If Nick Clegg returned to earth as an animal he would be a magpie. He flits down and steals other ideas and then shows them off as glittering Clegg-made originals.

It is his contribution to the coalition. He talks the talk about helping the poor, reconnecting to Europe, a hint of a tax on the rich or homes Lib Dem grandees live in in London, but nothing ever happens.

As we shall see over the Lords rebellion against cutting help to cancer patients out of work, Clegg is a faithful Cameroon as he turns his MPs into loyal Tories in the Division lobby.

Despite the presence of the social democrat(ish) Vince Cable in charge of business and industry, the economy is back in recession. Orange Book Manchester liberalism meshes with classic treasury thinking and the rich tradition of Keynes and Beveridge, both Liberals, is exhausted.

It is in this context that we should see Clegg’s discussion of employee share ownership today. ESOPs are the perpetual Cinderellas of British business formation. I know because I wrote a study of them, published as a pamphlet by the Tribune Group (what happened to that?) in 1996. I organised a delegation of Labour MPs, all later to be ministers, to America to examine employee owned firms, including a carers’ ESOP in Boston, a foundry near Pittsburgh and the big one, United Airlines.

Clegg will cite John Lewis – everyone does. I did. Jesse Norman, the smart Tory MP, did in his book on new Tory ideas which had the obligatory chapter on employee shares.

John Lewis is a splendid business but Sir Philip Green is not going to turn Topshop over to his employees. Tesco and Sainsbury already allow their staff to purchase shares and Clegg surely has been told that employee share schemes supported by legislation have been around since the 1980s. Indeed, workers in nationalised industries that were privatised made tidy little profits on shares they were given or bought at discount rates when firms were floated.

They then lost their jobs and the real winners of employee share ownership were the executives who were given cost-free options to cash in when they felt like they needed an extra cash helping, as the chief operating officer of Tesco could explain to Clegg.

I organised a dinner for UK and US employee ownership gurus to meet Gordon Brown, then shadow chancellor, and a young aide of his called Ed, I think.

Gordon took endless notes, asked tough questions and treated the dinner as a two-way working seminar. But then nothing happened, as nothing will happen after Clegg’s speech today.

It is not that Brown, any more than Clegg, is insincere. It is simply that the structure of British capitalism does not want to share power and ownership with anyone. Firms will dish out shares – often in exchange for wage moderation – but they will not share power. John Lewis is the result of it founder’s religious beliefs and he turned his firm into a fully share owned enterprise. No one copied him.

Workers and unions are also suspicious as they look at the vagaries of stock market fluctuations about risking their own and their families’ future on share performance. A living wage is more important for most.

Photo: Walt Jabsco

Denis MacShane is MP for Rotherham and a former minister for Europe