‘Mayism’, whether it left you in admiration or despair, at least seemed like an identifiable philosophy. It was concerned with social justice, but it wasn’t socialist: it was better described as post-liberal. Mayism was sceptical of free markets, which were prey to ‘selfish individualism’ (as the manifesto put it), but it didn’t see big government as the answer. It preferred to spread economic power, by clamping down on corporate malpractice and giving new rights to workers. And the symbol of this – until yesterday when the Tories pretty much dropped the proposal – was the idea of putting workers on company boards.
To be exact, the idea has not been entirely dropped. It has just been re-envisioned as one of three options – and the other two (assign a non-executive director to represent employees; or, create an employee advisory council) are significantly more wishy-washy. What’s more, companies don’t even have to choose one of the three, if they can think of a good reason not to: the new rule will be on a ‘comply or explain’ basis, meaning that shareholders retain the final say.
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