It’s not just the business world and jittery investors spooked by Reeves’ Halloween budget and that ever-expanding, meaningless ‘black hole’. Bloomberg’s Alex Wickham reports that several cabinet ministers have penned a letter to Sir Keir warning against any upcoming spending cuts. Leading the charge of the cabinet revolt is none other than Deputy PM Angela Rayner, with Steve Reed, Shabana Mahmood, and Louise Haigh among those who’ve signed the warning memo. The Red Queen keeping herself busy in her new-found free time…

Bridget Phillipson was sent out to do some damage control on the morning media round, though she didn’t do the best job at slapping down any internal rift reports. She even refused to deny that she, too, had put pen to paper to warn Starmer. Speaking Sky News, the Education Secretary said:

“We’ve all had conversations, meetings or private conversations that we have had, both within cabinet, and as part of our cabinet responsibilities…that’s absolutely as it should be.”

Ahead of Reeves’ budget this month Labour policies are costing the Treasury before they’ve even come into place. New analysis from the Independent Schools Council, the largest body representing private schools in the UK, has found that 10,540 fewer students than last year were attending private schools in September ahead of the imposition of the tax at the start of 2025. At a cost of £92.8 million to the taxpayer…

The ISC’s chief executive Julie Robinson makes clear this is just the start:

“This is just the tip of the iceberg and the knock-on effect on schools is significant, with many small schools already at risk of closure.”

The Institute for Fiscal Studies’ sham analysis, which Labour has used consistently to defend its policy, claimed that in total only 40,000 children would be pushed into the state system. Other reports find that so many may leave as to make the policy fully cost-negative within a few years. Bridget Phillipson has also hinted that unannounced tax hikes will be needed to hire more teachers on top of the “£1.5 billion” she says will be collected from the VAT. Rayner and Reeves are getting closer to their old proposal of abolishing private schools altogether…

Today in the Commons Richard Tice hit out at Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson over the government’s “deeply misguided” VAT hike on private schools. The Reform MP challenged the minister over the impending state school “capacity crisis”, a product of “thousands of children being forced out of independent schools.” Tice making himself a grade A headache already…

This comes after it was revealed some state schools are asking parents to prove they can no longer afford their private school fees to secure a place at a local state school. This is just the beginning…

The Reform MP said: “I have a list of 20 schools in Buckinghamshire alone that have no places whatsoever. In Bristol, the City Council is considering buying places from an independent school.” If this happened, it would mean a child attending private school at the taxpayers’ expense, despite having just been there at their parents’ expense. Labour logic…

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson had the morning round on the Today Programme to discuss Labour’s scrapping Ofsted’s one-word rating system. After dismissing concerns over recruitment on the grounds that more people will want to work for Labour’s nicer Ofsted, she was pushed on costs. Phillipson initially claimed that levying VAT on private schools would be sufficient because “it raises quite a lot of money… £.3-1.5 billion net.” That line didn’t last long…

When Phillipson was pushed again she backed off and said she was “confident that we will have the resources that we need… both through the tax changes and as part of the budget“. Labour is aggressively pitch-rolling for tax hikes come October’s budget…

Labour is right to avoid putting much stock in their private school tax – new research by the Adam Smith Institute projects that parents whose children are forced out of fee-paying education will actually cost the Treasury up to £2 billion by spending more on leisure instead. Rayner and Reeves won’t be happy until private schools are gone altogether…