PM adopts Trump playbook..

Most aren't interested in false or empty promises, high on the priority list is a system based on prudence, transparency and accountability

On the point of fee paying schools my GS was totally ignored at his local primary school. His parents were constantly having to explore why he was having so many altercations with classmates. The school just kept asking what was going on at home to be causing these! Never any explanation from school. The family members saw the distress this was causing GS and his parents that 5 of us agreed to contribute to attendance at fee paying school. By end of first term new school had assessed GS as having ADHD. He is now in year 9, excels in many subjects and actually enjoys school. I dread to think where he would be if he hadn't moved to fee paying school. Not all attending fee paying schools are there for high flying results or status. Adding vat will be yet anotger contribution we will be making to state funds in addition to the income tax we already pay for the woeful state education system.

4allweknow

On the point of fee paying schools my GS was totally ignored at his local primary school. His parents were constantly having to explore why he was having so many altercations with classmates. The school just kept asking what was going on at home to be causing these! Never any explanation from school. The family members saw the distress this was causing GS and his parents that 5 of us agreed to contribute to attendance at fee paying school. By end of first term new school had assessed GS as having ADHD. He is now in year 9, excels in many subjects and actually enjoys school. I dread to think where he would be if he hadn't moved to fee paying school. Not all attending fee paying schools are there for high flying results or status. Adding vat will be yet anotger contribution we will be making to state funds in addition to the income tax we already pay for the woeful state education system.

The education system is woeful because it has been underfunded for years. My daughter says that she will be happy to return to teaching if we have a Labour government having watched it deteriorate year on year under the Tories. I believe that there are fewer teaching assistants now due to cuts but am happy to be corrected on this.

I’m reading in several places that it’s as though the Tories are deliberately ‘trying’ to lose the GE. Sunak we know says he doesn’t want to be a ‘Wartime PM’ and according to many, that’s the way we’re heading. Biden has given the Ukrainians permission to use US weapons to strike Russia’s interior, so that is a green light for retaliation and then, as per usual, we’ll be dragged into war.
Also as we know, PMs are ‘selected’ not ‘elected’ and it’s time for the baton to be handed to Kier ‘WEF’ Starmer. Each PM in various countries, since 2020, have played their part and then been moved on for another to replace them - often unelected!

GrannyGravy13

The other Tories are out and about in their constituencies, knocking on doors and keeping their profiles in local newspapers/media outlets.

Not around here they aren't. I've lived here 13 years and not once, whether a general or local election, have we ever seen a Tory doing anything.

missdeke- bang on!

Sunak hasn't been elected by the UK electorate. No Tory would want to be PM after the past few years- Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and now Sunak. The party is over for the Tories, and I'm loving it after all the pain they have inflicted in the past 14 years.

On fee paying schools, I can’t for the life of me not understand why a voucher scheme is not available to make access to private education fairer and more accessible. How is it that State education costs £6k primary and £8k secondary but it’s not a transferable benefit?

State education for all, properly supervised, is a right not a benefit. We already have the capacity for free schools to be set up.

Education for all is a right

Privilege for some should not be a right.

Wwm2. This whole topic of education and privilege is a minefield. Labour will lose votes over their current proposals.
Privilege is so embedded in this society that private education is only a small part of the total picture.
When I think of privilege in the Uk , the Blair family with selective State education head the list. Is this fair?

Believe me, I/we hear outrageous lies from Trump almost 24/7, and if that’s not enough his acolytes in the Republican party are falling in lockstep behind him repeating them too. They’ve all gone BONKERS!

Of course the opposition party (Democrats) counter everything with facts, which is turned around by Trump who says They are lying. Pure viciousness here!

The cancer grows when the leader and all his supporters in the party start spewing the same - trying to confuse and SCARE the electorate. These tactics are directly out of an autocratic playbook. They’ll do anything to stay in power. Be careful to not fall into cult thinking.

I think it will be £2K a year if not more by the time you include all the indirect taxes that will probably rise. Any party that ends up forming a government has no option. I am impressed by The Six Steps of Labour but the how and the financial implications are enormous.

robin 202 I so agree!

I was brought up by a father who was left wing Labour , castigated my sister for voting Tory in the 80's/90's due to her DH's fantastic job (I was outraged) However, over the last couple of lections I've voted Tory. Jeremy Corbyn was one of the reasons and I think I was so disgusted by Tony Blair and his political enclave I moved from Labour to Tory. ot wildly proud of it but very few other alternatives. I don't want to vote for the Tories due to their performance over the last god knos number of years. I don't want to vote for Starmer because he flip flops like a fish from police to policy and can't seem to make up his mind. I won't vote for SNP, there troubles have been well documented in the press and John Swinney has already reverted to the independence vote as being foremost for Scotland and the Greens are just complete and utter rubbish from a Scotland point of view. Doesn't leave me a lot of choice. I'm hoping for an independent Labour or Tory candidate in our area. Otherwise I feel I'm going to the ballot box at when they open and being chucked out at 10:00pm without ever having made a decision. I think we're in an era of the worst MPs/MSPs that I have ever known. We need a rethink. We need people who have lived experience who know what it's like to be the ordinary man/woman.

Apologies for spelling mistakes. Just so incensed that I find it so difficult to vote for anyone who has a semblance of honour. Very old fashioned term, I know, but it's how I feel.

A misleading title, as whatever poor soaking wet little Rishi does as his party gets crushed on July 4th, he is NOT Chump, and shouldn't be linked to him.

Chump is a racist, sexist, fraud, multiple bankrupt, serial liar, braggart, and a thoroughly repulsive human being. And now a felon. Sunak has faults, like most of our politicos, but isn't at the cockroach level like Chump.

Doubtless we shall soon be referring to Starmer as PM, no surprise as the Tories have been shooting themselves in both feet for some years now. History tells us that our Govt lurches to the left every now and again, as the reigning Tories get tired and flabby. Then after 2 or 3 Parliaments, the pendulum will likely swing back again, it's what we do, happened to Attlee, then Wilson & Callaghan alienated a couple of million union members, and even the Bliar/Brown reign came to a crashing end.

There is a saying that we get the Govt we deserve . . .depressing isn't it?

Whitewavemark2

Privilege for some should not be a right.

Even in Communism there is privilege.

Freya5

Whitewavemark2

Privilege for some should not be a right.

Even in Communism there is privilege.

?

The Treasury Permanent Secretary (a Truss appointee) has repudiated the Tory £2,000 tax lie. Good for him. But the Tories will keep repeating it to mislead the gullible. If you're going to tell a lie, tell a whopper is a political mode.

2,000 would just be loose change Our Rishi probably randomly loses down the back of the sofa. And hardly notice it's gone.

My 2 grandsons are at an independent school as their father is a diplomat. This has even them stability and forge strong friendships. Our son is NOT rolling in money!

For Whitewave, you really didn't understand that "even in Communism there is privilege" comment??

Check out Animal Farm, and the "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" quote? Orwell wrote his satire in WW2, and though he was a democratic socialist (think Scandinavia perhaps), he knew plenty about Stalin's Russia and detested that regime.

Stalin and the Party rulers lived like royalty (the same bunch they'd bumped off in the Revolution), as does the North Korean leader right now, he's not on the verge of starvation like half the population!

When Mugabe took over in Zimbabwe, he claimed to be a man of the people, for the people . . .which is how he got to rape the country for hundreds of millions, stashed in Switzerland, and indulge in luxury houses, fleets of limos, etc.

Tory Lies? Well, as some have said, they all do, when it's convenient. I've said several times I have no faith in any of them, any badge. I have special contempt for those who are revealed as hypocrites.

There were comments about fee-paying schools, and a likely Labour attack on them. I'll mention Diane Abbott, trying to stand FOR Labour, and strongly supported by Angela Rayner, Labour deputy leader, and will be the actual leader if the left-wing group which is still active can shift Starmer.

Here's an article about Abbott, from 4 years ago (her blatant hypocrisy is quite well known, but may be new to some) :-
Diane Abbott attempts to block coverage of son’s court hearing >>>
The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott MP, tried to prevent the Daily Telegraph from reporting the details of a court hearing in which her son was accused of assaulting a police officer.

Ms Abbott was approached for comments when reports of the incident began circulating on the internet. Her solicitors subsequently sent a legal letter shortly after, the details of which are private and cannot be published.

Her son, James Abbott-Thompson, was arrested outside the Foreign Office in Whitehall, following an incident with an 'emergency worker'. The alleged assault took place within an hour of the London Bridge terrorist attack.

The two incidents are not connected.

Mr Abbott-Thompson was charged with two accounts of assaulting an officer and a further charge under Section 4 of the Public Order Act. He is next due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on February 7th 2020.

Ms Abbott has previously, in Parliament, expressed her concern over assaults on emergency workers and police officers and has stated that "for too long police victims of violence have felt like second-class victims".

She had also told MP's at a 2016 Commons debate that "All assaults on the police are unacceptable and we will discuss how to address them"

Ms Abbott, was criticised for controversially sending her son, in 2004, to the City of London School, one of Britain's most prestigious schools. She defended her decision in 2010 when she was standing for the Labour leadership, telling newspapers that it was "the making of him".

Tony Blair's son Euan went to the London Oratory school, and later got an MA from Yale which he attended with a £50K grant (what a stroke of luck? ).

Poor Stewaris -- I feel your pain. However difficult the choice is, PLEASE DO NOT be tempted to write “all Tories are B*st*rds”, “Corbyn is a Commie”, “why are Mars Bars so small now”, or “please help Spurs win the League” (choose your pet peeve) on the voting slip.

The messages do NOT go to the PM, or the King, the editor of the Sun (etc), Simon Cowell, or anyone who can help. They (“spoiled slips”) end up in a dusty box for umpteen years, unseen except by counters and the candidates’ agents!