Today Ken Livingstone, the Labour candidate for London mayor, has pledged to reinstate the education maintenance allowance in the capital if he is elected in May.

Mr Livingstone has been a long standing supporter of the Save EMA campaign, personally endorsing the campaign over a year ago (as seen below):

Students in sixth forms or further education colleges will receive the money if their household income is below £31,000 a year.

About 85,000 students in London were receiving the allowance when it was cut, and Boris Johnson has publicly called on the government to think again.

The London EMA would be based mainly on redirecting existing funds in colleges and the capital’s universities. This includes the bursary fund the government introduced to replace the EMA and money spent on outreach activities by London universities.

Livingstone’s campaign team say local authorities will also be asked to contribute, and it may be topped up from the Greater London Authority’s budget.

This is great news for tens of thousands of the poorest teenagers in London; it means that they can once again take education as far as their ability lets them and not their ability to pay.

This means Boris will now have to put his money where his mouth to show whether he is all mouth and no trousers when it comes to standing up for London’s poorest teenagers.

It took Boris 6 months to pick up the phone to say he opposed the abolition of the EMA to Michael Gove, who is a London MP. Since then he has said more words in Greek and Latin than he has on this issue. Its time he finds his voice on EMA.

Boris has defended a minority of the wealthiest bankers on a regular basis, and only once has spoken out on EMA, and then only briefly. Its time Boris shows he is the Mayor of London not the Mayor of bankers.

This will not only set down a marker for other mayoral contests across the country, but has shown it is not about money, but about priorities when it comes to down whether teenagers should have EMA payments.

This is a bold and smart announcement by Mr Livingstone today. Ken Livingstone has made it clear, if you want to Save EMA you vote Ken in May.