Classroom doors at the £18,000-a-year Catholic Alton School will shut for the final time this summer as a result of Labour’s plans to charge VAT on private school fees. The Telegraph has more.
Sir Keir Starmer’s planned tax raid on private education has claimed its first victim with the closure of a private school where parents faced paying thousands of pounds extra every year.
Families with children at Alton School in Hampshire, which last week announced it would shut this summer, have blamed the Labour Party’s tax policies for forcing parents to remove their children and place them in the state sector.
The school said in a statement on its website that “adverse political and economic factors” had drained pupil numbers, leaving it “unviable” to run.
Classroom doors at the £18,000-a-year Catholic school, which caters for 370 pupils, will close for the final time at the end of the academic year.
The school has suffered from dwindling pupil numbers in recent years, but the likelihood of a Sir Keir victory in the general election is said to have exacerbated the issue, with parents describing it as the “final nail in the coffin”.
Labour has doubled down on its commitment to apply VAT “straight away” on private school fees if it wins the keys to No. 10 in July.
Parents and headteachers across the country fear the 20% tax will spark an exodus of pupils as families struggle to afford fees. The hike could have added as much as £3,600 to Alton’s existing fees.
A parent of two pupils at the school said: “Labour’s VAT plan has clearly had a pretty terrible impact on intake for September.
“It seems like it’s been the final nail in the coffin. It’s been a topic of conversation for quite some time, and with Labour looking more and more likely to get in, it’s become more relevant.
“I know a decent proportion of parents are now looking at the state sector.”
Pupils, parents and staff were told of the impending closure last week as headmaster Andrew Reeve informed them “it is with a very heavy heart that we cannot continue”.
Mr Reeve was hired last year in an attempt to steady the ship at the Alton, but a letter from trustees admits this “has not translated into higher pupil numbers”.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Private schools must make cuts to cope with Labour’s planned VAT raid, just as the state sector was forced to by the Conservatives, Rachel Reeves has said. The Telegraph has more.
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Thursday Morning Spitfire Way & Comet Way, Woodley
Wokingham
No news round up for the 12th April?
Well done Kemi hitting back at the smug presenters.
Maybe she could have asked why all the Post Office workers have still not been paid compo after the TV show highlighting this issue.
Or maybe we could have a BBC series over the blood scandal where some of them still have not received compensation or even a TV show of the rape gangs and some’fictional police & other State paid workers standing back and letting it happen’.
Perhaps we could have a “fictional” series about ‘safe and effective,’ that should get the viewers interested.
😂
“Pseudoscience, a salad garden and a study on pregnant men: how Britain’s quangos spend your money”
Congratulations to the redoubtable Charlotte Gill for making the MSM. As a commenter on the Telegraph article states, “Interesting how many of these act as slush funds for Net Zero, DIE and other parts of the progressive agenda.”
Given that “Labour has also created dozens more quangos (including the Fair Work Agency and the Independent Football Regulator) since coming to power,” I somehow doubt Labour will be lighting many bonfires of the vanities, inanities and insanities.
“Oxford debate contest forces hundreds of children to declare pronouns”
Defund South Midlands Arts College!
“Welsh Government offers £5,000 more to student teachers from ethnic minorities”
And no human rights legal parasite anywhere to be seen.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-pows-war-crimes-putin-zelenskyy-a2185297338af410fb5122448e62db76
‘The Ukrainian soldiers clambered from the ruined house at gunpoint — one with arms raised in surrender to the Russian troops — and lay face-down in the early spring grass.
Two drones — one Ukrainian and one Russian — recorded the scene from high above the southern Ukrainian village of Piatykhatky. The Associated Press managed to get both videos.
They offer very different versions of what happened next.
The Ukrainian drone video, which AP obtained from European military officials, shows soldiers with Russian uniform markings raising their weapons and shooting each of the four Ukrainians in the back with such ferocity that one man was left without a head.
“Out of all the executions that we’ve seen since late 2023, it’s one of the clearest cases,” said Rollo Collins of the Centre for Information Resilience, a London group that specializes in visual investigations and reviewed the video at AP’s request.
“This is not a typical combat killing. This is an illegal action.”
The Russian drone video, which AP located on pro-Kremlin social media, cuts off abruptly with the men lying on the ground — alive. “As a result of the work done by our guys, the enemy decided not to be killed and came out with their hands up,” wrote a Russian military blogger who posted the video.
Two videos. Two stories. In one, the prisoners appear to live. In the other, they die.
‘evidence of potential war crimes continues to mount’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14597453/Britain-backing-plans-Nuremberg-style-trial-Vladimir-Putin-amid-calls-Russians-prosecuted-crimes-invasion-Ukraine.html
‘Britain is set to back prosecuting Vladimir Putin for war crimes in a move modelled on the Nuremberg trials of Nazis after the Second World War.
It is understood the UK will join most European nations to back proposals at the Council of Europe to put Russians on trial for ‘crimes of aggression’ during the invasion of Ukraine.
An ad hoc military tribunal would be set up to prosecute Russian generals and leaders for war crimes, according to plans Britain will back at a meeting of the European human rights organisation next month.
A UN study found in March last year that Russia was continuing to commit serious rights violations and war crimes in Ukraine, including ‘systematic’ torture and rape.
The high-level Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the rights situation in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion, said that it had found fresh evidence of widespread abuses.
It also voiced concern about the continued use of explosive weapons in civilian areas, confirming ‘a pattern of disregard by Russian armed forces for possible harm to civilians’
‘The evidence shows that Russian authorities have committed violation of international human rights and international humanitarian law and corresponding war crimes,’
COI chief Erik Mose
You are wasting your time, sweetheart. Nobody is interested any more.
Although the ICC established jurisdiction over crimes of aggression…….this only applies to countries and nationals from countries that are party to the Rome Statute. Russia, like the US and China, is not a signatory.
This is why Western allies have explored the option of creating an ad-hoc tribunal that would be empowered to prosecute the specific case of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“Without the crime of aggression, there wouldn’t be any war crimes either,” High Representative Kaja Kallas said in early February.
“Therefore, it’s extremely important that there is also accountability for the crime of aggression. No one from Russia and no one from Russia’s leadership is untouchable.”
“It is also very important to send a signal that unpunished crimes only encourage further aggression,” she added, stressing the tribunal should be set up “before the war is over”.
“I’m personally convinced it’s not going to be a fake institution in the Hague with no impact but that it’s actually going to serve for years to come, and history will judge this tribunal very positively.”
The immunity that heads of state, heads of government and foreign ministers enjoy is considered an additional, and formidable, obstacle to the in-person prosecution.
“However, international law is evolving, and personal immunity is not a carte blanche for impunity,” the spokesperson of the Council of Europe said.
“The Council of Europe believes that the formula found for the Special Tribunal on this issue will suffice to ensure accountability and fight impunity.”
The last time the crime of aggression was brought to justice was during the Nuremberg trials held after World War II
The conditions are laid out in the draft agreement that would provide the legal basis to set up the special tribunal within the framework of the Council of Europe, a human rights organisation based in Strasbourg. The organisation is not part of the European Union but the bloc is closely involved in the process.
Technical work wrapped up in late March during a meeting of the so-called “Core Group” in Strasbourg, which produced three separate draft documents: a bilateral agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe, the statute of the special tribunal and the agreement detailing the management of the special tribunal.
The signature is pencilled to take place in Kyiv on 9 May, coinciding with Europe Day, although the exact timeline will depend on the political endorsement.
The limitations on the trial in absentia are seen as a “compromise” between countries, an EU official indicated. Following months of deliberations, the provision is now a “done deal”, with virtually no chance of being amended before the presentation.
“At the end of the day, it’s about politics and bargaining,” the official said.
Once Kyiv signs the agreement, the text will be put to a vote in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which gathers representatives of the 46 nations that are party to the organisation. Russia was expelled shortly after it launched the war.
A two-thirds majority will be needed to ratify the deal, and is all but guaranteed thanks to the broad support for the initiative among member states.
Some countries that have espoused Russian-friendly positions, such as Hungary and Serbia, might abstain or vote against it, although no individual vetoes will apply.
Democratic nations outside the continent, like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, are expected to join the initiative, broadening its legitimacy.
“The immigration lawyer fighting to legalise Hamas”
Arrest him for aiding and abetting a proscribed terrorist organisation!
“Trump’s tariffs might spell the end of China” – In the Telegraph, Benedict Rogers argues that President Trump’s targeted tariffs on China, if successfully leveraged by the global community, could cripple China’s economy and potentially lead to a domestic uprising.
Destabilising a country like that could easily lead to a shooting war. If the CCP feel threatened by
their own peoplethe people of China they will stir up jingoism and are quite capable of committing them as cannon fodder into a war with neighbouring countries.Reciprocal jingoism if you like.
“Lucy Connolly shouldn’t be in prison”
True. And neither should hundreds of others like father-of-three Bradley McCarthy, jailed for nearly 2 years:
UK riots: Man jailed for shouting at police dog and racist slurs – BBC News
“Bristol Crown Court heard he played a “prominent” role in trying to goad police, and had “aggressively” shouted at a police dog.”
[There was no mention of the “racist slurs”, added to the BBC headline to give further justification for throwing him in prison.]
I hope KING CHARLES III will issue A ROYAL PARDON to all those British Patriots unjustly imprisoned for protesting against the Horrific Rapes and Murders of CHILDREN by Third World Immigrants welcomed to the UK and supported by UK Taxpayers.