John Major
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“”It is time to return to core values, time to get back to basics, to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for the others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family - and not shuffling it off on other people and the state. .
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| —John Major, October 1993.[1] |
John 'Back to Basics' Major (1943–) was a British Conservative Prime Minister (1990-1997); a man who, if remembered by anyone these days, it’s for being a deathly dull, uncharismatic man whose only concession to a personality was his love of cricket[note 1] – a view not helped by the fact Private Eye portrayed him as a naive, bumbling fool (in the vein as an adult Adrian Mole[2].) and Spitting Image always showing him as an all-grey character who only ate peas (not helped by the fact he’d gone grey in his 40s and favoured grey suits which made him look much older than he was[note 2]). Perhaps one of his crimes was to have been sandwiched between two leaders who clearly did have charisma and an ‘inner fire’ – Margaret Thatcher and then Tony Blair.
Public perception pegs him as a fairly useless Prime Minister, though modern historians have been more favourable[3][4][5] – particularly when they take into account of the ‘hand he’d been dealt’ in 1990 and when his calibre is compared to later Conservative Prime Ministers. He generally fell off the political radar after leading his party into the disastrous 1997 General Election[note 3] though he continues to occasionally resurface - such as to oppose Scottish Independence[6] and soon after, to fight against Brexit[7].
Early Life[edit]
Major was described as ‘the man who ran away from the circus to become an accountant’ – his father was a rather risqué philandering music-hall[note 4] entertainer[8][9], whose later garden ornament business floundered enough to reduce the family to a point they were (in Major’s words) ‘close to the edge, clinging on’ in 1950s London. He drifted through school, failed most of his exams and left at sixteen[note 5], then drifted into a series of jobs (and bouts of unemployment). By his early 20s, he was the lover of a divorcee thirteen years his senior who appeared to have helped him ‘straighten out’, smarten up and nurture his ambitions. A rather interesting backstory for such a 'dull' man, no?
Said straightening out included getting involved in Conservative Party politics (becoming a local councillor in the 1960s) and getting into banking via a correspondence course. By the 1970s, he was hunting about for a Parliamentary seat which he’d actually have a decent chance of winning; his hard work and networking within the party finally paying off in being offered Huntingdon – a safe rural ‘shire’ seat – in time for the 1979 General Election, which was a solid Conservative victory.
Parliament[edit]
While he was later considered ‘rapidly over-promoted’ by Thatcher in her final year in power[note 6] the truth was that Major was much more a ‘sleeper hit’ of the 1980s; continuing in his combination of hard work and back-room networking to get a series of boring-but-responsible posts of ever-increasing importance through the decade. In this respect, he was ‘in the right place at the right time’; that when the imperious Thatcher was finally defenestrated over her failure of the 'Poll Tax'[note 7][10], he was senior enough to be considered a credible candidate but hadn’t been there long enough to have made any real political enemies yet. Thus he became the ‘compromise candidate’ which both pro and anti Thatcher factions could agree on[11]. Some duplicity on Major’s part seems to have been played – that he’d inferred to both groups that he was ‘their man’ but then once in power, make his own path (which caused a deepening and sour rift with Thatcher as he denied her attempts to 'backseat drive'[12][13]).
Prime Minister[edit]
For a ‘useless Prime Minister’, Major sure did achieve some things.
- Gave full support to H.W. Bush over the Gulf War (inc 50,000 British forces in Desert Storm).
- Did much of the ‘heavy lifting’ which led to the 1998 ‘Good Friday Agreement’ in Northern Ireland (putting 'The Troubles' on ice) and the final normalisation of relations with the Republic of Ireland[14] - though not without some 'hiccups' on the way[15].
- Managed to turn around a 20-point Labour lead in the polls to a 6-point Tory lead in about a year, leading to an unprecedented fourth victory in the 1992 General Election (also winning the record of ‘most votes’ at just over 14 million).
- Got the British Parliament to ratify the Maastricht Treaty (leading to the formation of the modern European Union) despite the Eurosceptic wing of his party vowing to resist to the death[16].
- Managed to stabilise the economy after the debacle of the early 1990s recession and the British ejection from the ‘Exchange Rate Mechanism’[17] – though in this case it was more ‘fixing the crap you caused’ than anything else (they'd deliberately stoked a boom in the late 1980s to help win the 1987 election[18][note 8]).
Most critical and perhaps impressive was the simple fact that Major managed to actually get the Conservative Party to 1997 without it actually dying on route. Thatcher and the 'bastards' in the rear trying to knife him[19][20], the Eurosceptic 'Referendum Party' rising on his right[21] while in front of him (and the nation) the various colleagues who were increasingly unable to keep their trousers up[22], to say no to mysterious envelopes filled with cash[23] or realise when they're being tone-deaf[24] - all causing his Parliamentary majority to slowly grind down under his feet to zero by 1996 due to much of the population increasingly convinced the Party were either corrupt, malign, deluded or simply stupid (though most still believed Major himself was honest and well-meaning).
All of this, however is outweighed in the popular consciousness by the spectre of ‘Back to Basics’[note 9] A show-piece speech in 1993 to the ‘party faithful’[25], in which Major laid out his political stall (much more an old-school ‘One Nation Conservatism’ in the mould of Edward Heath than an unabashed Thatcherite). It wasn’t as bad as it was later portrayed (personal sexuality was barely mentioned) but it was a clear ‘hymn to the good old days’[note 10] which not only ignored the fact their own party had destroyed much of the infrastructure which made said days possible but also cut a moralistic, hectoring tone which felt out of sync with mainstream British society at the time (and personally hypocritical, reaching for the ‘family values’ line while the woman you’d had an affair with[26] was in the audience...).
Ultimately, this speech was the millstone which more than anything else sunk the Tories. Not only did it apparently give the social reactionaries carte blanche to try to attack anything they didn’t like (single mothers, unmarried parents, sex education etc) which made the party feel even more retrograde but it provided the perfect backdrop of seemingly blatant hypocrisy which came to be summed up as simply ‘Tory Sleaze’[27][28].
Other items of note in his tenure was the piles of burning cattle due to BSE[29], his timidity (or caution) over intervening in the Yugoslav Wars[30] and ill-considered policies such as the 'Cones Hotline'[31] which made the Government look stupid.
Legacy[edit]
One of the reasons he’s forgotten is that he doesn’t really have a legacy. If ‘One Nation Conservatism’ is alive in Britain today, it’s not within the Conservative Party – the ‘bastards’[32] and ‘swivel-eyed loons’[33] have won[34][35]. He is persona non grata, like his old Cabinet colleagues Michael Heseltine[36] and Ken Clarke[37]. His vision of a classless, meritocratic and fair Britain which ‘was at ease with itself’ is as unfashionable in the world of culture wars, conspiracy theories, alternative facts and vulgar libertarianism as much as shell suits and curtain haircuts are.
His bleating about governmental competence, of respect for civil servants[38]., for ‘sound policies’[39], public service and for personal rectitude are unwelcome to modern Conservative ears. Better instead to proclaim him a failure, to blame him single-handedly for the ‘97 defeat, that ‘he wasn’t a real conservative’ and should basically ‘sit down and shut up’[40]. Lastly, his steadfast refusal to prostrate himself at the shrine of the Blessed St Margaret is a heresy which can never be forgiven by those who tend the flames of the cult[41][42][43].
John Major is a reminder of what ‘Conservative’ used to mean, and much of the current crop hate him for that.
Notes[edit]
- ↑ Oddly enough, all the above could also be said against the Labour PM Clement Attlee some forty-odd years earlier.
- ↑ in fact, he’d been the youngest Prime Minister for a century.
- ↑ ‘When the curtain falls it is time to get off the stage’.
- ↑ ‘vaudeville’, in American parlance.
- ↑ Major never went to university; making him one of only four 20th Century Prime Ministers who didn’t.
- ↑ Cycling between Foreign Secretary, Chancellor and finally Prime Minister in thirteen months.
- ↑ This was the ‘straw that broke the back’ than anything else.
- ↑ Though Major himself was partly to blame, as he'd had a (short) stint as Chancellor.
- ↑ For Americans, consider it a long-form British edition of HG Bush’s demand for America to be ‘more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons’.
- ↑ in this case, a mythologised 1950s
References[edit]
- ↑ Mr Major’s Speech to 1993 Conservative Party Conference – 8 October 1993 John Major Archive.
- ↑ Private Eye at 60: the prime ministerial parodies that tell a history of modern Britain The Conversation, 26 October 2021.
- ↑ Book Review: John Major: An Unsuccessful Prime Minister? Reappraising John Major LSE Blogs, 15 September 2017.
- ↑ He let the bastards grind him down The Guardian, 17 October 1999.
- ↑ It’s time to give John Major the credit we so cruelly denied him The Telegraph, 4 April 2012.
- ↑ Scottish independence: John Major warns over 'Yes' vote BBC News, 17 June 2014.
- ↑ Brexit ‘colossal mistake’, ex-Tory PM John Major tells MPs The Independent, 7 February 2023.
- ↑ My Old Man: A Personal History of Music Hall By John Major The Independent, 28 September 2012.
- ↑ Grey Major will be remembered in colour, oh yes! The Guardian, 17 October 1999.
- ↑ The leadership fracas that forced Margaret Thatcher from power in 1990 CBC News, 15 July 2022.
- ↑ Thatcher's protege Major to be new British leader Washington Post, 27 November 1990.
- ↑ Major damns 'intolerable' Thatcher BBC News, 11 August 1999
- ↑ Thatcher and Major resented each other more than anyone knew – and I was caught in the middle The Telegraph, 12 November 2023.
- ↑ John Major started process that has culminated with Queen's visit to Dublin The Guardian, 17 May 2011.
- ↑ The 1996 Manchester bomb: A day that changed our city forever Manchester Evening News, 15 June 2024.
- ↑ Major Wins Confidence Vote on Europe Treaty Los Angeles Times, 24 July 1993.
- ↑ Black Wednesday 20 years on: how the day unfolded The Guardian, 13 September 2012
- ↑ Nigel Lawson’s legacy: boom, bust and a national treasure Evening Standard, 4 April 2023.
- ↑ Major hits out at Cabinet The Guardian, 25 July 1993.
- ↑ Conservative Party Leadership Election 1995 BBC Politics '97.
- ↑ Sir James Goldsmith and the Referendum Party WorldPR, 5 June 2020.
- ↑ The Yeo Resignation: Minister falls foul of 'back to basics' policy: Swift demise after constituency association released statement The Independent, 6 January 1994.
- ↑ A lair and a cheat The Guardian, 1 October 1996.
- ↑ The making of blue Peter The Independent, 2 April 1992.
- ↑ Major goes back to the old values The Guardian, 9 October 1993.
- ↑ Major and Currie had four-year affair BBC News, 28 September 2002.
- ↑ Ah, I remember this sickly smell of sleaze The Guardian, 12 April 2009.
- ↑ Sex, Lies and Hypocrisy: The last time Sleaze brought down the Tories Tides of History, 23 December 2017.
- ↑ Mad cow disease – a very British response to an international crisis The Guardian, 25 April 2012.
- ↑ Major, the chicken turned hawk The Guardian, 11 April 1999.
- ↑ Cones Hotline put into cold storage The Independent, 20 September 1995.
- ↑ How the Maastricht Treaty sowed the seeds of discontent that led to Brexit The Independent, 18 February 2020.
- ↑ The Tory party has lost the plot – and could be bad news for Labour The Guardian, 8 April 2024.
- ↑ The Conservative Party is becoming the enemy of liberal democracy Middle East Eye, 10 October 2024.
- ↑ Tories now seen as being as right wing as 2014-16 era UKIP YouGov, 11 January 2024.
- ↑ Tory party suspends Michael Heseltine for backing Lib Dems The Guardian, 20 May 2019.
- ↑ Ken Clarke expelled from the parliamentary Conservative Party ITV News, 4 September 2019.
- ↑ Ex-PM Sir John Major criticises successors in No 10 for civil service treatment BBC News, 11 March 2024.
- ↑ John Major criticises Rwanda asylum plan as ‘un-Conservative and un-British’ The Guardian, 18 September 2024.
- ↑ Why should we listen to John Major? The Spectator, 18 September 2024.
- ↑ The cracks in the Cult of the Dead Leader Financial Times, 6 October 2022.
- ↑ Thatcherism is a cult the Tories should not follow The Spectator, 21 August 2022.
- ↑ Beaten, marooned, demoralised – and yet still the right clings to Thatcher. I’ve seen them: they’re so lost The Guardian, 10 September 2024.