After the controversy surrounding Labour’s plans to add VAT to private school fees, Broadstairs writer and columnist Melissa Todd ponders inequalities in the UK’s education system…

Interesting to see grammar schools outperforming private schools in this year’s GCSE results, wasn’t it? Apparently there are still a few things money can’t buy.

Not that I’m a fan of ten-year-olds being tutored into insanity to pass some hideous pointless test. Indeed, I don’t much approve of schools at all. They’re a comparatively recent historical development, and they seem to have a truly terrible effect on many children’s mental health, growing more terrible with each passing year.

Mandatory schooling feels like an infringement of liberty, with issues around autonomy and consent, for parents and children both. You can be anything you want! You always have a right to say No! Oh not to school, though, obviously, despite it being stressful and pointless. No, that you must endure, however torturous, whatever the undesirable consequences, from four to 18, the entirety of your childhood, although the scars often last longer. Hope that’s clear!

Still, children are horrid, expensive and time-consuming, and I understand why parents want shot of them for a few hours each day. Given this, I was baffled to see how much antagonism Labour’s plans to put VAT on private school fees was receiving. You’d expect it from the Telegraph, who spent a fortune in the run-up to the general election on advertisements slotted into our social media feeds, calling it an outrageous tax on aspiration. But even among KentOnline’s own readership there seemed overwhelming opposition to the plans, with many opining that ambitious parents who “work hard” and “scrimp and save” for their children’s education shouldn’t be penalised.

Working hard isn’t synonymous with morality, even in puritanical old England. Scammers work hard to defraud old ladies: doesn’t mean they should be encouraged. And sending your child to private school is vastly more immoral than scamming an old lady, for in so doing you deprive a working-class child of a future.

As it stands, if you go to a state school you are wasting your time. You have no hope. You are guaranteed to be a nobody. Any brains or talent you possess will be squandered. I understand how terrifying that sounds and how parents rush to private institutions in consequence. But it isn’t the answer. Placing VAT on school fees isn’t nearly enough: I’d abolish private education altogether.

Education is the primary cause and consequence of class inequality in the UK, and if any politician were serious about aiding social mobility, abolishing private schools would be the obvious first step.

A child born to more privileged parents - and yes, if you’re choosing to spend thousands extra on an education you’ve already paid for through taxation you’re undoubtedly privileged - can expect not only better grades, but also better health, better careers, longer lives. No wonder parents are so keen to make that happen for their children.

But it isn’t fair. It needs to end. Not only by abolishing the advantages the rich enjoy, but also by affording every child the advantages a decent education brings. Yes, even the poor ones.

If you’re determined to send them to school, it needn’t be a useless waste of their time. Give them an education they might actually be able to use. And since the rich and privileged always manage to gyp every single system in favour of their own progeny - one might almost admire that, in the abstract - the only possible solution is to allocate school places by a lottery system.

Every school could expect a random allocation of rich and poor, bright and practical, high and low born. Parents would stop paying absurdly inflated prices to be in a “good” catchment area, or feigning a panicked belief in a deity. It would be simple and revolutionary, and also electoral suicide, so no one will ever dare try it.

Instead, for the relative poor, education will remain a mocking cruelty.