Our community reporter Spring Heeled Jack has written a series of short articles which we will share over the next few weeks.
Here is the latest installment of Hard Times.
Honest John Major
It was John Major who was chosen to be a safe pair of hands in leading the Conservative party into the next general election.
Major was portrayed as a normal London boy who left school with few qualifications, but through hard work he had reached his previous position as Chancellor of the Exchequer then Prime Minister.
However, John Major was also a weak politician who allowed party colleagues and cabinet ministers to undermine him, whereas Margaret Thatcher would have purged any opposition immediately.
Back to Basics
John Major began a campaign throughout the UK, which was termed back to basics and referred to family values.
This appeared to be a good idea at first glance; however, there were problems within the Conservative party over several politicians’ sexual and financial peccadilloes, which undermined this policy.
People may well remember Jonathon Aitken being dragged through the courts and then imprisoned for lying repeatedly about a libel case he lost.
John Major too was somewhat hypocritical by promoting family values, whilst at the same time having a long-running affair with Edwina Currie (Conservative MP and minister).
Major informed the media that he was stepping down as Prime Minister because a certain number of right wing MPs, of whom he questioned their parentage by referring directly to them as illegitimate, and who were then systematically undermining him.
The subsequent poll within the Conservative party saw Major re-elected as party leader again, to take them into the next general election.
Meanwhile unemployment remained very high, with over 3 million people referred to frequently as one of Maggie’s millions, where the media commented on the figures being fiddled and altered some 26 times particularly during the Major years in office.
Article submitted by Spring Heeled Jack.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not the Digital Sentinel.
