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Only if we let them.
By the time the evidence of the educational vandalism about to be unleashed becomes undeniable, it will be too late. Reversing the damage will be a painful, protracted undertaking.
The architects of these policies will be long gone, engaging in verbal gymnastics to explain away their failures and evade accountability.
Institutional amnesia will set in, and the fashionable words and phrases that once dominated educational discourse will disappear as quickly as they entered its lexicon.
The damage, however, will endure. And it will be children, teachers and school leaders who pay the price.
Surprised that there is no backlash against this state overreach
Are you a landlord? 🏠
From 15 December, if you’re a landlord of an assured or regulated tenancy in England, you must register yourself and each of your properties through the new service on GOV.UK by the deadline for your region. Letting agents can’t register on your behalf.
You’ll need to give details of your properties, like:
• the address 🔑
• the number of tenants and bedrooms 🛏️
• the amount of rent you're receiving for a property 💷
• gas and electricity safety certificates ⚡
You may be asked to provide energy performance certificates (EPCs) if your details can't be found on the EPC register.
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🎯 True of virtually every private school that isn’t a hugely famous name. Their ignorance has been so destructive.
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Thanks, Stuart. How about these to start with (in no particular order):
1. Increased financial burden on the state
2. Potential for a net fiscal loss
3. Elastic demand among middle class families, many of whom have only recently accessed private education after significant effort by previous generations who were working class.
4. Job losses in the independent sector and associated industries (negative multiplier effect)
5. Reduction in the availability of bursaries
6. The merit good argument and associated positive externalities
7. Distortion of market-based resource allocation
8. Crucially, imposing VAT on private schools will not lead to improvements in state education.
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Some of the arguments I made against imposing VAT on independent school fees back in May 2025. My position remains unchanged. It was the politics of envy then, and it remains the politics of envy now, a tax on aspiration, ambition and parental choice, dressed up as a policy to improve state education.
Thanks, Stuart. How about these to start with (in no particular order):
1. Increased financial burden on the state
2. Potential for a net fiscal loss
3. Elastic demand among middle class families, many of whom have only recently accessed private education after significant effort by previous generations who were working class.
4. Job losses in the independent sector and associated industries (negative multiplier effect)
5. Reduction in the availability of bursaries
6. The merit good argument and associated positive externalities
7. Distortion of market-based resource allocation
8. Crucially, imposing VAT on private schools will not lead to improvements in state education.
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Many millions of people are neurodivergent. It is completely unsustainable to give the vast majority of us/them benefits and discounts. I may be neurodivergent, my son is, my siblings are but I’m not looking for either a diagnosis, a discount or a benefit.
This should guide our political leaders, not spite. If @andyburnham really wants to be different. I know the country is poor but VAT on education, making good education exclusive serves no one
It is the same ideological contradiction exemplified by Diane Abbott and Shami Chakrabarti, who chose private education for their own children.
If the local state school is not good enough for your own children, on what moral authority do Labour loyalists seek to undermine the discipline and standards in schools educating other people’s children?
I fear their approach risks reversing the hard-won improvements in educational standards achieved under the previous Conservative government.
I believe in parental choice. The state should not make private education prohibitively expensive or seek to restrict the alternatives available to families. If state schools wish to compete, the answer is to improve the quality of education they provide, not to diminish the choices available to parents.
The solution is to raise standards, not restrict choice
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It is the same ideological contradiction exemplified by Diane Abbott and Shami Chakrabarti, who chose private education for their own children.
If the local state school is not good enough for your own children, on what moral authority do Labour loyalists seek to undermine the discipline and standards in schools educating other people’s children?
I fear their approach risks reversing the hard-won improvements in educational standards achieved under the previous Conservative government.
I believe in parental choice. The state should not make private education prohibitively expensive or seek to restrict the alternatives available to families. If state schools wish to compete, the answer is to improve the quality of education they provide, not to diminish the choices available to parents.
The solution is to raise standards, not restrict choice
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Landlords should just have to obey the law, not have "a side in a social contract". The way you solve the problem of bad landlords is by making it so worthwhile to own and rent out a place that the good landlords crowd out the bad - same as in any business. When was the last time you went into a "bad" supermarket?
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The housing market is a whole, if you attack landlords by imposing an additional 4% tax in just one year you impact the entire market, mortgages. developer share values AND the value of people’s homes.
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Being self-employed, this and Making Tax Digital make me want to emigrate. Ever more bureaucratic inconvenience for such a paltry, negligible gain to the public purse!
The hidden tax measure in the Budget is huge for people paying tax under self-assessment - sole traders, partners, landlords, retired investors.
For 6th April 2028-29, you currently pay 50% of your income tax late in the tax year in question (in January 2029), 50% just after the year end (in July 2029) with any make-up payment in January 2030.
Under the new proposals you will pay your tax perhaps monthly or quarterly (TBC) from April 2029 onwards. A rough analysis suggests the impact is to draw about 50% of your tax bill forward, a huge cashflow boost to HMRC and a significant funding issue for the self-employed.
The Treasury recognises this, and expects to raise £1.3bn of additional tax in 29/30 as a result of this change.
The cashflow impact of the accelerated charge will send some businesses to the wall.
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This is the kind ignorance which has encouraged @JohnHealey_MP to have a go at landlords, it won’t end well.
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BREAKING: Leweston School, founded in 1891 and celebrated for its pastoral care, has closed with immediate effect - heartbreaking for pupils, families, staff and the local community (via @DorsetEcho) dorsetecho.co.uk/news/266751…
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Missing some context here.
There was, in fact, a political party in Israel that long embraced the possibility of a Palestinian state. That was the Labor Party. But then the second intifada happened, the Palestinian Authority abandoned any pretense of democracy, and Hamas was elected in Gaza, killed off the opposition — and then, well, attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, murdering more than 1,200.
Had the Palestinians, at any step along the way, accepted the Jewish state, and embraced self-rule, they would, no doubt, be in a very different place today. They might even have a state.
But because Palestinians can’t push past their hatred of Israel, because so many of their “supporters” insist on viewing them as toddlers and encourage that hatred (financially and otherwise), they remain confined to a quasi-permanent liminality. Which is awful for Palestinians but very useful for those who wish to use them as a cudgel with which to bludgeon Israel.
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Depressing replies to this, implying it’s pure happenstance a couple could have a combined income of £400k and only right they pay their ‘fair share’. Worse, that sentiment is becoming the majority view, and too few people now earn enough to form an electoral counterweight.
I read a piece in the FT this week about the price of being middle class in Britain now and it said a couple earning £436,000 combined take home £216,000. That’s a crazy amount of tax, and it doesn't include VAT on purchases, council tax, stamp duty or other taxes (I think does include pension contributions). I can’t stop thinking about it.
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Labour’s vindictive assault on education has real consequences. Leweston School near Sherborne is closing permanently after half-term, leaving hundreds of pupils, families and staff in turmoil. Nobody benefits from these closures—not even the Exchequer.. dorsetlife.co.uk/leweston-sc…
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I earn £100 grand a year.
I have a detached house. 2 cars and my wife is a full time home maker.
I can just about afford this. I probably couldn’t afford the house I own if I was buying for the first time today.
My salary puts me in the top 5% of earners in the UK.
Top 5% to have a similar standard of living to Homer Simpson.
That is a disgrace.
We have a flatter salary distribution than Soviet Russia and the highest taxes and borrowing costs we’ve seen in generations.
Success is almost impossible because our tax system means hard work makes you a stressed out tax cow, not wealthy and certainly not free.
We need something radical.
Less state.
More family.
Less handouts.
More reward for risk.
Instead. Tomorrow, Labour will offer another batch of policies which will send one message to aspirational Brits: why bother.
I read a piece in the FT this week about the price of being middle class in Britain now and it said a couple earning £436,000 combined take home £216,000. That’s a crazy amount of tax, and it doesn't include VAT on purchases, council tax, stamp duty or other taxes (I think does include pension contributions). I can’t stop thinking about it.
Iranian or Russian bots?
Benjamin Netanyahu: 53 seats
Gadi Eisenkot: 67 seats
Netanyahu’s party loses the Israeli election.
@grok , verify this.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Israel's Oct 27, 2026 election was still underway when this was posted (12:18 GMT). Polls close at 10pm local (20:00 GMT), and official results are published Nov 4. aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/2… Final pre-election polls showed neither bloc with a 61-seat majority. jpost.com/israel-electio…