Barwell loves a fat cat

Full page of this weeks Croydon Guardian

Cutting of the letter in the Croydon Guardian

I hear that Croydon Central MP, Gavin Barwell, is good constituency MP. To retain this marginal seat, he will need to persuade flip-flopping voters within the constituency that this trumps the fact that he is a Conservative through and through.  This is why I was surprised to see his defence of Lord Harris and Harris academies. If he really thought £243,000 is a fair salary, why not actually put the value in his letter. By not doing so, his defence of Harris academies appears like a defence of Tory donor.

Dear Editor,

MP Gavin Barwell’s response to my letter has let the cat, or rather the fat cat, out the bag. I think he is misguided if he thinks readers find it acceptable that a director of the Harris Foundation, which runs three schools in Croydon, pays themselves £243,000 a year of public money, at a time when supplementary schools, aiding struggling pupils, face funding cuts. He forgets that when the vast majority of schools in Croydon become academies, the intake of schools run by Harris will not be as academically gifted. This is because other academies will attempt to poach bright kids through covert selection, just like Harris is able to do. In that instance, if Harris Schools end up in failing, neither the council nor the government can do a thing about how much Harris bosses get paid.

Alternatively, Mr Barwell’s defence of fat cat pay levels could be due to the fact that Lord Harris, the founder of Harris schools, is an influential donor, to the tune of £2million, to the Tory party.

Yours sincerely

Shasha Khan

Croydon Green Party

 Also online.

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Tags croydon, greenparty