The Jeremy Corbyn interview

And they don't.

So now what?

You do realise that just because you said it, it doesn't make it so?

I agree. We have to work harder to win the trust of the Scottish people. If I was in Parliament, I would have been travelling across the UK showing support for every part of this country.

If you want to see an accurate predictor of what Corbyn might achieve in Britain if he comes to power you would do well to see what his fellow-travellers in Venezuela have achieved in charge of the country with the world's largest oil reserves. Corbyn lauds them to the skies whenever he has time to spare from his manhole catalogue and allotment.

Oh, you'd have visited? Why didn't they think of that!

No, I won't. If by some miracle they did get into power, then I'd leave the country, and I know plenty of likeminded people. You can kiss your taxbase goodbye then.

I have private medical insurance *yes I know the NHS integration. I was educated privately, and will educate my own children privately. I don't use 'welfare'. I make these choices as a free citizen. However, I pay a ****load of tax - tax which I am content to pay because I live in a country where the stronger support the weaker and I consent to this.

Labour doesn't subscribe to this - they want to take my money and assets away from me and make decisions about ownership of property and resources on my behalf. I wouldn't want to live in a country where this was the norm. But it's not going to happen, so that's the main thing.

All of which is meaningless buzzword bingo and the voters see through it.

They are not buzzwords. Look at the last time the Labour Party was in office and the progress that was achieved.

However, Labour is not coming after you but those rich people like Philip Green and other billionaires, who have failed to pay their fair share. Those corporations that have cheated you and me from millions of unpaid tax revenues.

Actually, it has made it perfectly clear that it is coming after anyone earning around £80,000 annually. It is also coming after people with shares (and that means pretty well everyone, as everyone's pension fund will suffer). It is coming after those who save the state £14 billion a year by educating their children privately (often with a real financial struggle) and not getting a discount on the tax they pay. It is coming after anyone who pays taxes in an attempt to fund the promises that will cost about 28 times more than the Conservatives extra spending promises.

You have alluded to the fundamental problem. For you to decide to educate your children private means that you have no faith in the education system of the Tories and Liberal Democrats. For you to have private medical insurance means you have little or no faith in the NHS.

You should support the Party because we want to get this right, so you can send your children to the local state school and be confident in the care you receive in an NHS-run hospital or go down to your local and have a pint without seeing homeless people on the streets.

See. This is where and why the Labour party fails.

Instead of saying to people "oh, we get why you don't like it, here, try to understand it this way, or think about it like this, or look at this", you jump straight to "no, your opinion is wrong".

Can you see why that's infuriating, patronising and incredibly off-putting?

This is illuminating. You're making a lot of assumptions here to support your argument. However, these assumptions are false. I do not have 'little or no faith in the NHS/state schools'. I choose the private sector because it can provide more and better than the state ever could. This ludicrous idea that every state school can be turned into Charterhouse by 'taxing the wealthy' isn't even worthy of a sixth-form debater.

Labour needs to get real.

Actually, it has made it perfectly clear that it is coming after anyone earning around £80,000 annually. It is also coming after people with shares (and that means pretty well everyone, as everyone's pension fund will suffer). It is coming after those who save the state £14 billion a year by educating their children privately (often with a real financial struggle) and not getting a discount on the tax they pay. It is coming after anyone who pays taxes in an attempt to fund the promises that will cost about 28 times more than the Conservatives extra spending promises.

Where you at Charterhouse?

Fair that I made the assumption that you had lost faith in the NHS. You chose a public school system because it offers an advantage over the state sector because of poor care and lack of adequate resources

I am not saying that we can turn every state school to Rugby or Charterhouse, but I think we can improve the state to offer a credible alternative in some areas.

No. Sherborne.


The state is never going to be able to offer what an independent school can - this is pretty obvious. I make a choice because my parents were, through their hard work and hard work of their ancestors, able to make a choice. But Labour and their politics of envy, would wish to remove that choice - ironically making it so prohibitively expensive that the schools would probably have to dump their outreach work, including full scholarships which provide a superior education to precisely those kids you claim you're 'on the side of'.

I am not saying that we can turn every state school to Rugby or Charterhouse, but I think we can improve the state to offer a credible alternative in some areas.

As you have been told, the state can never match a good private school. It would be even more difficult under a left wing government. Why?

Because the left is obsessed with equality. So selective schools are out. Teaching in state schools is dominated by left-dom,inated teachers and methods. Would the state system import private teaching methods and attitudes? I don't think so, do you? The left does not like discipline, especially self-discipline. Yet good discipline is, in my opinion, the single most important factor in private schools' success. Parents who pay will not accept poor discipline, so it is rooted out. Can this happen, do you think, in a state comprehensive, where the school doesn't care if you stay or not? The profit motive ends up being good for pupils. Who'd have thought it?

Oh, you mentioned that before. My bad.

I understand your point, but we cannot or should not have a system where people can buy future success. It is abominable that one can send their children to Sherborne or Eton and their kids are set for life. What about the other 93% of kids in the state system?

If the state sector is really good, i bet many parents may reconsider sending their loved ones to schools far away from them and spending thousands of pounds in the process.

Imagine a system where the your kids can be in the same school as Joe Bloggs kids from down the road rather than you having to fork out thousands to send your kids to Sherbone or Harrow.