Keir Starmer is blind to the brilliance of private schools

Despite protestations from every quarter, Sir Keir Starmer will press on with his malicious plan to slap VAT on private school fees. I can only assume he’s doing this because he believes an excellent education, stemming from hundreds of years of tradition, is entirely undesirable.

Look, there’s no question about it. Our private schools are the cat’s pyjamas. They attract discerning parents from all over the planet, even from New York, that bastion of elitism, where bankers and lawyers duke it out to hire Juilliard grads to teach their four- year-olds the violin.

Recently, I met a financier from that city. So enamoured was he of London schools that he upped sticks and transferred his entire family. The spectre of an extra tax is as nothing to him. Ironically, many British families are now moving out of the UK so that they can send their offspring to private schools in other countries.