Latest editorial
Students carrying bags and books
MPs HAVE voted to back the government’s plan to end the VAT exemption on private school fees in the face of opposition from the Tories, Liberal Democrats and, less predictably, most of the new Independent Alliance of MPs.
The vote, on a Tory motion to block the change, was 363 to 190. Ministers have advanced the policy, one of the few held over from Jeremy Corbyn-era Labour, to raise funds to hire more teachers for state schools.
One of the Independent Alliance MPs, Iqbal Mohamed, argued that the increase would hit the six independent schools in his Dewsbury constituency, where there is already significant pressure on the state school system.
The Defence Universities Alliance is a bit to co-opt higher education into the wider drive to war — we should resist as earlier generations of scientists did, argue say ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT of SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
Preferable to Starmer he may be, but there is scant sign of a sharp political break in Burnham’s policies so far — while left challenges aren’t making much of a running either, finds ANDREW MURRAY. How can socialism be put back on the map?
