From Mr Michael Lord Sir: John Major's comments on the
current Conservative party leadership contest combined some fairly well-judged comments on the respective merits of the candidates with some by now platitudinous opinions about the need to regain the centre ground of politics. So far, so good, except it conveniently airbrushes out his own not inconsiderable contribution to the present parlous state of the Tories' fortunes.
If he really believes that European political and monetary integration, and the divisions they have produced, were the prime reason for his party's defeat in 1997, he is living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Why does he assume (and he seems to) that the inability to formulate credible alternative policies to New Labour's on health, education or, for that matter, public transport and crime (not even mentioned in his article) has been a feature of the last four years only? Such was the hallmark of Major governments. It was also a hallmark of the later Thatcher governments, by the way. He always gave the impression of being surprised at winning the party leadership and not really knowing what to do with it. He was politics' version of a Big Brother contestant on a chat show.
Mike Lord
London SE I
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