“It’s not much to ask in return for a year’s work”, argues Barrie Clement in the current issue of Unite the Union’s magazine, uniteWORKS. What’s this about? It’s the “Living Wage”.

The Living Wage was invented by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University. The aim, says Clement, was “to provide the minimum pay rate required to provide the essentials of life.” According to Clement that means “enough to cover rent and energy bills and something left over for one cheap holiday in the UK.”

But the last part of that sentence suggests the grovelly position of the union on this question. Apart from eating and paying the bills, all we deserve “in return for a year’s work” is “one cheap holiday in the UK”. Thanks, Barrie.

Of course, everybody understands that the national minimum wage of £6.31 an hour is not a living wage. But neither is Loughborough’s £7.65 (£8.80 in London), although 5 million people across the UK are paid less than that. Yet, in September, Unite argued to the Low Pay Commission that “the statutory minimum should be uprated in line with the Living Wage.” Why did they argue for that? For replacing poverty wages with – er, well – poverty wages?

It looks like they were less robust than even that. According to Clement, Unite urged the Commission “to ‘take the boldest possible step’ towards doing so.” Whatever could that mean? Do it? Do a bit of it? Don’t do it? How hesitant and grovelly can you get?

It’s not clear what General Secretary Len McCluskey thinks. He says, “The legal minimum should be raised to a living wage to end the desperate wage depression inflicted on working people.” Well, a proper living wage would do that – but not Loughborough’s Living Wage.

There are a number of dangers here. Ed Miliband may have the odd nightmare about the first: the Tories could uprate the minimum wage to the Loughborough levels (Boris Johnson supports Loughborough, David Cameron apparently does) and that would leave Labour with no trousers.

The second danger is for the rest of us: McCluskey and Unite clearly want a Labour government. But  – in line with previous form – Labour could promise to implement such an uprating and, on winning the 2015 election,  break their promise. “It’s unaffordable to make it anything other than voluntary”, they might say, “both for the public and private sectors. The Tories have left such a mess, we didn’t realise.” If that happened the disillusionment of workers with politics would be increased beyond measure, with all the benefits that that might bring to outfits like UKIP, the BNP and the EDL. But even if Labour did raise the minimum rates to Loughborough levels, low-paid workers would still be left without enough to pay for Barrie Clement’s list of food, rent, energy bills and a cheap holiday.

But a better scenario is possible. Clement tells how cleaners in parliament went on strike to obtain the Loughborough Living Wage – and got it. London Underground cleaners did the same. So imagine what other workers might achieve if they strike, not just for Loughborough but for a proper living wage, well into double figures.

Well, Barrie, I don’t think you meant to send us in that direction – but thanks anyway.