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School’s Out For Some
Labour’s proposed addition of VAT on private school fees will ultimately penalise the wrong people
Our oceans are complex, multifaceted things. Most of the known action happens on, or just a smidgen under the surface. The next hundred metres or so gets progressively darker and less animated, and below that you reach abyssal depths, where the creatures become incrementally odd looking with names to match. Cuvier’s beaked whales dive to 3,000 metres where they might float, unknowingly, past vampire squid, goblin sharks, dumbo octopuses and fangtooths.
Way down in Challenger Deep, the abysmal section of the Mariana Trench at approximately 10,935 meters, amphipods exist alongside strange single-celled organisms called xenophyophores. Down there, we only know what we don’t know, which is almost everything. Fewer than twenty-five people have ever made the return journey.
I was reminded about this impenetrable unknown when reading through Labour’s proposed 20% VAT policy on private school fees should they/ when they win the forthcoming Election.
On the face of it, it’s a fair shout. Everything else we buy is subject to VAT, including luxury items unavailable to the masses. If Porsches, horse boxes, Banksy prints, lawyers and Patek Philippe watches incur value added tax, then why wouldn’t an elitist, class exclusive and financially…
