Dave does a U-turn to send daughter to £21k private school
WHEN David Cameron was trying to enter Downing Street, he made it clear that he planned to shun the expensive education he had himself benefited from when it came to his own children.
The Old Etonian, who was then leader of the Opposition, declared: ‘I’d like my children to go to state school. I think it’s crazy that we should have to pay lots of money for private schools. We all pay our taxes.’ In case voters had failed to get the message, he said in a newspaper interview in 2009: ‘You should have really good state schools available for all.’
His comments made a big impression as he tried to prove that he was a new type of Tory.
After he won the keys to No 10 the following year, the prime minister did as he had pledged by letting it be known that his elder daughter, Nancy, now 17, would attend a state comprehensive in Westminster.
Now out of office, however, it’s a very different story. I can disclose that David and Samantha Cameron’s younger daughter, Florence, 11, has started at a London private school, whose fees are what he might have once called crazy: more than £21,000 a year.
That compares with £7,100 spent on each state secondary school pupil in the capital. The gap between private school fees and state school spending per pupil has more than doubled in England over the past decade, with private fees now more than 90 per cent higher.
Florence is following in the footsteps of her brother, Elwen, 15, who started attending a private secondary school after Cameron quit No 10 having lost the Brexit referendum in 2016.
The fees at Elwen’s school are almost £27,000 a year, which means the Camerons are paying an annual total of £48,000 on fees. The average British salary is about £26,000 before tax.
But the Camerons will have no trouble finding the cash. The former PM was reported to have been paid a whopping £7.2 million in salary and shares during the two and a half years he worked part-time for Greensill Capital, the controversial finance company that went bust last year.
The smart set’s talking about...