http://contentedlibdem.blogspot.com/2010/12/summary-of-my-ema-posts.html

“this Tory-led government”

Do I detect the fingerprint of a Labour press release? Yes, thought I might do:

http://www.labourlist.org/james_mills

Also showing the letter and who the signatories are would be helpful.

As to the actual matter of the EMA, wasn’t this designed to keep 16 – 18 year olds in education because they did not have to stay on for those last two years? Further, didn’t Labour make education compulsory for those two years before leaving office?

@ 2

“Do I detect the fingerprint of a Labour press release?”

Yes, it’s truly shocking that a supporter of the opposition might disagree with the government.

@3 Yes but this is being put forward as being *not a Labour press release*. That is what I object to.

@ 4 Falco

I see your point. Although if the author/publisher agrees with the press release, it’s sorta valid. This site doesn’t pretend to be unbiased, so I kinda feel that the only real problem is if it posts false facts.

@5 Chaise: I’ve no problem with bias if it’s stated. However, I view that bias as one of the pertinent facts and leaving it out is misleading given that this is a left-liberal rather than a Labour site.

“Yes but this is being put forward as being *not a Labour press release*. That is what I object to.”

It’s not a Labour Party press release, it is from the Save EMA campaign – http://saveema.co.uk/about

Honestly, I think EMA should be scrapped for all the reasons laid out in the blog in the first comment.

The biggest cost to sixth form students is transport and that desperately needs improving.

a former member of the Bank of England MPC…

I think I might be able to have a wild stab at identifying this one…

Since Dan Paskins, James Mills, Bridget Phillopson and Polly Toynbee are probably too intellectually dishonest/lazy to read the evidence, I have reproduced this from the blog linked to @1:

” 1. EMA has extraordinarily high ‘deadweight’ costs – that is, most of the people receiving the benefit would have stayed on in further education even without it. The NUS have consistently misrepresented this despite a phenomenal weight of evidence proving it.
2. Even those who have been persuaded to stay on because of EMA have not achieved very well as a result. Nor have those receiving who would have stayed on anyway benefitted by being able to do less paid work and concentrate on their schoolwork. The evidence on achievement is weak, and the most positive thing that can be said is it improves students’ grades by about one eighth of one A-level grade. Anthony Painter has questioned the stats in the above two posts, and my response to him can be found here, here and here.
3. One of the main things EMA was meant to pay for was transport costs – yet data show that 50% of further ed students live within half hour’s walk of a post-16 establishment. Many areas also have free or subsidised transport for 16-19 year olds.
4. The above facts have been consistently misrepresented in the media, mainly by the NUS and the Save EMA campaign, but also by Bridget Phillopson, Lisa Nandy, Polly Toynbee (one, two, three), Ken Livingstone and Hazel Blears.This has meant that anyone who questions the value of EMA is represented as wanting to destroy opportunity, often in quite lurid and sensationalist terms.
5. In particular, the NUS misrepresent the issue by confusing percentages and percentage points. The head of the Save EMA campaign also shows a poor grasp of those statistics.
6. There is anecdotal evidence of EMA being spent on non-essential and non-educational items. Research evidence points towards transport being what students spend most of their EMA money on – but given the fact about proximity to college, and given the significant anecdotal evidence, I suggest that a lot of this expenditure may be on driving lessons and cars, which certainly counts as transport but is hardly an essential.
7. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that suggests EMA negatively affects students’ attitude to learning, and indeed much of the defence of EMA sees students as entirely passive creatures who lack all personal agency. This was shown again by the students themselves at the recent protests.
8. The replacement scheme will offer many of the benefits whilst cutting a lot of the deadweight.
9. I think that EMA is probably the quintessential new Labour social programme.
10. Finally, in case anyone thinks I really am being a callous git who doesn’t understand how hard it is to be poor, here is my own experience of EMA, which I was in fact eligible for.
11. The IFS seem to be about to bring a new paper out about it – I haven’t had a chance to read it but here are my thoughts based on some of the advance info out there.”

(hyperlinks are in the blog post – the author has skewered the nonsense lines of Labourboy Anthony Painter already, so if you are going to write rubbish along those lines, read the rebuttals and save yourself the effort)

@9 It’s not Richard Murphy is it? lol

“Jonathan Portes Former chief economist at the Cabinet Office and director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research

David Blanchflower Bruce V Rauner professor of economics, Dartmouth College, USA, and University of Stirling

Ann Pettifor Director of Prime (Policy Research in Macroeconomics), executive director of Advocacy International, and fellow at the New Economics Foundation

John Van Reenen Professor of economics, LSE

Tony Dolphin Senior economist and associate director for economic policy, IPPR

Robert Rowthorn Emeritus professor of economics, University of Cambridge

Paul Gregg Professor of economics, University of Bristol

William Brown Montague Burton professor of industrial relations, Cambridge University

Marcus Miller Professor of economics, University of Warwick”

Ok, so of the ten, 1 is a fake (Blanchflower – quelle surprise!), 1 is a jobsworth fake economist (Pettifor – come on, the NEF? seriously?), and the other 8 no one has ever heard of before, with most of them useless academics. Is this the best Labour/Save EMA can do? Why not get Paul Krugman to sign it too? Or Polly Toynbee? Or Duncan Weldon?

Ah yes. It’s because none of them are proper economists, and neither are any of the signatories to this letter.

“The government is also proposing to abolish the current education maintenance allowance (EMA), a payment worth between £10 to £30 a week for 16 to18-year-olds from low income families who agree to stay in education.” This was the last Labour government, and what’s more they planned to fine students £50 if they didn’t turn up! http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/mar/22/schools.uk