Paying privately for education is a donation in kind to the state education system.

The politics of envy is live and well in the Labour party.

According to Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary, a future Labour government may well remove the charitable status of private schools which do not do enough for the community.

Labour should wake up to the fact that every fee paying child is a contribution to the state education system of equal  or greater value than the fees paid because if the child was not educated at the fee paying school the local education authority would have to pay to educate him.