Old school tax avoidance.

The stats of inequality, global and national, have been the common currency of left polemic for as long as anyone can remember. In the unlikely event that readers of this blog need convincing further, there is a depressing wealth of information on The Equality Trust site. Of course not everyone is convinced that inequality is necessarily a bad thing. The view that attempts to achieve a more equal society are not only doomed to failure but will simply increase the sum of human misery is not confined to the likes of David Mellor, and "trickle down" is still the economic theory of choice in some quarters. But given that like me you probably think that at least some redistribution of wealth and opportunity might be a good thing, how best to proceed? Well first off how about hitting the private schools where it hurts, in their pockets. I don't mean the kind of wet dishcloth attack of the kind proposed by Twiswam Hunt but a simple, straightforward removal of the charitable status that absolves private education businesses of the need to pay tax. Make no mistake, these schools are just that, businesses. Let them sink or swim in the rough seas of the market place their supporters are so fond of. No Labour government, not even Attlee's post war one, has had the bottle to take on the public schools. I'm convinced that doing away with the unfair advantage of the private education sector would be a step toward a fairer and more just society.