On Wednesday, King Charles delivered the King’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament. This might seem like some outdated, pompous British tradition – but it is actually extremely significant. It is in this speech that we discover a new government’s objectives. Unfortunately, however, this particular new government’s objectives contain more gaping holes than Swiss cheese.
Starmer has long-pledged to remove VAT exemptions from private school fees, which Labour claims will fund 6,500 new teachers for state schools. It’s true, this is a growing issue – with teacher vacancies up by 20% to 2,800 in November 2023. Inevitably, higher-paying private schools create a teacher brain drain for state schools, with 12% of full-time teachers working in independent schools in 2020.
But, as per usual, Labour are too busy trumpeting equality to think about reality. Because removing VAT exemption will hike private school fees by 15-20% - making private education unaffordable for many parents, therefore worsening the current pressure cooker on state education. The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank estimated 20,000 to 40,000 pupils would migrate from private to state education if VAT was added to private school fees.
All of this means that, under Labour, you won’t just suffer from worsened illegal immigration – but also skyrocketing education migration. That means your kids will suffer from lower contact time with their teachers, hindering their chances of academic success.
Talking of immigration, what actually is Keir Starmer’s plan to deal with the illegal immigrants costing taxpayers £8 million a day in Premier Inn costs? Well, Starmer scrapped Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan almost immediately after assuming office. Before he’d even had chance to set foot in Number 10, then, Starmer has sunk £270 million of our money into the abandoned Rwanda plan, since the Rwandan government has declared it has ‘no obligation’ to give a refund.
Instead, Labour have pledged to strengthen the border by modernising the asylum system and enabling counter-terrorism-style powers to tackle organised immigration crime. This might sound fancy and technical – but how will it actually work? You just know an army of UK Border Force wombles will be stood helplessly patting down illegal immigrants and swabbing them with invisible magic wands before rolling out the red carpet leading straight to the door of our NHS, our state schools and the nearest Travelodge. This wishy-washy nonsense is as useless as a carpet fitter’s ladder.
And I’m afraid to say this whole Great British Railways soundbite is just as much of an inflatable dartboard. Time and time again, I have argued in these columns that it doesn’t matter if our railways are run by Jeff Bezos or Karl Marx. The fact of the matter is that our railway infrastructure is a relic of the Victorian era – and until this is upgraded to account for the 1.61 billion passenger journeys made in 2023/24, Britain’s railways aren’t going anywhere.
The problem with nationalising the railways, however, is that the bill for this monumental investment project lands in the letterbox of the taxpayer. Where is that money going to come from, when Keir Starmer has adamantly denied personal income tax hikes and has repeatedly rejected outlandish borrowing? The answer, I’m afraid, is tax hikes further down the line – or unkept promises and austerity.
As for Great British Energy, Labour’s energy plans revolve significantly around clean power – which is understandable, given the climate emergency. But putting Ed Miliband in charge of this was a big mistake, because a man who makes a meal out of eating a simple bacon roll will inevitably make a meal out of tackling the single greatest threat to humanitarian existence. And, surprise surprise, Miliband’s already messed up.
This week, Miliband gave the green light to the 2,500-acre Sunnica solar farm in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk – shocking and angering local residents. Whatever your view on solar farms, surely it is common sense to carpet bomb unused land with solar panels – for example, an old brownfield site unsuitable for housebuilding, on top of the roofs of 25 million UK houses, or simply anywhere but land that is already used for something else. But Miliband’s £600 million gaffe will be plonked straight on some of the UK’s most productive farmland – reducing our food security and going against every ‘buy British’ campaign ever created. So pledging offshore wind farms in the King’s Speech is excellent. But don’t go and destroy farmland while nobody’s looking.
So there was a lot to be alarmed by in the King’s Speech. From education, to transport, to immigration, Keir Starmer’s plan is full of holes larger than the craters on the moon.
And don’t forget to pay attention to the radical ideas that were not said. Votes for 16 and 17-year-olds has long been the bedrock of Labour’s appeal to young people – and was on Starmer’s radar during the election campaign. But can you imagine giving a vote to our Fortnite and TikTok generation? House of Lords reform was also absent from the speech, after Starmer plan for a mandatory retirement age of 80 was met with significant backlash from peers of all political colours for being ageist. Starmer has historically been more than just ageist, however, pledging to abolish the Lords – therefore abolishing the expert-led checks on the government of the day.
And so we have reached a rather staggering conclusion. You will in fact get change with Keir Starmer’s Labour – contrary to my previous assertions. The bad news is that this change will be to accelerate Britain’s decline into the depths of global despair with a mix of unwanted solar farms, useless British snailways reforms, and state schools that are full to the brim.
Image: UK House of Lords
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