Major prejudices
From Mr James Taylor Sir: Having read John Major's autobiography in which he effectively blames everyone and everything, other than himself, for his generally disastrous tenure of No. 10 Downing Street, the tone and content of his article comes as no surprise ('Centre forward'. 25 August). But it is still astonishing.
'The media, bored after 18 years of the Conservatives.' It wouldn't occur to him that they might have been bored after seven years of John Major.
'A handful of Conservative MPs ... tore the party apart.' Nothing whatsoever to do with Major's own weak and vacillating leadership, of course, 'Margaret Thatcher had the courage to "move to the Right"' but tad taken over a country in huge crisis and was tackling issues .. . that the public knew had to be tackled.' Oh. I see ... so it was easy for her, but not so easy for poor John.
'If one looks at the figures, her electoral victories were won with far fewer votes cast for the Conservatives than in 1992.' I'm beginning to understand now. Major was really a much more successful PM than Thatcher.
'Pied first three years as a novice prime minister were very difficult for her, and she was rescued only by the Falklands. . ' Excuse me, is this inverted history? I thought that Thatcher rescued the Falklands, not the other way round.
'Those who view fain Duncan Smith dispassionately see a rising politician with clear-cut convictions on a minority of issues but who is a blank page on many others.' I seem to recall this was exactly how people thought of John Major when he sprang from obscurity (although I'm not sure about the clear-cut convictions in his case).
John Major is in denial. He was the person who inherited a golden political legacy from Margaret Thatcher, but he was also the person who had advocated membership of the ERM (in the face of Thatcher's opposition) which proved to have such disastrous economic consequences. He was the person who presided over one of the worst recessions this century, who failed to provide any direction whatsoever on the issue of Europe, who so ran out of ideas that his most remembered policy is 'Back to Basics'.
James Taylor London SW5
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