While Dave Miliband is busy giving supporters tips on how to throw a banging house party, his brother Ed has been busy jumping upon the “Living Wage” bandwagon after weeks of relatively insubstantial support for Ken Livingstone’s legacy policy.

Today, Ed drew upon some number-crunching by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) in a commitment to introduce tax incentives for companies that pay employees a “living wage” of at least £7.60 an hour. 

The IFS research found that the implementation of a higher “living wage” in the private sector would lead to “an increase in gross earnings of between £11.4 billion and £12.0 billion, of which about to £4.5 billion to £4.9 billion would accrue to the Government through higher income tax and employee national insurance payments and lower spending on benefits and tax credits”.

All very well and good, you may say, especially for Labour members critical of Blair and Brown’s legacy for the lowest income bracket despite successive commitments to the poorest in society (National Minimum Wage notwithstanding). 

However, Ed’s figures don’t quite add up. For one, the £0.9 billion gain in the public sector is dwarfed by the £3.2-3.4 billion cost in higher public sector wage bills and higher employer NI contributions. 

Similarly, the seemingly rosy calculations for the private sector crucially fail to take into account the effect of higher wage bills on companies’ revenue, and the accompanying knock-on drop in corporation tax revenue and income tax on corporate dividends, or any impact on consumer taxes such as VAT. 

Then again, it is better than Ed Balls’ empty pledge to pay interns and volunteers the minimum wage I suppose.