The Government PR machine has failed quite spectacularly again. Yesterday after months of been bashed over the issue of EMA we have finally come up with a bursary scheme that is much fairer than Labour's Educational Maintenance Allowence.
The Government is doing the right thing, EMA was a classic example of Labour wasting money. Yes, there are students in real need and do need support to continue with their post GCSE education. But nine out of ten who receive EMA would have done A-Levels without it. My sister in law got EMA, she spent it on new clothes, a friend of mine called his EMA his "going out on the piss fund". These are not isolated examples. 45% of 16-18 students received EMA, an astonishing figure, do 45% of these students really need thirty quid a week from the tax payer?
So I fully support changing EMA (note I don't use the word scrap). The problem is that we should have had a scheme in place when the first announcements about EMA were made. Then we could have plausible denied we were scrapping it. The Government could also have said we were giving more money to those who needed it most. We could have called them EMA bursaries.
Instead the PR machine announced they were being scrapped so Labour could tell hundreds of thousands of parents and teenagers that the Lib Dems were evil and going back on promises. Rather than us telling the population we were saving money and helping the poorest. Slick!
No comments:
Post a Comment