It is remarkable how quickly Keir Starmer acquired a reputation for habitual dishonesty. It wasn't acquired recently and the story below is already one of many. Online comments all over the media suggest there are many people who do not trust anything Starmer says.
Yes it's only politics, but politicians generally make some attempt to avoid trashing their reputation this quickly. Almost as if Starmer and co. have not yet realised that political reputations are no longer defined within mainstream media, or even within national borders.
'Fudging the facts!' Starmer accused of 'pretending' he attended state school by former pupil
Peter Lampl, a former Blair adviser and founder of the education charity Sutton Trust, slammed the Prime Minister over his VAT tax raid on private schools, arguing that the policy has denied less well-off students the same opportunities afforded to Starmer when he was younger.
During their school days, Starmer and Lampl both attended Reigate Grammar, a self-acclaimed leading independent school for boys and girls aged between 11 and 18.
When Starmer first joined, the school was funded by the council but became an independent school just two years later. The local authority agreed to cover the fees for students who had joined before the switch and, soon after, Starmer received a bursary when he started sixth form.
Starmer's fellow alumnus Lampl, whose charity aims to transforms thousands of young lives, wrote: "I don’t pretend the school we went to was a state school, Starmer does. But he is fudging the facts.
"I am helping young people to benefit from an education that made all the difference to me, Starmer is destroying the opportunities to have the same chances he had."
Addressing previous questions about his schooling, the Prime Minister said: "As far as I was concerned, I started school as a 'state boy' and I finished as one too."
Peter Lampl, a former Blair adviser and founder of the education charity Sutton Trust, slammed the Prime Minister over his VAT tax raid on private schools, arguing that the policy has denied less well-off students the same opportunities afforded to Starmer when he was younger.
During their school days, Starmer and Lampl both attended Reigate Grammar, a self-acclaimed leading independent school for boys and girls aged between 11 and 18.
When Starmer first joined, the school was funded by the council but became an independent school just two years later. The local authority agreed to cover the fees for students who had joined before the switch and, soon after, Starmer received a bursary when he started sixth form.
Starmer's fellow alumnus Lampl, whose charity aims to transforms thousands of young lives, wrote: "I don’t pretend the school we went to was a state school, Starmer does. But he is fudging the facts.
"I am helping young people to benefit from an education that made all the difference to me, Starmer is destroying the opportunities to have the same chances he had."
Addressing previous questions about his schooling, the Prime Minister said: "As far as I was concerned, I started school as a 'state boy' and I finished as one too."
4 comments:
It's difficult to know the direction this will take, both with the liar Starmer, and also with lying politicians in general.
If I'm feeling optimistic, I can see this as a self-correcting problem, in that Starmer only lies because he is notoriously thin-skinned and wants to control how people see him. Posh privileged chap in charge of the worker's party makes him look hypocritical (Corbyn got stick for it) so he lies. But then the lying is increasingly likely to get found out, thanks to the internet and blokes like Lampl. This makes him look even more stupid and vain and incompetent, so gradually he learns to cut down on his lies and become a bit more realistic. Hopefully the lesson is learned by the entire political class: they are forced to be realists by their environment.
But then the pessimism kicks in. Another of his character flaws is that he is able to deny reality when it stares him down. Rather than change his behaviour, he will just label the entire world "far right", and carry on. It will be our fault. One of the traits of effective leaders is that they are able to filter out all the extraneous noise and carry on leading. Ineffective leaders may lead us in the wrong direction, but they may still have this ability.
On Saturdays he attended an undoubtedly private school.
His father started as a toolmaker and ended as........what exactly?
Sam - yes it's possible to be optimistic or pessimistic. The internet is certainly exposing the dishonesty of the political class, but they are remarkably obtuse. As you say, Starmer is able to deny reality as they all are and this doesn't seem to be a particularly uncommon trait.
Yet the pressure must be unrelenting, nothing goes right and Starmer must have some notion of what goes right for him and what doesn't. I hope sao.
dearieme - the music? Presumably his parents paid.
Tammly - I don't know, Starmer isn't very open about family.
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