John McDonnell - fee paying scholar to Marxist

Closet Tories aren't they ?

No not on an equal footing but fairness in tax, fairness in paying a living wage, fairness in medical provision, fairness in adequate housing or education or enough to eat.

Not equal but fair.

Politics of Envy? However much L pledge to education they will not be able to spend upwards of £15,000 p.a. on a child's education.

WWM2 they didn't adhere to that when they were in power did they ? Too busy feathering their own nests.

Your description of them as closet Tories is hardly an advert is it.

During Labours tenure the NHS indicators all rose to the highest level ever, they have since fallen drastically.
During Labours tenure child poverty fell year on year, child poverty is at the highest level ever under the Tories.
During Labours tenure education was better funded then it had ever been previously. Since the Tories took power schools have struggled under drastic cut backs and the acadamy system expanded by the Tories is beginning to fail.

I could go on.

Perhaps he hated his private school.

So what if some labour MPs are millionaires. We have no idea whether they give money away or not. None of our business. We just need to make sure we use our own money in a worthy way.

a vocation to be a priest is surely a noble one

A child that age rarely has a vocation or even a burning ambition although some might.
I knew someone years ago whose parents sent him to a seminary when he was very young and he was, although gentle and lovely, one of the most screwed up young men I knew.

Urm was McD scavenging for biscuits and herring when he was at this boarding school? Perhaps the food was as inadequate as at DH's!

Oh sorry, misread.
He was fed broken biscuits and scavenged herring!

The one thing those at the heart of Labour all have in common is that they loathed their private or grammar schools.
Could that be a sub-conscious reason to want to eradicate them all?

Wish I had some broken biscuits. We used to buy boxes of them from the market when we visited a neighbouring town. When my girls were little.

I don’t know the context of his remarks Callistemon but strange, aren’t they?

You could be right Gonegirl.

But for me, it isn't the fact that he went to an expensive private school (so many of them do after all) it’s that he must have come from a well off family that's an issue here.

The fact that he's tried so hard to hide it that's shocking!

Didn't pick up a posh accent did he?

Late to this thread but I have to take some issue with this:

According to Wikipedia, McDonnell went to a local grammar school and then "began training to be a Catholic priest, receiving a Church grant to attend St Joseph's College, Ipswich,[11] a Roman Catholic boarding fee-paying independent school...before eventually deciding against the vocation at the age of 15 or 16".

I volunteer at a former Roman Catholic Seminary and boarding school which was set up some 200 years ago to offer a catholic education to boys of catholic families and to train young men for the priesthood. Naturally it was fee paying because all schools were then fee paying. When schooling became compulsory and free in the late 19th century there was no provision for this specifically catholic education. If parents wanted a specifically catholic education for their sons, fee paying schools were all that were available to them. If it was felt that the boy had a vocation and the parents were poor the local catholic diocese funded their education with a view to maintaining a supply of young men for the catholic priesthood.

These schools cum seminaries were the only route to the priesthood. There were a number of them up and down the country. The practice of diocesan funding was finally abandoned in the 70's when it was decided that it was too expensive and risky to fund boys from the age of 11 in the hope that they would become priests. This led to the demise of the 'school' element pf these institutions. We get frequent visits from old boys who left at after A levels at 18 to go to secular universities and to pursue a secular career. There is nothing unusual about it.

What I am saying is that these schools were a necessity for the catholic church. McDonnell's educational career at this institution was a perfectly normal, common experience for boys from catholic families, rich or poor. It wasn't a 'privileged' education as we now understand the term. So all this talk of 'hypocrisy' is nonsense. (do you not have a spell checker, Ug?)

I would venture to say that perhaps his christian upbringing made him alive to the injustices and inequalities in the world and, while he may not now be a practising christian (I have no idea if he is or not) Marxism is quite compatible with Christianity.

Oh MaizieD (do you not have a spell checker, Ug?)

When I think of all the times GabriellaG was castigated for pulling people up on their spelling - are you taking on her mantle now she has left GN?
?

Ah it all sounds SO straightforward and transparent so why try to hide it then?

In 2017 he requested his photo be removed from the page showing past pupils.

Sneaky.

are you taking on her mantle now she has left GN?

Only when I'm particularly irritated, Ug

Gosh such vitriol aimed at me. Are you and WWmk2 playing tag team on here?

I guess you both vote Labour.

No-one likes a hypocrite do they? Preaching one thing and then doing another - I remember the Blairs using the catholic argument for choosing a better education for their own children - nothing changes!

It's his lying that is being highlighted.

Instead of acknowledging that he was given financial help to attend a good school which has probably helped him in many ways, he is pretending that that it wasn't actually a school and that he was only there for a couple of years.

It's funny how everyone on the left keeps calling Boris a liar when they are accomplished liars themselves.

I guess you both vote Labour. ???
What on earth made you think that Urm ?

Because I think I’ve touched a nerve. They both had snippy (uncalled for comments) and know I support Boris.

The Blair’s were/are R.C.