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John Major

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Sir John Major in 2007

Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister from 1990 to 1997. His childhood was spent in Brixton after his father's business failed, and he left school at 16. He worked for Standard Chartered Bank and became a councillor in Lambeth in 1968. He was elected to Parliament in 1979 and was a Cabinet Minister under Margaret Thatcher before being elected as her successor. After his defeat by Tony Blair's Labour Party in 1997, he retired as Leader of the Conservative Party in favor of William Hague and left the House of Commons at the 2001 general election.

Quotes

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1980s

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  • Oh, Lord, if I must die today,
    Please make it after Close of Play.
    For this, I know, if nothing more,
    I will not go – without the score.
    The God of cricket, high above,
    Clearly heard this plea of love.
    And so the Reaper did not come
    Until the game was lost and won.
    • Partly cited by John Major "From Oval teen to Oval Office" The Times (7 September 2005). For the full version, see Patrick Kidd "Major’s verse has no curse" The Times (6 March 2017).
    • Excerpt of poem variously titled "Cricket Match" or "A Cricket Prayer" reputedly scribbled on a scorecard at the Oval during the 1980s.

1990s

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1990

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  • In the next ten years we will have to continue to make changes which will make the whole of this country a genuinely classless society.
    • Today newspaper, 24 November 1990.
  • I want to see us build a country that is at ease with itself, a country that is confident and a country that is able and willing to build a better quality of life for all its citizens.
    • Statement in Downing Street on being invited to form a new government, 28 November 1990.
    • David Butler and Gareth Butler, "Twentieth Century British Political Facts", p. 296
  • Robert Hughes (Labour MP for Aberdeen North): With regard to the Prime Minister's desire for a classless society and social mobility, will he explain why there are no women in his Cabinet, or is the only woman in his Cabinet the back-seat driver?
    John Major: In recent years, in all aspects of life in this country, women have been taking a higher profile: in the law, in commerce, in the civil service, in industry and in politics - and that will continue. As those women would wish it to be, they will reach the top on merit - oh yes, and if the hon. Gentleman is patient, he will find women aplenty in top positions in my Government. Indeed, if he had waited awhile, perhaps even to the end of today, he would not have asked that question.
    • Hansard, 6ser, vol 181 col 1015 (29 November 1990) [1]
    • The phrase 'Oh yes' was a remark said several times at the first Prime Minister's Question Time in which Major answered questions.

1991

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  • We Conservatives have always passed our values from generation to generation. I believe that personal prosperity should follow the same course. I want to see wealth cascading down the generations. We do not see each generation starting out anew, with the past cut off and the future ignored.
    • First speech as leader at the Conservative Party conference(1991)[2]

1992

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  • Everyone who has seen the recent news reports has been shocked and moved by the suffering children in Sarajevo. At the end of last week, we told the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that we stood ready to evacuate children from Sarajevo to the United Kingdom for medical treatment, or to send medical teams to Yugoslavia to provide treatment on the spot.

    If it is possible to treat the children on the spot, near to their families, with people around them who speak their language and in relatively familiar surroundings, that is obviously the best way. We have told the International Red Cross that we are willing to fly out medical personnel at very short notice if needed. I hope to meet the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in London later this week to see what further action is needed.

    • Hansard HC Debates, Sixth series, vol. 211 col 812 (13 July 1992) [3]
    • Regarding the children injured during the Bosnian War.
  • All my adult life I have seen British governments driven off their virtuous pursuit of low inflation by market problems or political pressures. I was under no illusions when I took Britain into the ERM. I said at the time that membership was no soft option. The soft option, the devaluer's option, the inflationary option, that would in my opinion be a betrayal of Britain's future.
    • Robin Oakley, "Major rejects devaluation as betrayal of the future", The Times, 11 September 1992.
    • Speech to the Scottish CBI (10 September 1992), six days before Black Wednesday when the Pound was forced out of the ERM.
  • 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.
    • Nicholas Wood and Michael Prescott, "Major threatens general election if he fails to win Maastricht vote", The Sunday Times, 25 October 1992.

1993

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  • Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and, as George Orwell said, 'Old maids bicycling to holy communion through the morning mist' and, if we get our way, Shakespeare will still be read even in school.
    • David Butler and Gareth Butler Twentieth Century British Political Facts, p. 296
    • Speech to the Conservative Group for Europe, 22 April 1993. [4] The reference to George Orwell is to his 1941 essay "The Lion and the Unicorn".
  • John Major: What I don't understand, Michael, is why such a complete wimp like me keeps winning everything.
    Michael Brunson: You've said it, you said precisely that.
    Major: I suppose Gus will tell me off for saying that, won't you Gus?
    Brunson: No, no, no … it's a fair point. The trouble is that people are not perceiving you as winning.
    Major: Oh, I know … why not? Because ...
    Brunson: Because rotten sods like me, I suppose, don't get the message clear [laughs].
    Major: No, no, no. I wasn't going to say that - well partly that, yes, partly because of S-H-one-Ts like you, yes, that's perfectly right. But also because those people who are opposing our European policy have said the way to oppose the Government on the European policy is to attack me personally. The Labour Party started before the last election. It has been picked up and it is just one of these fashionable things that slips into the Parliamentary system and it is an easy way to proceed.
    Brunson: But I mean you … has been overshadowed … my point is there, not just the fact that you have been overshadowed by Maastricht and people don't ...
    Major: The real problem is this ...
    Brunson: But you've also had all the other problems on top - the Mellors, the Mates … and it's like a blanket - you use the phrase 'masking tape' but I mean that's it, isn't it?
    Major: Even, even, even, as an ex-whip I can't stop people sleeping with other people if they ought not, and various things like that. But the real problem is ...
    Brunson: I've heard other people in the Cabinet say 'Why the hell didn't he get rid of Mates on Day One?' Mates was a fly, you could have swatted him away.
    Major: Yeah, well, they did not say that at the time, I have to tell you. And I can tell you what they would have said if I had. They'd have said 'This man was being set up. He was trying to do his job for his constituent. He had done nothing improper, as the Cabinet Secretary told me. It was an act of gross injustice to have got rid of him'. Nobody knew what I knew at the time. But the real problem is that one has a tiny majority. Don't overlook that. I could have all these clever and decisive things that people wanted me to do and I would have split the Conservative Party into smithereens. And you would have said, Aren't you a ham-fisted leader? You've broken up the Conservative Party.
    Brunson: No, well would you? If people come along and ...
    Major: Most people in the Cabinet, if you ask them sensibly, would tell you that, yes. Don't underestimate the bitterness of European policy until it is settled - It is settled now.
    Brunson: Three of them - perhaps we had better not mention open names in this room - perhaps the three of them would have - if you'd done certain things, they would have come along and said, 'Prime Minister, we resign'. So you say 'Fine, you resign'.
    Major: We all know which three that is. Now think that through. Think it through from my perspective. You are Prime Minister. You have got a majority of 18. You have got a party still harking back to a golden age that never was but is now invented. And you have three rightwing members of the Cabinet actually resigned. What happens in the parliamentary party?
    Brunson: They create a lot of fuss but you have probably got three damn good ministers in the Cabinet to replace them.
    Major: Oh, I can bring in other people into the Cabinet, that is right, but where do you think most of this poison has come from? It is coming from the dispossessed and the never-possessed. You and I can both think of ex-ministers who are going around causing all sorts of trouble. Would you like three more of the bastards out there? What's the Lyndon Johnson, er, maxim?
    Brunson: If you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.
    Major: No, that's not what I had in mind, though it's pretty good.
    • Andrew Culf, "What the `wimp' really said to the S-H-one-T", The Guardian, 26 July 1993.
    • 'Off-the-record' exchange with ITN reporter Michael Brunson following videotaped interview (23 July 1993). Neither Major nor Brunson realised their microphones were still live and being recorded by BBC staff preparing for a subsequent interview; the tape was swiftly leaked to the Daily Mirror.
  • It is time to return to those core values, time to get back to basics: to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family, and not shuffling it off on other people and the state.
    • Nicholas Wood, Jill Sherman, Sheila Gunn, "Major gives seal of approval to Tories' right-wing agenda", The Times, 9 October 1993
    • Conservative Party conference speech, 8 October 1993. The phrase was associated with personal morality and backfired when a succession of senior Conservatives fell to scandals that winter.
  • If the implication of his remarks is that we should sit down and talk with Mr. Adams and the Provisional IRA, I can say only that that would turn my stomach and those of most hon. Members; we will not do it. If and when there is a total ending of violence, and if and when that ending of violence is established for a significant time, we shall talk to all the constitutional parties that have people elected in their names. I will not talk to people who murder indiscriminately.
    • Hansard, HC Debates Sixth Series, vol 231 col 35 (1 November 1993).
    • In reply to a question from Dennis Skinner concerning peace talks in Ireland. This reply caused Major some embarrassment when it was revealed on 29 November 1993 that at the time government officials (although not Ministers) were in negotiations with Sinn Féin and the IRA.

1994

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  • Summers simply won't be the same without him.
    • Frank Keating, "Tributes flow as Johnners, voice of English cricket, dies at 81", The Guardian (6 January 1994).
    • Tribute on the death of cricket commentator Brian Johnston.
  • Something I was not aware had happened suddenly turned out not to have happened.
    • Joe Joseph, "Elementary lessons in logic for enquiry's bemused counsel", The Times (18 January 1994).
    • Evidence to the Scott Inquiry (17 January 1994). Major was speaking of his time as Foreign Secretary in 1989 when the guidelines for arms exports to Iraq had been relaxed, although he had not been told. At one point, when the decision to relax the guidelines was criticised, it was decided to defend the Government by claiming that the guidelines were changed only in wording and unchanged in effect.
  • The right hon. and learned Member is the man who likes to say yes in Europe — Monsieur Oui, the poodle of Brussels.
    • Hansard, HC Debates, Sixth Series, vol 240 col 134 (22 March 1994).
    • A jibe against John Smith, the Leader of the Opposition and the Labour Party.

1995

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  • We will do precisely what the British nation has done all through its history when it had its back against the wall — turn round and fight for the things it believes in, and that is what I shall do.
    • Michael White, Patrick Wintour, "Hanley set to carry the can as defiant Major vows to fight on", The Guardian (6 May 1995).
    • Public statement following poor showing in local elections (5 May 1995). Major's mixed metaphor (if your back is to the wall and you turn round, you are then facing the wall) was remarked upon.
  • The Conservative Party must make its choice. Every leader is leader only with the support of his party. That is true of me too. That is why I am no longer prepared to tolerate the present situation. In short, it is time to put up or shut up.
    • Michael White, "Major's ultimate gamble", The Guardian (23 June 1995).
    • Statement in the garden of 10 Downing Street announcing his resignation as Conservative Party leader in order to seek re-election (22 June 1995).
  • George Foulkes: Will the Prime Minister tell us what word he would legitimately use to describe those Cabinet Ministers who, while professing loyalty to him, are setting up telephone lines in campaign offices for the second round of the election?
    John Major: I have no knowledge of that. I can say that the speed at which these matters can be done is a tribute to privatisation.

1997

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  • Whether you agree with me, disagree with me, like me or loathe me, don't bind my hands when I am negotiating on behalf of the British people.
    • Michael White, "At war with his party", The Guardian (17 April 1997) p. 1
    • Election press conference (16 April 1997), referring to Conservative MPs who had issued manifestos rejecting British membership of the European single currency.
  • I have been a Member of Parliament for 18 years. I have been a member of the Government for 14 years, of the Cabinet for ten years and Prime Minister since 1990. When the curtain falls it is time to get off the stage and that is what I propose to do. I shall, therefore, advise my parliamentary colleagues that it would be appropriate for them to consider the selection of a new leader of the Conservative Party to lead the party through Opposition through the years that lie immediately ahead.
    • "Major's Speech", The Times (3 May 1997) p. 2.
    • Statement in Downing Street (2 May 1997) following the general election in which the Conservative Party was heavily defeated. Major was just about to resign as Prime Minister and announced his decision to stand down as party leader simultaneously.

2002

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2010s

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  • Democracy in action is more than satisfying the material demands of the majority, or honouring the promises of an election manifesto. Democratic government must govern for the future as well as the present. A governing party must govern for political opponents who did not vote for them – and may never do so. It must govern for the unborn, and the country they will inherit. For minorities. For the wider international community. And all governments have a responsibility to themselves for the manner in which they govern. One has only to set out these responsibilities to see that no government, perhaps ever, has met this ideal – government by men and women, not saints, is an imperfect vehicle for perfection. But that does not mean their imperfections should be ignored or accepted.
  • Nationalism is authoritarian. It turns easily towards autocracy or – at worst – outright dictatorship. Nationalists hide their threat under an exaggerated love of country, an unthinking patriotism: “my country, right or wrong”. Its leaders view other countries – and sometimes other races – as inferior. [...] There is a great difference between nationalism and patriotism. Patriotism is more than pride in country. A mature patriotism concerns itself with the condition of the people, as well as the prestige of the country. Such a patriotism worries about deprivation, opportunity and incentive. It asks itself: how can we spread our wealth and opportunity more evenly around our country? And it is as concerned with the growth of food banks as it is with a shortage of aircraft carriers.
    • 2017 One People Oration at Westminster Abbey
  • The rebellious radicals of right and left argue for partisan policies that appeal to the extremes of their party base. As they do so, political divisions widen, consensus shrinks, and a minority of the party begins to manipulate the majority. This is dangerous territory. The malcontents should remember that, without some give-or-take, without some effort at consensus, our tolerant party system can become ungovernable. In politics, as in life, consensus is wise, not weak; and tolerance is a virtue, not a failing.
    • 2017 One People Oration at Westminster Abbey

2020s

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Attributed

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  • A soundbite never buttered any parsnips.
    • Contemporary version of English proverb "fine words butter no parsnips". Attributed to Major in The Guardian (31 January 1998) p. 13, and on Have I Got News For You (1 May 1997)

Quotes about John Major

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  • 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.
  • [To Neil Kinnock, Labour leader at the 1992 general election, who lost] I realise you were up against the mighty charisma of John Major. That's a tough one, isn't it. The man who ran away from the circus to become an accountant.
    • Linda Smith I think the Nurses are Stealing My Clothes: The Very Best of Linda Smith (ed: Warren Lakin) Hodder & Stoughton (2006) p. 201
    • From an edition of The News Quiz (BBC Radio 4)
  • It may be inverted snobbishness but I don't want old style, Old Etonian Tories of the old school to succeed me and go back to the old complacent, consensus ways. John Major is someone who has fought his way up from the bottom and is far more in tune with the skilled and ambitious and worthwhile working classes than Douglas Hurd is.
    • Margaret Thatcher, remarks to Woodrow Wyatt (23 November 1990), quoted in Woodrow Wyatt, The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt, Volume Two, ed. Sarah Curtis (1999), pp. 401-402
  • I said, "He told me that he is the only person at the Treasury who hadn't got a double First." She [Margaret Thatcher] said, "He would have got a double First if he had been able to go to a university. But they were very poor. His father was a circus performer and he had to leave school when he was sixteen." I said, "He has got a first-class brain and he is a very solid person, very sound and very good." She said, "I am glad you like him because I think he is splendid."
    • Woodrow Wyatt, journal entry (7 May 1989), quoted in Woodrow Wyatt, The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt, Volume Two, ed. Sarah Curtis (1999), p. 86
  • I said [to Margaret Thatcher], "When you do finally decide to go, you will have to wait until he is in a position to take over from you." She said, "That has always been my intention, as you know."
    • Woodrow Wyatt, journal entry (6 May 1990), quoted in Woodrow Wyatt, The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt, Volume Two, ed. Sarah Curtis (1999), p. 288
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