Peter Hitchens said: 'It's interesting that they're [Labour] so keen to do this thing, which will raise very little money and make almost no difference at all to state education, but which will make life incredibly difficult for so many of those people on the very edge of being able to afford independent education, who now won't be able to.
'It won't hurt the rich, who won't care at all.'
Sarah added: 'No they'll just carry on.'
Hitchens continued: 'It's just a pure act of spite against independent education and it gives you a very good indication of what kind of government this really is.'
Vine said: 'Particularly against middle class people, I think, because as you say, the rich will just have one less holiday. And that'll be fine.' DM. (If that.)
Blogger: my wife was founder and Head Teacher of a small, independent Christian School for 32 years. (I acted as an unpaid consultant.)
It was private education for people who ranged largely between paupers and lower middle class. We tried never to deny a place to anyone on grounds of money. There were overtones of cooperativism in the running of this school which often had the best GCSE results in our city.
The relatively tiny fees cost the parents a huge % of their incomes, the HT was on an average of about 20% of a basic teaching salary in comprehensives. The staff all worked sacrificially - receiving a tiny % of what they could have earned in state schools.
The school was a success for 30+ years but finally failed after my wife's enforced retirement due to ill health.
The school took a great many children who were simply unable to cope in the huge meat grinder which state education can often be.
So. What is the point? - Quite simply that more than a thousand children would have been denied this educational opportunity under a government like this one.
So few families would have been able to afford Labour's oh-so spiteful imposition of VAT. The school would simply never have been able to exist.
