Nicola Woolcock’s headline in The Times has me reaching for expletives. “Parents fear social engineering, says leading head.” Fuck off! What is the system of private education if not social engineering writ large?
The children of the wealthy are no more intelligent than the children of the poor. Poverty is not a lack of character or intellect, it’s a lack of money.
Allowing these businesses to keep, to profit from, the huge sums of money that should be paid in VAT, means the state is subsidising these privileged educations.
It’s the arrogance of their presumption that is so infuriating. I have a private education so I have a right to a place at Oxbridge.
This reminds me of some rosey cheeked fop on Question Time, in May 2017, answering a question about Labour plans to remove VAT loophole from public schools.
His lack of awareness when saying “it would deny the brightest and the best” is infuriating. The charitable status he is trying to defend denies revenue to the state. That money could be used to fund an equal or better education system than the one he has benefited from.
He may well be the brightest and the best, but the brightest and best what? Lightbulb? Nurse? Bus driver? Insurance broker? Hedge-fund manager? The brightest and the best means nothing if you’re standing on someone’s neck to be there.
I’m afraid he comes from a long line of likeminded souls who think they’re the cream and we’re the milk. Personally, I think they’re the smelter and we’re the molten steel, but who’s comparing?
There is one final irony in this story. The full article sits behind a pay wall, keeping out anyone too poor to pay £26 a month for their propaganda.
Darrin // Nightingale 
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