John Major - John Major - The Autobiography

William Collins

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publisbers 1999

Copyright © John Major 1999, 2000

John Major asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780002570046

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN 9780007400461

Version: 2016-08-24

To Norma, Elizabeth and James

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

FOREWORD

1 The Search for Tom Major

2 From Brixton to Westminster

3 Into the Commons

4 Climbing the Ladder

5 Into Cabinet

6 ‘What’s the Capital of Colombia?’

7 An Ambition Fulfilled

8 An Empress Falls

9 Prime Minister

10 The Gulf War

11 Raising the Standard

12 Maastricht

13 Winning a Mandate

14 Black Wednesday

15 The ‘Bastards’

16 Back to Basics

17 Protecting our Heritage

18 The Union at Risk

19 Into the Mists: Bright Hopes, Black Deeds

20 The Wider World

21 At the Summit

22 Hell’s Kitchen

23 Unparliamentary Behaviour

24 Faultline Europe

25 Put up or Shut up

26 Mad Cows and Europeans

27 The Economy: Rags to Riches

28 The Curtain Falls

AFTERMATH

THE EMPTY HOUSE

KEEP READING

APPENDIX A: Brief Chronology

APPENDIX B: The Cabinet, November 1990–May 1997

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

SINCE I LEFT 10 Downing Street, I have often thought – why politics?

From politicians themselves the standard response is a burning ambition to improve the lot of the poor, say, or the disabled, or to ‘change things for the better’.

There is truth in these claims – they are not to be disparaged. But the answer is too often calculated to win approval, too self-serving, and almost always incomplete. Motives for entering politics are much more complex. Mine certainly were.

Politics attracted me from an early age. I longed to be involved, and loathed the thought that I would have no part in making the decisions that would shape my life and times. The thought of a run-of-the-mill job did not appeal; I wanted excitement and the stimulus of the unexpected – although, I was to learn, one can overdose on that. I did believe in public service and public obligation, and if I’d had a double first I would have been attracted to a career in the Civil Service. But I had no wish to be a second-rank civil servant, and my background and lack of paper qualifications would more or less have dictated that fate, irrespective of any talent I might have shown. Being insufficiently educated to advise ministers, I decided early on to be a minister myself, and to harness others’ learning to my native good sense.

Fame is the Spur , wrote Howard Spring. He was right. Political life is stimulated by ambition, and providing ambition is not obsessive, I see nothing wrong in that. Even in these cynical days it is something to be a Member of Parliament, with those precious initials after your name.

I was attracted to the Conservative Party because it did not draw its language from the dark emotions of envy or resentment. It cared for the weak, the poor and the old, but unlike the Labour Party it did not demand a lifetime of adherence to a class struggle. It saw people as individuals, not as political troops. The Conservatism of Harold Macmillan, Iain Macleod and Rab Butler understood and spoke the language of compassion. Compassion is a virtue the best of the Conservative Party has long lived by, and without which it would never have become the broad-based, tolerant party I joined. The tone of Conservatism that appealed to me did not cultivate the envy of the few in order to improve the condition of the many. It argued for the opportunity to build security and ownership and wealth – and it showed the practical way to do so. It was not hidebound by ideology. This philosophy made me a Conservative from the first moment I truly thought about politics.

The life of politics is like no other. It has many joys and excitements, and I would not have missed them. But there is a price to be paid for the fame and the fun, and too often it is paid by family and friends. Politics at the top is all-consuming. Every interest is swept up and subordinated to its demands. I tried to guard against this by living parallel lives – politics and private life – which I did my best to prevent merging. In this I was largely successful, preserving my personal friendships and interests, and, I hope, providing a sense of balance for the life after high office.

However, private interests cannot be wholly hidden. Appearances at Lords and The Oval made my love of cricket apparent. Some knew of my affection for soccer, but few of my love of rugby, the cinema, theatre, music, gardening and, above all, books. I did not draw attention to them; I kept them, as far as possible, in the secluded area of my life. While part of me longed for the political limelight, another part demanded privacy.

And for very good reason. Even as my political profile rose and I became ever more public property, I knew this would not last for ever. Senior politicians spend only a limited time in the sun, and I did not want to leave the front line of politics as a husk, bereft of everything but a backward glance to memories of my political noontide. I knew that becoming prime minister at the age of forty-seven would mean being ex-prime minister within two Parliaments, unless something extraordinary were to happen. I intended from the outset to be prepared for the day I left office, since, following it, there would still be a lot of life to be lived.

Twenty years in Parliament, so far, has left me with a high regard for most parliamentarians. There are always a few charlatans in the Commons, concerned for self rather than country or party, and a few rent-a-quotes, avid above all for publicity. They strut the stage for a while, but are soon recognised for what they are. This shallow minority has inspired among the public an incomplete view of political life.

Government has changed over the decades. In the middle of the abdication crisis of 1936, Stanley Baldwin spent a month and a half at Aix-les-Bains, phoning Number 10 twice a week for news. Churchill’s ill-health during his last years as prime minister went unreported, and was unknown to most voters. In 1959–60 Harold Macmillan toured Africa for weeks, leaving Rab Butler in charge at home. None of that would be possible today. The prime minister’s instant reactions are demanded daily, and his press secretary provides them. The reporting of politics changed too, as the battle for newspaper circulation grew ever more intense. In the 1980s even The Times and the Daily Telegraph largely stopped verbatim reports of proceedings in Parliament, replacing them with columns by sketch writers. Caricature can illuminate and entertain, but the absence of proper reporting is a loss. I hope that one day it may return.