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Alexander Armstrong complained that tax on private schools had left him ‘extremely poor’ – 14 anything but Pointless comebacks

John Plunkett. Updated March 7th, 2025

Spare a thought, if you will, for Pointless presenter and much else besides Alexander Armstrong, who it appears has been hit hard by Labour’s tax on private schools.

The main argument for imposing 20% VAT on school fees, you might remember, was that it is a progressive tax and will raise £1bn a year, so not half bad, then.

Except for people like Armstrong, for whom it has apparently had a devastating effect. So much so that he told the Daily Telegraph it has made him ‘really angry’ and ‘extremely poor’.

You can read the full article here but this is what the presenter had to say on VAT on private schools.

‘I’m feeling really, really angry about that, and extremely poor.

‘In our case, private school is the only place available for our children to learn music. Our 10-year-old has special educational needs, he couldn’t survive in the state system. We have chosen that not because we’re evil, and not because we want to buy a head-start for our children, but we want them to have as good an education as we can get.

‘There’s a real anger towards private schools from some quarters and I find that so antithetical to everything I believe about society. There was something really vituperative about [Starmer] bringing it in in the middle of the school year.

‘I loathe tribal politics. I’m allergic to it from the Right and scared of it from the Left. It felt really unpleasant and nasty.’

Poor chap! He’s also got the hump about inheritance tax and farms because he’s also a farmer, but one thing at a time.

And while we’re ready ourselves to organise a whip-round, these comebacks were surely anything but Pointless.

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