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Political Biography:

John Major

(b. 29 Mar. 1943) British; Foreign Secretary 1989, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1989 – 90, Prime Minister 1990 – 7 Although John Major's two immediate predecessors as Conservative Party leader had also come from modest backgrounds, they had at least attended university. Major, the son of a trapeze artist, did not shine at his local grammar school and he left at 16. After some experience of unemployment he worked for a bank. While in Nigeria he had a serious accident which left him with a limp.

In the late 1960s he was a local Conservative councillor in the London Lambeth local authority, the only Conservative leader this century to have had local government experience. He defeated a number of better-known candidates for the safe Conservative seat of Huntingdonshire, which he won in the 1979 general election. There followed spells in the whip's office and in the Social Security Department. He was a middle of the road Conservative, though with liberal views on social issues. There was nothing in his background to mark him out as a man of the right.

Appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury in June 1987 he became the first of the 1979 intake to enter the Cabinet. He worked with Nigel Lawson and had responsibility for public spending. In July 1989 Major replaced Sir Geoffrey Howe at the Foreign Office. From being talked about as a possible next leader but one, he was now widely regarded in the media as the likely successor to Margaret Thatcher. He was not happy in his few months in the Foreign Office, although it would not have been easy for any incumbent to cope with such a dominant and experienced Prime Minister as Mrs Thatcher.

A few months later he was again, suddenly, transferred to a new post, this time Chancellor of the Exchequer, following the sudden resignation of Nigel Lawson. As Chancellor he continued with the regime of high interest rates to bear down on inflation. With the support of the new Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, he persuaded Mrs Thatcher to take Britain into the European Community's ERM in September 1990. This was a fatal decision and subsequent events were to prove that Britain had entered at too high a rate.

During 1990 Mrs Thatcher's leadership was under pressure. She was unpopular with voters and regarded as a vote loser by a number of colleagues. John Major was one of her two proposers when she stood in the annual leadership election in November 1990. He was unwell and absent from the manœuvres which took place following her failure to win an outright victory on the first ballot. When she stood down, John Major entered the contest and, with Thatcher's support and no candidate standing for the right, he was a clear favourite. He won the second ballot with 185 votes, compared to 131 for Michael Heseltine and 56 for Douglas Hurd. He was two votes short of an outright victory but the other two candidates stood down and he became the new party leader. Only one other twentieth-century Prime Minister had held the two great posts of Foreign Secretary and Chancellor — James Callaghan. Major's tenure of the two, however, amounted to only seventeen months in total.

As Prime Minister, Major inherited a party divided over Europe and these divisions came to dominate the latter part of his premiership. He gained credit for his conduct during the Gulf War, helped to replace the hated poll tax, and negotiated the Maastricht Treaty, which kept the Cabinet united. One policy firmly identified with him was the Citizen's Charter, designed to improve public services. By 1992, however, he was increasingly criticized on the right of the party. He suffered in comparison with his predecessor, lacking her drive and her radical agenda. Critics said that he had been over-promoted and that his spells at the Foreign Office and the Treasury had been too brief either for him to make a mark or for mistakes to become evident.

By the end of 1995 Major had been in office for over five years and only four post-war prime ministers had enjoyed a longer tenure. Yet there was often an air of impermanence about his premiership. For the first sixteen months there was the likelihood of defeat in a general election whenever it was called. Against the odds he led his party to an election victory in April 1992. Although the Conservative majority over Labour was 65, it was only 21 overall. Because of divisions over Europe and losses in by-elections it was not long before the party lacked an assured majority in the new parliament. Recovery from the economic recession was delayed by membership of the ERM. It was a blow to his prestige when Britain was forced out in September 1992. A bruising battle to pass the Maastricht Treaty through parliament in 1993 showed the government to be at the mercy of events and rebel Tory Euro-sceptics seemed to have the initiative. According to opinion polls, he and the government were the most unpopular since polling began. He surprised his party critics by resigning the party leadership in June 1995 and offered himself for re-election. He decisively beat the challenger John Redwood by 218 votes to 89, with 20 abstentions or spoilt ballots.

By 1997 his government could point to historically low inflation and low interest rates. His pragmatic wait-and-see position on entering a single European currency seemed to match the public mood and was perhaps the only one which could stop the party from splitting outright. He called a general election in May 1997. He was unable to overcome the mood of "Time for a Change" (his party had been in office for eighteen years) and internal divisions over Europe. The Conservative Party went down to its worst defeat of the century and Major resigned the leadership.

 
 
Biography: John Major

The youngest British prime minister of the 20th century, John Major (born 1943) succeeded Margaret Thatcher as leader of the Conservative Party and political head of the United Kingdom in 1990, a post he held until 1997.

John Major had a highly unusual background for a Conservative Party leader. Born on March 29, 1943, in the middle-class London suburb of Merton, he was the son of Gwendolyn and Thomas Major. Thomas Major, 66 when his son was born, was a colorful man who had a remarkably varied career as a circus acrobat, vaudevillian, mercenary, and manufacturer of garden ornaments. When John Major was very young, the family lived in comfortable circumstances, and he attended Rutlish Grammar School, a state-run school for bright children. When Major was 11, however, the family moved to Brixton, the so-called "South Bronx of London," after Thomas Major's business suffered financial reverses.

Young Major disliked the authoritarian atmosphere of school and left at 16 to find work. His first job was a clerical position, which he soon left to pursue a more lucrative career as a construction laborer. Shortly after this change he was laid off and spent several months on the dole. These months were a formative experience for Major, who became a Conservative after deciding that socialistic paternalism only perpetuated poverty. At 18 Major found another clerical position, and this time he started a career. Through his native intelligence and hard work he rapidly made his way through the ranks of the Standard Chartered bank, eventually becoming assistant to the bank's chairman. In the mid-1960s Major went to Nigeria, where he performed community service work and where he acquired a heart-felt hatred of racism.

Upon his return Major continued working at the bank and, after determining that he "wanted to be inside the goldfish bowl rather than outside, longingly looking in," he began to take an active role in politics, at first at the local level. He served as a member of the Lambeth Borough Council from 1968 to 1971 and was chairman of the council's housing committee from 1970 to 1971. It was during this time that he met a quiet, opera-loving, young campaign worker, Norma Johnson, a home economics teacher. They married in 1970, which was, Major later said, "the best decision of my life." Major made two unsuccessful attempts to win a parliamentary seat in 1974 and eventually succeeded in 1979, becoming the Conservative member for Huntingdonshire in east central England.

John Major in Parliament

Major's parliamentary career progressed steadily from committee work to parliamentary private secretary in the early 1980s. In 1983 he became an assistant government whip and in 1984 a full-fledged whip, a position which helped him to understand the interests and concerns of backbenchers as well as providing him with much greater visibility to all members of Parliament. It was in this capacity that he first came prominently to Margaret Thatcher's attention. At a dinner party he held his own against her in a heated argument about economic policy. Thatcher was impressed (Major later stated that Thatcher "doesn't like wimps"), and thereafter served as Major's patron.

Major was soon appointed undersecretary of social security (1985-1986) and social security secretary (1986-1987), where he was noted for his compassionate concern for the elderly. From 1987 to 1989 he served as chief secretary to the treasury, the effective deputy chancellor of the exchequer. In this position, serving under the brilliant but controversial Nigel Lawson, Major was able to emulate his father's acrobatic skills by holding a firm line on government spending without making enemies of his more senior colleagues. Like his mentor Thatcher a devotee of a strict monetary policy, he said, "Public expenditure must be restricted. People must understand that if they have jam today, they may not be able to afford butter tomorrow."

In July 1989 Major's career took a quantum leap when, during a Cabinet reshuffle, Margaret Thatcher appointed him foreign secretary. The appointment attracted a great deal of attention - and no little surprise. Major professed himself to be "totally astonished," and political observers were stunned that the young and wholly inexperienced Major had been placed in one of the top positions in the British government. Many attributed the appointment to Thatcher's desire to move Major's predecessor, Sir Geoffrey Howe, to a less visible position, and most realized that it was a great tribute to Thatcher's confidence in Major. Nonetheless, Major did not much enjoy his stay at the Foreign Office, where his informal style offended traditionalist civil servants and diplomats and where he found the work unfamiliar and uncongenial.

He had very little time to make his mark in foreign affairs because, as the result of another Cabinet reshuffle, he was appointed chancellor of the exchequer in October 1989. As a former banker and deputy chancellor, Major had strong credentials for the job, which was, said his wife Norma, "the job he's always wanted." The circumstances surrounding Major's appointment, however, were not auspicious. He replaced the confrontational Nigel Lawson, whose strong differences with Thatcher over the issue of the European Community's impending economic union had caused internal divisions in the party. Also, the economy, racked by rising inflation and unemployment, was headed towards recession. Despite these drawbacks, Major quickly established his authority in the Treasury and proved to be a very well-respected and well-liked boss known for his approachability, thoughtfulness, hard work, and careful decision-making. As chancellor Major emphasized his strict anti-inflation policy, characterized by tight controls on government spending and high interest rates.

In March 1990 Major passed his first big test as chancellor when he presented the fiscal year 1991 budget. The budget proposed no sweeping changes: high interest rates would remain to combat inflation. Calling for a return to a "culture of thrift," Major sought to stimulate savings by offering special tax-exempt savings plans. More important than the substance of the budget speech, however, was its style. Major self-confidently, skillfully, and clearly presented his budget to Parliament and a large television audience, helping restore confidence in the government and doing his own career no little good.

Like many of his Conservative colleagues, Major took a cautious view on the impending European Community's economic union. Though not as anti-Europe as his leader, Major fully understood her fears of the impact of European economic union on British sovereignty, and he had to tread a careful path between Thatcher's manifest disapproval and complying with Britain's obligations to her European partners. Utilizing all his skills as a peacemaker, he slowly eased Britain's path to Europe, entering Britain into the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System in October 1990.

Replaces Thatcher as Prime Minister

Following a challenge to her leadership from former Cabinet minister Michael Heseltine, Thatcher resigned as prime minister on November 22, 1990. Major quickly emerged as a strong candidate to succeed her: he had the backing of Thatcher and the "Thatcherite" wing of the party, his background in economic affairs provided him with important experience, and he was widely liked. After a brief campaign, in which he was opposed by Heseltine and Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, he won the leadership election on November 27, 1990, and became prime minister the next day.

As the new prime minister, Major called for party unity and took steps to achieve it by immediately appointing his electoral opponents to Cabinet positions: Heseltine as environment secretary and Hurd again as foreign secretary. His new Cabinet was substantially different from Thatcher's and served to demonstrate that Major was his own man and not, as his critics impugned, "Son of Thatcher." The former poor boy from Brixton also pledged to help build a "society of opportunit…. in which what people fulfill will depend upon their talent, their application and their good fortune."

The first problem confronting the new prime minister occurred within the Conservative Party when a black lawyer was selected as the party's parliamentary candidate in Cheltenham. This selection caused some blatantly racist opposition from a small group of local Tories, which Major quickly squelched. But Major also had to face long-term problems whose solutions have eluded both Tory and Labor governments for the past 20 years: integration with Europe and the ailing British economy.

Major's chances for success were greater than his predecessor's, however. Although the giant shadow of Thatcher loomed over him, Major was, and, just as important, seemed to be, a "kinder, gentler" person. He had the ability to inspire both respect and liking, could be firm without being strident, could encourage discussion without dominating it, and could be polite without being condescending. He had a quiet, modest, and self-effacing manner which colleagues and opponents alike found congenial.

Major was different in other ways as well. He was, as was widely observed, the first world leader not to remember World War II, and his perceptions and expectations set him apart from his elders. In addition, he was viewed by some as a sort of symbol, living proof of Thatcher's Toryism of upward mobility through individual achievement, not through family connections. And unlike Thatcher, Major was no ideologue. Indeed, he was often described by British politics critics as a "grey man" because he was calm, efficient, and a little dull and because it was difficult to pin down his views on controversial matters. Despite his strict views on economic matters, he was not an aggressively right-wing Tory, nor was he a left winger, even though on social issues such as capital punishment and racism he was determinedly liberal. He was, in fact, a centrist, who could gain support from all factions within the party.

In mid-1995 Major resigned as the head of the Conservative Party and called for a parliamentary election to establish leadership of the party. With that move, Major became the first British Prime Minister to subject himself to a leadership role while in office. Major won the election on July 4, 1995. In 1997, however, Major lost the election to Labor Party leader Tony Blair and stepped down from the office of prime minister.

Further Reading

The first book-length biography of John Major was Edward Pearce, The Quiet Rise of John Major (London: 1991); an excellent introduction to Major's background, characteristics as a politician, and prospects can be found in Sheila Rule's "A Meteor in Thatcher's Political Constellation," New York Times (October 27, 1989); for useful information on Norma Major and the Majors' personal life, see Maurice Chittenden's "Purdah Reduces Major's Wife to Tears," London Sunday Times (March 18, 1990); Guy Garcia gives a balanced examination of Major's leadership victory in "A Victory of Major Proportions," Time (December 10, 1990); Craig R. Whitney's article in the New York Times on November 28, 1990, is a good overview of Major's prospects as prime minister, especially regarding the economy; more discussion of Major's prime ministerial prospects is provided by Daniel Pedersen's "The Tory of the Future," Newsweek (December 10, 1990), which additionally presents a thorough analysis of Major's political background; "The Surprising Mr. Major," in The Economist (December 1, 1990), also discusses Major's prospects as prime minister, but from a Conservative perspective; another article in the same issue of The Economist, "John Major: More Than a Tedious Talent," praises Major's achievements and hails his "greyness" as being uniquely suited to British politics and the British national character.

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: John Major

(born March 29, 1943, London, Eng.) British politician and prime minister (1990 – 97). He was elected to the House of Commons as a member of the Conservative Party in 1979 and rose quickly through the party ranks. In 1989 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher appointed him foreign secretary and then chancellor of the Exchequer. After Thatcher's reisgnation as prime minister and party leader in 1990, Major was elected as party leader, and in 1992 he led the party to a general election victory. Major's first years in office coincided with a long economic recession (1990 – 93). His government became increasingly unpopular, and Major himself was perceived as a colourless and indecisive leader. In 1997 the Conservatives lost by a landslide to the Labour Party, and Major was succeeded as prime minister by Tony Blair.

For more information on John Major, visit Britannica.com.

 
British History: John Major

Major, John (b. 1943). Prime minister. Major entered the House of Commons in 1979 after a career in banking and during the next decade had a meteoric rise to power. His parliamentary career began in the whips' office (1983-5), and then in the Department of Health and Social Services (1985-7). He became chief secretary to the Treasury in 1987 but two years later, still a political unknown, was chosen by Mrs Thatcher to replace first Sir Geoffrey Howe as foreign secretary, then Nigel Lawson as chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1990, on Mrs Thatcher's resignation, Major defeated Douglas Hurd and Michael Heseltine for the leadership, attracting support as Thatcher's political heir. In 1992 he won the general election against the odds.

Relations with Europe were at the heart of Major's difficulties as prime minister. The Tory Party was split on the issue, yet in 1992 he agreed to sign the treaty on European unity at Maastricht, which laid down a timetable for a single currency and established majority voting in almost every area of policy. The concessions Major gained in the negotiations appeared cosmetic and it was not easy to understand how he could claim to have won ‘game, set and match’.

Major's popularity, based in part on the contrast he offered to his predecessor, declined sharply. A ‘back-to-basics’ initiative, intended to improve the moral climate of the nation, foundered amid Tory scandal and sleaze. In 1994 Major attempted to recapture the initiative by tackling the Irish problem, although it involved, contrary to previous assurances, negotiating with the Irish Republican Army. In spite of a considerable economic recovery, Tory divisions over Europe continued to fester, although in 1995 Major beat off a challenge to his leadership from John Redwood, representing the anti-Europe sceptics. Major postponed a general election until the last possible moment. In May 1997 his party suffered a severe defeat and he resigned immediately, though remaining in the Commons as an elder statesman. Widely regarded as honest and well intentioned, and considerably more popular than his party, Major's years as leader were dogged by misfortune and he rarely seemed in advance of events.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Major, John,
1943–, British statesman, b. John Major Ball. Raised in a working-class area of London, he was elected to Lambeth borough council (1968–71) and entered Parliament as a Conservative in 1979. He became Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's chief secretary to the Treasury in 1987, foreign secretary in 1989, and, later that year, chancellor of the exchequer. A Thatcher loyalist, he became her successor after she withdrew from the 1990 party elections. Diplomatic and respected, even by the opposition, he moderated the Thatcher government's controversial poll tax and its opposition to greater integration into the European Community (now the European Union). He provided military support to the United States in the Persian Gulf War (1991). In 1992, Major and the Conservatives again defeated Labour in a national election. Despite a political setback in 1992 when his government could no longer support the minimum exchange level of the pound within the exchange-rate mechanism of the European Monetary System, Major was able to win ratification of the Treaty of European Union (Maastricht Treaty) in 1993. In 1994 his government's representatives participated in the negotiation of a cease-fire in Northern Ireland. Although party infighting, policy changes, and scandals eroded his parliamentary and public support, Major was reaffirmed as Conservative party leader in 1995. After the Conservatives were defeated by Tony Blair and Labour in a landslide in 1997, Major resigned as party leader; he retired from Parliament in 2001

Bibliography

See E. Pearce, The Quiet Rise of John Major (1991).

 
Quotes By: John Major

Quotes:

"The politician who never made a mistake never made a decision."

"The first requirement of politics is not intellect or stamina but patience. Politics is a very long run game and the tortoise will usually beat the hare."

"A consensus politician is someone who does something that he doesn't believe is right because it keeps people quiet when he does it."

"I am walking over hot coals suspended over a deep pit at the bottom of which are a large number of vipers baring their fangs."

 
Wikipedia: John Major
For other persons named John Major, see John Major (disambiguation).
The Rt Hon. Sir John Major
John Major
In office
28 November 1990 – 2 May 1997
Monarch Elizabeth II
Deputy Michael Heseltine (1995-97)
Preceded by Margaret Thatcher
Succeeded by Tony Blair
In office
26 October 1989 – 28 November 1990
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by Nigel Lawson
Succeeded by Norman Lamont
In office
24 July 1989 – 26 October 1989
Preceded by Geoffrey Howe
Succeeded by Douglas Hurd
In office
13 June 1987 – 24 July 1989
Preceded by John MacGregor
Succeeded by Norman Lamont
Member of Parliament
for Huntingdon
Huntingdonshire (1979-1983)
In office
2 May 1979 – 7 June 2001
Preceded by David Renton
Succeeded by Jonathan Djanogly
Born 29 March 1943 (1943--) (age 64)
Carshalton, Surrey, England
Political party Conservative
Spouse Norma Major
Profession Banker
Religion Anglican[citation needed]
Signature John Major's signature

Sir John Major, KG, CH (born 29 March 1943) is a former British politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and leader of the British Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. During his time as Prime Minister, the world went through a period of transition after the end of the Cold War. This included the growing importance of the European Union and the debate surrounding Britain's ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. As Prime Minister, Major and his government were also responsible for the United Kingdom's exit from the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) after Black Wednesday on 16 September 1992.

In 1997 the Conservative Party, under Major's leadership, lost the general election to Tony Blair's Labour party. This was one of the worst electoral defeats in British politics since the Great Reform Act of 1832. After the defeat he was replaced as leader of the party by William Hague, continuing as an MP until he retired from the House of Commons in the 2001 general election.

Before serving as Prime Minister, Major was a Cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher. He served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Early life

John Major was born on 29 March 1943, the son of Tom Pascal Hubert Major-Ball, a former music-hall artiste. He was christened John Roy Major but only the name John is shown on his birth certificate. He used the middle name Roy until the early 1980s.[1]

He was born at the St Helier Hospital, Carshalton. He attended primary school at Cheam Common, and then attended Rutlish Grammar School, since converted to a comprehensive school and renamed Rutlish School, in Merton, from 1954 onwards, when he passed the eleven-plus. There he had an undistinguished education. In the 1950s, his father's garden ornaments business failed, and the family were forced to move to Brixton in 1955. He watched his first debate in the House of Commons in 1956, and attributes his political ambitions to that event.

Major left school at sixteen in 1959, with three O-levels: They were History, English Language, and English Literature. He would later gain three more by correspondence course in British Constitution, Mathematics and Economics. Major applied to become a bus conductor after leaving school but his application was rejected. Many accounts have said this was due to his height, although early media reports claimed wrongly that this was due to poor arithmetic. His first job was as a clerk in an insurance brokerage firm 'Pratt & Sons' in 1959 after leaving school. Disliking this, he quit and for a time, he helped with his father's garden ornaments business with his brother, Terry Major-Ball. He also joined the Young Conservatives in Brixton at this time.

After a spell of unemployment, he started working at the London Electricity Board (where his successor as PM Tony Blair also worked when young) in 1963, and decided to undertake a correspondence course in banking. Major took up a post as an executive at Standard Chartered Bank in May 1965 and rose quickly through the ranks; he was sent to Nigeria by the bank in 1967, and nearly died after a car crash there.

He is an Associate of the Institute of Bankers.

Political career

Major was interested in politics from an early age. Encouraged by fellow conservative Derek Stone, he started giving speeches on a soap-box in Brixton market. He stood as a candidate for Lambeth Borough Council at the age of 21 in 1964, and was unexpectedly elected in the Conservative landslide in 1968. While on the council he served as Chairman of the Housing Committee, being responsible for the building of several council housing estates. Despite moving to a ward which was easier for the Conservatives to win, he lost his seat in May 1971.

Major was an active Young Conservative and, according to his biographer Anthony Seldon brought "youthful exuberance" to the Tories in Brixton, but was often in trouble with the professional agent Marion Standing. But, again according to Seldon, the formative political influence on Major was Jean Kierans, a divorcée 13 years his elder who became his political mentor and lover. Seldon writes "She... made Major smarten his appearance, groomed him politically and made him more ambitious and worldly." Their relationship lasted from 1963 to sometime after 1968.

He stood for election to Parliament in St Pancras North in both general elections of 1974, but did not win this traditionally Labour seat. In November 1976, he was selected by Huntingdonshire Conservatives as their candidate at the next election, winning the safe seat in the 1979 general election. Following boundary changes, Major became Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon in 1983 and subsequently won the seat in the 1987, 1992 and 1997 elections (his political agent in all three elections was Peter Brown). His majority in 1992 was an extraordinary 36,230 votes, the highest ever recorded. He stood down at the 2001 general election.

He was a Parliamentary Private Secretary from 1981 and an assistant whip from 1983. He was made Under-Secretary of State for Social Security in 1985 and became minister of the same department in 1986. He entered the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 1987, and in a surprise re-shuffle on 24 July 1989, a relatively inexperienced John Major was appointed Foreign Secretary, succeeding Geoffrey Howe. He spent only three months in that post before becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer after Nigel Lawson's resignation in October 1989. Major presented only one budget (the first one to be televised) in the spring of 1990. He publicised it as a budget for savings and announced the Tax-Exempt Special Savings Account (TESSA) arguing that measures were required to address the marked fall in the household savings ratio that had been apparent during the previous financial year.

When Michael Heseltine's challenge to Margaret Thatcher's leadership of the Conservative Party forced the contest to a second round and Thatcher withdrew, Major entered the contest alongside Douglas Hurd. Though he fell two votes short of the required winning margin of 187 in the second ballot Major's result was sufficient to secure immediate concessions from his rivals and he became Leader of the Conservative Party on 27 November 1990. The next day, Major was summoned to Buckingham Palace and appointed Prime Minister.

Prime minister

Further information: Major Ministry

The Gulf War

Major served as Prime Minister during the first Gulf War of 1991, and played a key role in persuading American president George H. W. Bush to support no-fly zones over Iraq to protect the Kurds and Shiite Muslims from Saddam Hussein's regime.[citation needed]

Soap Box election

The economy slid into recession again during Major's first year in office, though the signs of this were appearing during Thatcher's final months as Prime Minister, and Major's Conservatives were widely expected to lose the 1992 election to Neil Kinnock's Labour Party. Major took his campaign onto the streets, famously delivering many addresses from an upturned soapbox as in his Lambeth days. This "common touch" approach stood in contrast to the Labour Party's more slick campaign and it chimed with the electorate. Major won a second period in office, albeit with the small parliamentary majority of just 21 seats.

John Major with US President George H.W. Bush at Camp David in 1992
Enlarge
John Major with US President George H.W. Bush at Camp David in 1992

Black Wednesday

Unfortunately this slim majority proved to be unmanageable, particularly after the United Kingdom's exit from the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) on Black Wednesday (16 September 1992) - just five months into the new parliament - when billions of pounds were wasted in a futile attempt to prop up the currency's value.

After the release of Black Wednesday government documents,[2] it became apparent that Major came very close to stepping down from office at this point, having even prepared an unsent letter of resignation addressed to the Queen.[3]

Major kept his economic team unchanged for seven months after Black Wednesday before requiring the resignation of Chancellor Norman Lamont, whom he replaced with Kenneth Clarke. Such a delay, on top of the crisis, was portrayed by Major's critics as proof of the indecisiveness that was to undermine his authority through the rest of his premiership. But, ironically, in appointing Clarke as Chancellor, Major made what was arguably the single most important appointment of his tenure.

The UK's forced withdrawal from the ERM was succeeded by a partial economic recovery with a new policy of flexible exchange rates, allowing lower interest rates, along with the unintended consequence of a devalued pound - increased sales of UK goods to export markets.[4]

Infighting over Europe

Rather than capitalise on the economic 'good news', however, the Conservative Party soon fell into political infighting over the subject of Europe: On Europe Major took a moderate approach but he found himself undermined by the Eurosceptic wing within the party and the Cabinet. In particular, his policy towards the European Union aroused opposition as the Government attempted to ratify the Maastricht Treaty. Although the Labour opposition supported the treaty, they were prepared to tactically oppose certain provisions in order to weaken the government. This opposition included passing an amendment that required a vote on the social chapter aspects of the treaty before it could be ratified. Several Conservative MPs voted against the Major Government and the vote was lost. Major hit back by calling another vote on the following day (23 July 1993), which he declared a vote of confidence. He won by forty votes, but the damage had been done to his authority in parliament.

Later that day, Major gave an interview to ITN's Michael Brunson. During an unguarded moment when he thought that the microphones had been switched off, Brunson asked why he did not sack the Ministers who were conspiring against him. He replied: "Just think it through from my perspective. You are the prime minister, with a majority of eighteen... where do you think most of the poison is coming from? From the dispossessed and the never-possessed. Do we want three more of the bastards out there? What's Lyndon B. Johnson's maxim?" Major later claimed that he had picked the number three from the air and that he was referring to "former ministers who had left the government and begun to create havoc with their anti-European activities",[5] but many journalists immediately named the three as Peter Lilley, Michael Portillo and Michael Howard, who were three of the more prominent "Eurosceptics" within his Cabinet at the time (throughout the rest of Major's premiership the exact identity of the three would be blurred, with John Redwood's name frequently appearing in a list along with two of the others). The tape of this conversation was leaked to the Daily Mirror and widely reported, embarrassing Major. (The maxim referred to is Johnson's famous comment about J. Edgar Hoover: Johnson had once sought a way to remove Hoover from his post as head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), but upon realizing that the problems involved in such a plan were insurmountable, he accepted Hoover's presence philosophically, reasoning that it would be "better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in").

"Sleaze"

At the 1993 Conservative Party Conference, Major began the "Back to Basics" campaign, which he intended to be about the economy, education, policing, and other such issues. However, it was interpreted by many (including Conservative cabinet ministers) as an attempt to revert to the moral and family values that the Conservative Party were often associated with. However, Back to basics became synonymous with scandal- often exposed by Tabloid newspapers such as The Sun. David Mellor, a cabinet minister was exposed as having an extra-marital affair. The wife of the Earl of Caithness committed suicide amongst rumours of the Earl committing adultery. David Ashby was 'outed' by his wife after sleeping with men. A string of other conservative MPs including Alan Amos, Tim Yeo and Michael Brown all were involved in sexual scandals. There was also the spectacularly bizarre autoerotic death of Stephen Milligan.

Other debilitating scandals included Cash for Questions, in which it was revealed that several Conservative MPs had been given money by Mohamed Al Fayed to ask questions in the House of Commons. Graham Riddick, David Tredinnick, Tim Smith and Neil Hamilton were all exposed in the scandal. Later, David Willetts resigned as Paymaster General after he was accused of rigging evidence to do with Cash for Questions.

Defence Minister Jonathan Aitken (whose Parliamentary Aide was Stephen Milligan) was accused of secretly doing deals with leading Saudi princes. Whilst he denied all accusations and promised to wield the "sword of truth" he was later exposed as a liar.

Northern Ireland

John Major opened talks with the Provisional IRA upon taking office. Yet when he declared to the House of Commons in November 1993 that "to sit down and talk with Mr. Adams and the Provisional IRA... would turn my stomach",[6] Sinn Féin gave the media an outline of the secret talks indeed held regularly since that February. The Downing Street Declaration was issued on 15 December 1993 by Major and Albert Reynolds, the Irish prime minister; an IRA ceasefire followed in 1994. In the House of Commons Major refused to sign-up to the first draft of the "Mitchell Principles" which resulted in the ending of the ceasefire.

In March 1995, Major refused to answer the phone calls of United States President Bill Clinton, for several days, because of anger at Clinton's decision to invite Gerry Adams to the White House for Saint Patrick's Day.[7]

However, Major paved the way for the Good Friday Agreement, although it was signed after he left office.

Leadership challenge

On 22 June 1995, tired of continual threats of leadership challenges that never arose, Major resigned as Leader of the Conservative Party and announced he would be contesting the resulting leadership election. John Redwood, the Secretary of State for Wales stood against him. Major won by 218 votes to Redwood's 89 (with 12 spoiled ballots, eight abstentions and two MPs not voting at all) – easily enough to win in the first round, but only three more than the target he had privately set himself.[8] (The Conservative Party has since changed its rules to allow a simple vote of no confidence in the leader, rather than requiring a challenger to stand (this mechanism was used to remove Iain Duncan Smith from the leadership in later years)).

1997 general election defeat

His re-election as leader of the party however failed to restore his authority. Despite efforts to restore (or at least improve) the popularity of the Conservative party, Labour remained far ahead in the opinion polls as the 1997 election loomed. By December 1996, the Conservatives had actually lost their majority in the House of Commons. Major managed to survive to the end of the Parliament, but called an election on 17 March 1997 as the five-year limit for its timing approached. Major delayed the election in the hope that a still improving economy would help the Conservatives win a greater number of seats, but it did not.

Few then were surprised when Major's Conservatives lost the 1997 general election to Tony Blair's "New Labour", though the immense scale of the defeat was not widely predicted: the Conservative party suffered one of the worst electoral defeats since the Great Reform Act of 1832. In the new parliament, Labour held 418 seats, the Conservatives 165, and the Liberal Democrats 46, giving the Labour party a majority of 179.

John Major himself was re-elected in his constituency of Huntingdon with a majority of 18,140. However, 179 other Conservative MPs were defeated in 1997, including present and former Cabinet ministers such as Norman Lamont, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and, most importantly, Michael Portillo.

At about noon on 2 May 1997, Major officially returned his seals of office as Prime Minister to Queen Elizabeth II. Shortly before his resignation, he gave his final statement from Number Ten, in which he said "when the curtain falls, it is time to get off the stage". Major then famously told the press that he intended to go with his family to The Oval to watch cricket.

Following his resignation as Prime Minister, Major briefly became Leader of the Opposition and remained in this post until the election of William Hague as leader of the Conservative Party in June 1997. Major continued as an MP until he retired from the House of Commons in the 2001 general election, a fact he announced on the Breakfast show with David Frost.[9]

Summary of Major's premiership

John Major's mild-mannered style and moderate political stance made him potentially well-placed to act as a conciliatory leader of his party and to unite the disparate groups among his MPs that had come into open conflict under Margaret Thatcher. He never succeeded, however, in reconciling the relatively small group of "euro-rebels" to his European policy, and his increasingly slim majority after 1992 gave the rebels disproportionate influence and power. Episodes such as the Maastricht Rebellion inflicted serious and long-term political damage upon him and upon the Conservative Party.

But if Major's period in office was marred by continual infighting, "sleaze" and an apparent political inertia, it also put in place many of the economic planks which the New Labour government was to use in order to bring about the longest period of economic growth in British history.

Paddy Ashdown, the leader of the Liberal Democrats during Major's term of office, once described him in the House of Commons as a "decent and honourable man". Few observers doubted that he was an honest man, or that he made sincere and sometimes successful attempts to improve life in Britain and to unite his deeply divided party.

The late former Labour MP Tony Banks said of Major in 1994 that "He was a fairly competent chairman of Housing [on Lambeth Council]. Every time he gets up now I keep thinking, 'What on earth is Councillor Major doing?' I can't believe he's here and sometimes I think he can't either."[10]

After retirement

Major at Newlands Cricket Ground January 2000
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Major at Newlands Cricket Ground January 2000

Since leaving office Major has tended to take a low profile retirement, indulging his love of cricket as president of Surrey County Cricket Club. He held the position until 2002. He has been a member of Carlyle Group's European Advisory Board since 1998 and was appointed Chairman of Carlyle Europe in May 2001.[11] He stood down in August 2004.

In March 2001, he gave the tribute to (Lord) Colin Cowdrey at his memorial service in Westminster Abbey.[12] In 2005, he was elected to the Committee of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), historically the governing body of the sport, and still guardian of the laws of the game.[13]

Following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997, Major was appointed a special guardian to Princes William and Harry, with responsibility for legal and administrative matters.

Major/Currie affair

Major's recent low-profile political career was disrupted by the revelation in September 2002 that, prior to his promotion to the Cabinet, Major had had a four-year extramarital affair with a fellow MP, Edwina Currie.[14][15] Commentators were quick to refer to Major's previous "Back to Basics" platform to throw charges of hypocrisy. Max Hastings in his 2002 book Editor, also commented on Sarah Hogg, a colleague at The Daily Telegraph; "Sarah knew Major intimately, in a way none of the rest of us did".[citation needed]

Since 2005

In February 2005, it was reported that Major and Norman Lamont delayed the release of papers on Black Wednesday under the Freedom of Information Act.[16] Major denied doing so, saying that he had not heard of the request until the scheduled release date and had merely asked to look at the papers himself. The former prime minister told BBC News he and former chancellor Norman Lamont had been the victims of "whispering voices" to the press.[17] He later publicly approved the release of the papers.[18]

According to the Evening Standard, Major has become a prolific after-dinner speaker. The Independent alleges that he earns over £25,000 per engagement, and is described by his agency as providing "insights and his own opinions on the expanding European Union, the future of the world in the 21st century, and also about Britain".[19] He has been less successful, however, in his business career.

In December 2006, Major led calls for an independent inquiry into Tony Blair's decision to invade Iraq, following revelations made by Carne Ross, a former British senior diplomat, that contradict Blair's case for the invasion.[20]

Representation in the media

During his leadership of the Conservative Party, Major was portrayed as honest ("Honest John") but unable to rein in the philandering and bickering within his party. Major's appearance was noted in its greyness, his prodigious philtrum, and large glasses, all of which were exaggerated in caricatures. For example, in Spitting Image, Major's puppet was changed from a circus performer to that of a grey man who ate dinner with his wife in silence, occasionally saying "nice peas, dear". The media (particularly The Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell) used the allegation by Alastair Campbell that he had observed Major tucking his shirt into his underpants to caricature him wearing his pants outside his trousers,[21] as a pale grey echo of both Superman and Supermac, a parody of Harold Macmillan.

Private Eye parodied Sue Townsend's The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, age 13¾ to write The Secret Diary of John Major, age 47¾, featuring "my wife Norman" and "Mr. Dr. Mawhinney" as recurring characters. The magazine still runs one-off specials of this diary (with the age updated) on occasions when Sir John is in the news, such as on the breaking of the Edwina Currie story or the publication of his autobiography. The magazine also ran a series of cartoons called 101 Uses for a John Major, in which Major was illustrated serving a number of bizarre purposes, such as a train-spotter's anorak.

Because he grew up in Brixton, the so-called "capital of the Jamaican community in London", he was regularly joked about as being Rankin' John Major by Curtis Walker and Ishmael Thomas, the hosts of an early 1990s BBC comedy programme called Paramount City [1]. Later, he was also be depicted as "Johnny Reggae" by the cast of The Real McCoy. His Brixton roots were also used in a campaign poster during the Conservative Party's 1992 election campaign: "What does the Conservative Party offer a working class kid from Brixton? They made him Prime Minister."[22]

Major was often mocked for his nostalgic evocation of what sounded like the lost England of the 1950s.[23] He is known to have once said:

"Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers"[24]

Titles and honours

Styles from birth

John Major in the robes of a Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter
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John Major in the robes of a Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter
  • John Major, (1943 – 1979)
  • John Major, Esq, MP (1979 – 1987)
  • The Rt Hon John Major, MP (1987 – 1999)
  • The Rt Hon John Major, CH, MP (1999 – 2001)
  • The Rt Hon John Major, CH (2001 – 2005)
  • The Rt Hon Sir John Major, KG, CH (2005 – )

Honours

In the New Year's Honours List of 1999, John Major was made a Companion of Honour for his work on the Northern Ireland Peace Process.[25] In a 2003 interview he spoke about his hopes for peace in the region.[26]

On 23 April 2005, Major was made a Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter by Queen Elizabeth II. He was installed at St. George's Chapel, Windsor on 13 June. Membership of the Order of the Garter is limited in number to 24, and is an honour traditionally bestowed on former British prime ministers and a personal gift of Her Majesty the Queen.[27]

Major has so far declined the customary peerage offered to former Prime Ministers on standing down from Parliament.[28]

Personal life

Major married Norma Johnson (now Dame Norma Major, DBE) on 3 October 1970. She was a teacher and a member of the Young Conservatives. They met on polling day for the Greater London Council elections in London. They became engaged after only ten days.[29] They had two children; a son,