John Major - John Major - The Autobiography

Even among lobby correspondents, the emphasis changed. There is more pressure to come up with sensational stories, less hesitancy to print speculative ones. In all this, there has grown up an unscrupulousness, a willingness to give credence to rumour, a refusal to correct or apologise, an amnesia about last week’s splash or leading article. ‘Government to do X’, the headlines shriek. The government patiently explains that it never had any intention of doing any such thing. The next morning, the headlines read ‘Government retreats on X’. No doubt this sells newspapers. But it also sells their readers short.

Television has brought immediacy to political events and much greater awareness of them. It has introduced modern politicians to the electorate, warts and all, in a way their predecessors never were. In 1989 I voted against letting the cameras into the Commons, but I now believe I was wrong to do so. Television has also introduced the electorate to their politicians. Even as the voters’ interest in politicians wanes, politicians themselves are absorbed by what people want and feel and do. Up to a point, this is a healthy development.

Television has great power, but its emphasis on brevity does distort. Politics is complex, and reports too often oversimplify. I commented once that an hour-long address on education would earn me one minute on prime-time television news. This would be accompanied by one minute from the Labour leader, who had not read or heard the speech, and one minute from the Liberal leader, who had not understood it. This was a parody, but one with a lot of truth in it. It is equally true that the crude picture of public opinion which the media offers MPs can oversimplify horribly.

At the top level of politics, the words of politicians are pored over to extract every possible nuance beyond their straightforward meaning. An industry has grown up of pundits who interpret what politicians may mean by what they say, and they are assisted by ‘friends’ of the politicians ever eager to explain. Too often these Chinese whispers mean the end product is unrecognisable, but, in an age where perception is all, what was meant becomes less important than what is reported.

The effect of all this has been to add immeasurably to the electorate’s cynicism about politics. I recognised this as prime minister, but I could not break free from it. I regret that. I longed to move away from ‘politician-speak’, but feared misinterpretation. I should have been bolder: it is appalling that we sometimes inflict such nonsense on the electorate as ‘the government’s position is clear’ (when it isn’t); ‘we have exciting new plans’ (when we don’t); and ‘we want a better future for our people’ (which we do, but how patronising that expression is. They are not our people. They do not belong to any political party. They are individuals who are worth more than those who patronise them).

In our age of ‘spin’ the electorate is thrown an increasing volume of pap. Every day it becomes harder to obtain widespread currency for ideas or beliefs without retreating into soundbite or cliché. I would not have recognised a ‘soundbite’ if it gripped me by the windpipe. I only hope my meaning sometimes, if fitfully, transcended my words.

As a young MP I did not court journalists, but as I rose through ministerial ranks, I came to know a few of them. Some I trusted, others not, and I kept well clear of those with a reputation for political fiction. Generally in the early years I had a friendly, perhaps even an over-generous, press, and no personal reason to mistrust them.

After I became prime minister this was to change; and so swift had been my climb up the greasy pole that I was unprepared for the onslaught. Party leaders are treated differently, prime ministers even more so. They are praised to excess or damned to perdition, sometimes both at the same time. I cannot claim to have enjoyed this, because no one could. I have yet to meet a politician with a hide like a rhinoceros. Those legendary thick-skinned beasts are said to exist, but if they are not extinct, or mythical, they are very rare. I learned to disregard the more obvious untruths and absurdities in the media, but yes, they stung, and those who say they do not deceive themselves.

But politics offers many rewards to offset these pinpricks. It is exhilarating to be at the centre of great events. It is satisfying to unravel a problem that seems insoluble. It is rewarding to help people who look to you for assistance. There are friendships that flourish amidst the rivalries as colleagues jostle for the same prizes. Cabals, gangs and partnerships are formed. The shared intentions, the hard work, the planning, the plotting, the highs and lows of joint campaigns create bonds that can be unbreakable and shared experiences that will never be forgotten. Nor is this surprising. Politics is about ideas, convictions, passions and ambitions, and MPs have these in abundance. It would be extraordinary if this did not lead to vivid exchanges and lasting relationships of friendship or, sometimes, enmity.

I found this especially true in the Whips’ Office, where there is one collective mind – the Office view arrived at after discussion – and one objective, which is to protect and advance the interests of the government. Nothing leaks from the whips. I often thought of their office as the most secure place in Western Europe.

Of course there are regrets. I shall regret always that I rarely found my own authentic voice in politics. I was too conservative, too conventional. Too safe, too often. Too defensive. Too reactive. Later, too often on the back foot. I inherited a sick economy and passed on a sound one. But one abiding regret for me is that, in between, I did not have the resources to put in place the educational and social changes about which I cared so much; I made only a beginning, and it was not enough.

I do not regret breaking the cycle of inflation. Or beginning the peace process in Northern Ireland. Or the health and education reforms. Or introducing a national lottery which would fund the arts, sport, heritage and charities more generously than ever before. I am proud to have introduced public-sector reform to protect the consumer and, by winning the 1992 election, to have enshrined the reforms of the preceding thirteen years, and forced Labour to accept what hitherto had been anathema to them. I was pleased to keep Britain in Europe and to prevent the Conservative Party from splitting. To do so I took a lot of criticism that the old pro-European Harold Macmillan would have understood. Selwyn Lloyd, once Macmillan’s foreign secretary, recalled him saying on his sickbed in 1963 that ‘Balfour had been bitterly criticised for not having a view on Protection and Free Trade. Balfour had said the important thing was to preserve the unity of the Conservative Party. He had been abused for that. But who argues now about protection and free trade? When was the last time the conventional arguments were exchanged? 1923? Whereas the preservation of great national institutions had been the right policy. Lloyd George might have been clear-cut on policy, but he destroyed the Liberal Party.’ The day may come when a similar judgement is made on the single currency.

When I talked of a classless society I wanted to say that the people who pushed wheelbarrows when I mixed cement for a living were human beings worthy of respect. They are as much in ‘God’s lively image’ as a nobleman with sixteen quarterings. I was in earnest about classlessness. I wanted to say that the subtle calibrations of scorn in which this country rejoices, the endless puttings down and belittlings, so instinctive that we do not notice ourselves doing them, are awful. They are so awful they stop us seeing men and women whole.