it's all above board & all MP's do this kind of thing, so nothing to see here, let's move on, draw a line under it all, forget about it, etc, etc. 

 

The same Angela Rayner who's been banging on about how wrong this sort of thing is for the past decade while in opposition. 

[Mister M]

4 minutes ago, hackey lad said:

Back tracking on the homes for heroes already . Only took two days. 

Any chance of a link?

I've looked on the internet and can't find anything relating to this.

Just now, Baron99 said:

Well no because according to Dep PM, Angela Rayner, it's all above board & all MP's do this kind of thing, so nothing to see here, let's move on, draw a line under it all, forget about it, etc, etc. 

 

The same Angela Rayner who's been banging on about how wrong this sort of thing is for the past decade while in opposition. 

Can't it be referred to the authorities?

I believe Misconduct in Public Office is on the statute books. 

And Angela Rayner has no say in whether it is investigated or not.