In search of Mayism

What does Theresa May believe? The new Prime Minister has had the summer to settle into her job and has a chance next week to tell us more about her plans for government. Had she come to power after a general election, or even a proper leadership race, we’d know more about her. Instead, she has the Tory party conference to introduce voters to their new government.

We know already that her focus is on those who are ‘just managing’, a phrase that trips off the tongue far more lightly than ‘the squeezed middle’ (Ed Miliband) or ‘alarm-clock Britain’ (Nick Clegg). But there are still vast lacunae in her philosophy, and strange inconsistencies: why, if you want to help those who are ‘just managing’, do you pick your first policy battle on grammar schools, whose pretensions to social justice are backed up by no reputable body of research? What does the Prime Minister think about climate change and its impact on energy and business policy? What about airport expansion?

We will find out these details soon enough. But even they might not give us a proper understanding of Mayism, and perhaps that’s because we’re looking for the wrong thing. What if Mayism isn’t a philosophy, or even a general outlook on life, but merely a way of doing things?

The Prime Minister has spoken in the past about her admiration for Angela Merkel’s way of ‘getting things done’, and what has been most distinctive about her time in office so far has been her modus operandi. While Margaret Thatcher pulled Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty out of her handbag and told colleagues that ‘this is what we believe’, May began her tenure in Downing Street by telling ministers how to work: no more games, no more preening in front of the media.