History UsefulNotes / JohnMajor

* There is a PM who very clearly looks like John Major in a Funfax spy puzzle thing about missing brains or something.

Even some more left-leaning people, while disliking the Tories on principle, will concede he was a better leader then his successors. These include William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, none of whom appealed to many non-Tories while they led the Opposition; UsefulNotes/DavidCameron, whose austerity measures helped fuel polarisation and who called a Brexit referendum that is seen as having damaged the country irreparably; UsefulNotes/TheresaMay, who failed to achieve Brexit while pushing extreme anti-immigrant ideas leading her to lose her majority; UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, who notoriously amassed a reputation of untrustworthy and allegations of bigotry and who is widely believed to have supported Brexit just so he could become PM, and for whom Major has always had a strong dislike; and UsefulNotes/LizTruss, whose mini-budget involving large-scale borrowing and various tax cuts for the wealthy was widely criticised and led to financial instability and ultimately to it being reversed before she resigned after only 49 days in office, [[ShortLivedLeadership making her the shortest-serving PM in history]].

* In the fifth season of ''Series/TheCrown'', which focuses on TheNineties, Major is played by Creator/JonnyLeeMiller.

Five months after the election, Britain was expelled from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM)[[note]](a system where all European currencies were pegged together, as a precursor to the Euro)[[/note]] on what was called "Black Wednesday". Although this would unexpectedly help the economy recover in the long run, in the short term it greatly damaged the Conservatives' reputation for good economic management since they had spent the last year trying their hardest and spending billions to stay ''in'' the ERM. There was also significant progress in the [[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles Northern Ireland Peace Process]] -- the only thing that prevented a full peace agreement was the government's demand that the IRA lay down their weapons first before negotiating -- yet despite such occasional positive developments Major's government was dogged by scandals, PR disasters and Conservative infighting, especially over [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion European]] [[UsefulNotes/WithEuropeButNotOfIt issues]]. Having been in power since 1979, the party had little left to offer to voters, whereas Labour were regrouping and modernising, firstly under the leadership of John Smith, and then UsefulNotes/TonyBlair following Smith's untimely death in 1994. Rumours of leadership challenges came and went, resulting in Major calling a leadership election ''against himself'' in 1995 in an attempt to secure his control over the party. Brilliantly, it worked, as Major (who had disappointed the party's Thatcherite right wing by being politically and temperamentally more moderate than she was) faced only token opposition from Eurosceptic right-winger John Redwood and was easily re-elected, but it really just delayed the inevitable. In the 1997 general election, the Conservatives were [[LandslideElection routed]] by Blair's reformed Labour Party, losing over half their seats. Major resigned the leadership less than three weeks after he lost government.

He is also one of the few people, and the most recent person, to have held three of the four Great Offices of State (the exception being Home Secretary), having been at different points in his political career Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary[[note]]he shares this distinction with a number of other [=PMs=], including UsefulNotes/LordNorth, UsefulNotes/LordLiverpool, UsefulNotes/GeorgeCanning, UsefulNotes/TheDukeOfWellington, UsefulNotes/RobertPeel, UsefulNotes/LordPalmerston, UsefulNotes/EarlRussell, UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill, UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan and UsefulNotes/JamesCallaghan, with Callaghan being the only person to have held all four[[/note]].

Since the death of Thatcher in 2013, Major has been the earliest PM who is still living. All subsequent ex-Prime Ministers (Blair, UsefulNotes/GordonBrown, Cameron, May, Johnson and Truss) are also still living. He's also the most recent of the very short list of British [=PMs=] who never attended university [[note]] a list that also includes the Duke of Wellington, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill [[/note]] -- he took correspondence courses to be certified in banking.

Sir John Major, [[UsefulNotes/KnightFever KG, CH, PC]] (born 29 March 1943) is a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the leader of the Conservative party from 1990 to 1997. He was the Member of Parliament for Huntingdon from 1979[[note]](it was called Huntingdonshire until 1983)[[/note]] to 2001, and served consecutively as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer from mid 1989 to late 1990 in the last government of UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher before succeeding her as PM. Like Thatcher to UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, Major can be seen roughly as the TransatlanticEquivalent to UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush.

Many jokes were made about John Major being "the only boy to ever run away from the circus to become an accountant". He's not the only child from such a background to reject that life for a more stable livelihood by a long shot, but it certainly didn't help his image as TheBore.

Like many politicians, he had an embarrassing sibling: in this case, his elder brother Terry Major-Ball, who as a young man took over their father's garden-gnome company and who during his baby brother's premiership became an author and columnist much in demand in the media.

* He appears in Jack Higgins' ''Eye of the Storm'', which revolves around the aforementioned mortar attack on Downing Street.

He is also one of the few people, and the most recent person, to have held three of the four Great Offices of State (the exception being Home Secretary), having been at different points in his political career Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary[[note]]he shares this distinction with a number of other [=PMs=], including UsefulNotes/LordNorth, UsefulNotes/LordLiverpool, UsefulNotes/GeorgeCanning, UsefulNotes/TheDukeOfWellington, UsefulNotes/RobertPeel, UsefulNotes/EarlRussell, UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill, UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan and UsefulNotes/JamesCallaghan, with Callaghan being the only person to have held all four[[/note]].

Since the death of Thatcher in 2013, Major has been the earliest PM who is still living. All subsequent ex-Prime Ministers (Blair, UsefulNotes/GordonBrown, Cameron, May, Johnson and Truss) are also still living. He's also the most recent PM who never attended university -- he took correspondence courses to be certified in banking.

Since the death of Thatcher in 2013, Major has been the earliest PM who is still living. All subsequent ex-prime ministers (Blair, UsefulNotes/GordonBrown, Cameron, May and Johnson) are also still living. He's also the most recent PM who never attended university -- he took correspondence courses to be certified in banking.

* In the fifth season of ''Series/TheCrown'', which focuses on TheNineties, Major is (somewhat improbably) played by Creator/JonnyLeeMiller.

He is also one of the few people to have held three of the four Great Offices of State (the exception being Home Secretary), having been at different points in his political career Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary[[note]]he shares this distinction with a number of other [=PMs=], including UsefulNotes/LordNorth, UsefulNotes/LordLiverpool, UsefulNotes/GeorgeCanning, UsefulNotes/TheDukeOfWellington, UsefulNotes/RobertPeel, UsefulNotes/EarlRussell, UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill, UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan and UsefulNotes/JamesCallaghan, with Callaghan being the only person to have held all four[[/note]].

Easily forgotten between the iconic personalities of Thatcher and Blair, caricatures tended to depict him as a rather boring, grey little man, an image that his large glasses, dull image, and habit of dressing in grey only encouraged. Major's stodgy old image in contrast to Blair's youthful one is ironic, as Major was [[YoungerThanTheyLook one of the UK's younger prime ministers]], taking office at age 47 (at the time making him the ''youngest'' PM since UsefulNotes/TheEarlOfRosebery was appointed just before his 47th birthday in 1894) and less than four years older than Blair was when he took office.[[note]](While much hay was made about Blair taking office at the age of "43", he was only four days away from turning 44. Thus, his distinction as the UK's youngest prime minister since 1812 was easily bested by the also 43-year-old UsefulNotes/DavidCameron, whose own 44th birthday was almost five months after he became PM.)[[/note]]

While initially considered one of the UK's worst prime ministers upon leaving office, Major is [[VindicatedByHistory viewed much more favourably in hindsight]]. His reputation improved especially sharply in TheNewTens -- something doubtless helped by the massive falling out of public opinion his immediate successor Tony Blair suffered in the same period -- and he is now a respected elder statesman and a sought-after speaker whose opinions carry a respectable amount of clout with politicians and the public. [[http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2013/10/majors-underrated-premiership-is-long-overdue-for-reappraisal/ Some analysts now accept that he was underrated as PM.]] Moreover, the '90s boom, the longest post-war boom, began under him. Crime began to go down, his decision to retain the pound and not adopt the euro is now seen as a very wise move (he claimed to have negotiated "game, set, and match for Britain" at the Maastricht Treaty in December 1991), and in foreign policy (Kuwait and other countries) he did well. He and concurrent Irish Taoiseach John Bruton did most of the legwork behind the Good Friday Agreement, but neither stayed in office long enough to see its final ratification in 1998[[note]](Bruton was voted out of his office a month after Major was voted out of his)[[/note]], allowing respective successors Blair and Bertie Ahern to finalize the deal and take credit.

His term also saw his original regular jousting partner in the Commons, the 1992-4 Labour leader John Smith, die after two heart attacks. The two men had had an excellent relationship away from the despatch box, and Major, obviously affected, [[http://youtu.be/jz8_zU-gviU?t=3m20s reminisced]] in the chamber about how he and Smith would privately share "sometimes tea, sometimes not tea" -- an awkward-but-sweet remark that became famous. The improvement in his reputation is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that he was ranked as the third worst prime minister of the 20th century[[note]](only UsefulNotes/NevilleChamberlain and UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden were ranked worse, and they oversaw ''serious'' loss of British prestige internationally in being seen to have helped start UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and the Suez Crisis respectively)[[/note]] in [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/579061.stm a poll]] among various academics and historians in 2000, before being ranked as the sixth ''best'' post-war prime minister[[note]](UsefulNotes/ClementAttlee, Thatcher, Blair, UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan and UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson ranked higher, and they're noted for the economic prosperity and/or transformative social change that happened on their watch)[[/note]] in [[https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/3930/britains_post-war_prime_ministers_ranked_by_politics_experts a similar poll]] in 2016. An increasingly common assessment of Major is that his struggles as leader of the Conservative party distracted the public from his many successes as prime minister, which are now finally being recognised.

Even some more left-leaning people, while disliking the Tories on principle, will concede he was a better leader then his successors. These include William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, none of whom appealed to many non-Tories while they led the Opposition; UsefulNotes/DavidCameron, whose austerity measures helped fuel polarisation and who called a Brexit referendum that is seen as having damaged the country irreparably; UsefulNotes/TheresaMay, who failed to achieve Brexit while pushing extreme anti-immigrant ideas leading her to lose her majority; UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, who notoriously amassed a reputation of untrustworthy and allegations of bigotry and who is widely believed to have supported Brexit just so he could become PM, and for whom Major has always had a strong dislike; and UsefulNotes/LizTruss, whose mini-budget involving large-scale borrowing and various tax cuts for the wealthy was widely criticised and led to financial instability and ultimately to it being reversed before she resigned after only 50 days in office, making her the shortest-serving PM in history.

He is also one of the few people to have held three of the Four Great Offices of State (the exception being Home Secretary), having been at different points in his political career Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary.

Belying his grey image, Major's family background is remarkably colourful. His father, Tom Major-Ball, was born Abraham Thomas Ball in 1879 and spent most of his youth in UsefulNotes/{{Pennsylvania}}, became a circus acrobat and later [[{{Vaudeville}} music hall]] song-and-dance man, fathered secret children through affairs in 1901 and 1923, was caught up in a civil war in UsefulNotes/{{Uruguay}}, and only adopted the stage name 'Major' as part of a double act called 'Drum & Major' with his future first wife who later died in a stage accident. He married his second wife at nearly 50, combined his real and stage surnames and founded a business selling garden gnomes, and was aged 64 when baby of the family John arrived. There is a delightful theory that seeing an old bill poster featuring Tom Major was where young fellow Brixton resident Music/DavidBowie got the [[LineOfSightName idea of the character Major Tom's name]] for his song Space Oddity.

Even some more left-leaning people, while disliking the Tories on principle, will concede he was a better leader then his successors. These include William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, none of whom appealed to many non-Tories while they led the Opposition; UsefulNotes/DavidCameron, whose austerity measures helped fuel polarisation and who called a Brexit referendum that is seen as having damaged the country irreparably; UsefulNotes/TheresaMay, who failed to achieve Brexit while pushing extreme anti-immigrant ideas leading her to lose her majority; and the notoriously untrustworthy and bigoted UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, who is widely believed to have supported Brexit just so he could become PM, and for whom Major has always had a strong dislike.

* Speaking of Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom, the timeline ''Shuffling the Deck'' (which rearranges the order in which post-war British prime ministers served their terms, and consequently their public reputations) features an alternate version of Major whose term is anything ''but'' boring, seeing as he basically becomes a British version of Silvio Berlusconi -- a cocky, decadent populist noted for massive and flagrant corruption, who ends up resigning office and fleeing to Dubai to escape criminal charges.

Since the death of Thatcher in 2013, Major has been the earliest PM who is still living. All subsequent ex-prime ministers (Blair, UsefulNotes/GordonBrown, Cameron and May) are also still living. He's also the most recent PM who never attended university -- he took correspondence courses to be certified in banking.

He declined elevation to the House of Lords after leaving the Commons in 2001, a precedent that every subsequent PM to date has followed. While mostly keeping a fairly low profile after leaving office (a trend he started at the end of his concession speech after the 1997 election by announcing his plans to see a UsefulNotes/{{cricket}} match at the Oval), Major returned to the limelight about two decades later by campaigning in favour of a second referendum to address and resolve Brexit, an issue in which he favoured Remain. The irony of Major pushing so hard for a second referendum when he worked so hard to deny the public a ''first'' referendum on Maastricht over 25 years earlier did not pass without comment. In 2019 he joined a lawsuit, launched by activist Gina Miller, to reverse the controversial prorogation (suspension) of Parliament by Prime Minister UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson in what was widely seen as an attempt to undermine parliamentary oversight of the government's efforts to negotiate a Brexit deal and force a "no-deal" exit by ''fait accompli''. This suit was successful, forcing Parliament to be reconvened. After yet ''another'' delay in Brexit was arranged with the EU, Johnson then called an election with cross-party support, and Major actively campaigned against his own party.[[note]](He backed pro-Remain independents who had been booted from the Tories for opposing Boris Johnson's Brexit plans -- he did not endorse any party other than the Conservatives, or indeed, any other candidates.)[[/note]] With Johnson winning the Conservatives their biggest majority since 1987, and ''every candidate'' Major endorsed going down to defeat, it appears he has irreparably poisoned relations with the party he once led going forward. Ironically, it was once rumoured that fellow Remainer UsefulNotes/DavidCameron had planned to appoint Major a ''hereditary peer'', the first since another previous PM, UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan.

Sir John Major, [[UsefulNotes/KnightFever KG, CH, PC]] (born 29 March 1943) is a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the leader of the Conservative party from 1990 to 1997. He was the Member of Parliament for Huntingdon from 1979 to 2001[[note]](it was called Huntingdonshire until 1983)[[/note]], and served consecutively as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the last government of UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher from 1989 to 1990 prior to succeeding her as PM. Like Thatcher to UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, Major can be seen roughly as the TransatlanticEquivalent to UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush.

In the wake of the ousting of Thatcher, Major took over the Conservative party at a time they were trailing the Labour party by 20 points and more in the polls. Not only did Major recapture support in the campaign, most famously making {{Literal Soapbox Speech}}es[[note]](a tactic he had used in prior campaigns for his seat on the Lambeth London Borough Council in the late 1960s and early 1970s)[[/note]]), but emerged with a surprise victory in the 1992 general election where his party received a (still unbeaten) record 14,093,007 votes.[[note]](In his own constituency he was re-elected with a personal majority of 36,230 votes over his closest competitor, then the largest any MP had won by since universal suffrage was introduced -- a record that stood until George Howarth was re-elected for Knowsley in 2017 with a 42,214-vote margin.)[[/note]] Major however ended up with a barely-workable majority in the House of Commons of only 21 seats (in contrast, Thatcher had achieved 144- and 102-seat majorities in 1983 and 1987 respectively) -- though even this was mostly dismissed as a side effect of lingering resentment towards Thatcher, with most political commentators predicting afterwards that Major would likely call another election in 1994 or 1995 and win back the huge majority the Tories had enjoyed for most of the 1980s.

Easily forgotten between the iconic personalities of Thatcher and Blair, caricatures tended to depict him as a rather boring, grey little man -- an image that his large glasses, dull image, and habit of dressing in grey only encouraged. Major's stodgy old image in contrast to Blair's youthful one is ironic, as Major was [[YoungerThanTheyLook one of the UK's younger prime ministers]], taking office at age 47 -- at the time making him the ''youngest'' PM since UsefulNotes/TheEarlOfRosebery was appointed just before his 47th birthday in 1894 -- and just three years older than Blair when he took office.[[note]](While much hay was made about Blair taking office at the age of '43', he was only four days away from turning 44. Thus, his distinction as the UK's youngest prime minister since 1812 was easily bested by the also 43-year-old UsefulNotes/DavidCameron, whose own 44th birthday was almost five months after he became PM.)[[/note]]

While initially considered one of the UK's worst prime ministers upon leaving office, Major is [[VindicatedByHistory viewed much more favourably in hindsight]]. His reputation improved especially sharply in TheNewTens -- something doubtless helped by the massive falling out of public opinion his immediate successor Tony Blair suffered in the same period -- and he is now a respected elder statesman and a sought-after speaker whose opinions carry a respectable amount of clout with politicians and the public. [[http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2013/10/majors-underrated-premiership-is-long-overdue-for-reappraisal/ Some analysts now accept that he was underrated as PM.]] Moreover, the '90s boom, the longest post-war boom, began under him. Crime began to go down, his decision to retain the pound and not adopt the euro is now seen as a very wise move (he claimed to have negotiated "game, set, and match for Britain" at the Maastricht Treaty in December 1991), and in foreign policy (Kuwait and other countries) he did well. He and concurrent Irish Taoiseach John Bruton did most of the legwork behind the Good Friday Agreement, but neither stayed in office long enough to see its final ratification in 1998[[note]](Bruton was voted out of his office a month after Major was voted out of his)[[/note]], allowing respective successors Blair and Bertie Ahern to finalize the deal and take credit. His term also saw his original regular jousting partner in the Commons, the 1992-4 Labour leader John Smith, die after two heart attacks. The two men had had an excellent relationship away from the despatch box, and Major, obviously affected, [[http://youtu.be/jz8_zU-gviU?t=3m20s reminisced]] in the chamber about how he and Smith would privately share "sometimes tea, sometimes not tea" -- an awkward-but-sweet remark that became famous. The improvement in his reputation is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that he was ranked as the third worst prime minister of the 20th century[[note]]/(only UsefulNotes/NevilleChamberlain and UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden were ranked worse, and they oversaw ''serious'' loss of British prestige internationally in being seen to have helped start UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and the Suez Crisis respectively)[[/note]] in [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/579061.stm a poll]] among various academics and historians in 2000, before being ranked as the sixth ''best'' post-war prime minister[[note]](UsefulNotes/ClementAttlee, Thatcher, Blair, UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan, and UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson ranked higher, and they're noted for the economic prosperity and/or transformative social change that happened on their watch)[[/note]] in [[https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/3930/britains_post-war_prime_ministers_ranked_by_politics_experts a similar poll]] in 2016. An increasingly common assessment of Major is that his struggles as leader of the Conservative party distracted the public from his many successes as prime minister, which are now finally being recognised.

John Major's father, Tom, was a circus acrobat. Many jokes were made about Major being the only boy to ever run away from the circus to become an accountant. He's not the only circus child to reject that life for a more stable livelihood by a long shot, but it certainly didn't help his image as TheBore.

Like many politicians, he had an embarrassing sibling: in this case, his brother Terry Major-Ball, who famously ran a company that made garden gnomes.

In 2002, a revelation broke out that he had had an extramarital affair with former Health Minister Edwina Currie MP prior to becoming prime minister; this was greeted with universal incredulity by the British media, as they couldn't conceive of him doing something so interesting.[[note]](Still, it dovetails nicely with his [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_Basics_(campaign) Back to Basics]] campaign, an appeal to [[GoodOldWays traditional values]]. This was never really much more than a bunch of platitudes about how people should be decent to one another, but nonetheless blew up in Major's face when it was interpreted as him promising to double down on the social conservatism of Thatcher's reign. As a result, left-leaning newspapers immediately accused him of being a bigot, while right-leaning newspapers initially applauded the campaign, but then turned on Major when he failed to deliver on his (supposedly) promised socially conservative policies, and then a succession of Conservative politicians were caught up in a string of scandals, mainly sexual.)[[/note]] But then again, Major could be the only PM in history who managed to make ''being attacked in 10 Downing Street by the IRA with mortar bombs from a nearby rooftop'' 'unmemorable'.

He declined elevation to the House of Lords after leaving the Commons in 2001, a precedent that every subsequent PM to date has followed. While mostly keeping a fairly low profile after leaving office (a trend he started at the end of his concession speech after the 1997 election by announcing his plans to see a [[UsefulNotes/{{cricket}}]] match at the Oval), Major returned to the limelight about two decades later by campaigning in favour of a second referendum to address and resolve Brexit, an issue in which he favoured Remain. The irony of Major pushing so hard for a second referendum when he worked so hard to deny the public a ''first'' referendum on Maastricht over 25 years earlier did not pass without comment. In 2019 he joined a lawsuit, launched by activist Gina Miller, to reverse the controversial prorogation (suspension) of Parliament by Prime Minister UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson in what was widely seen as an attempt to undermine parliamentary oversight of the government's efforts to negotiate a Brexit deal and force a "no-deal" exit by ''fait accompli''. This suit was successful, forcing Parliament to be reconvened. After yet ''another'' delay in Brexit was arranged with the EU, Johnson then called an election with cross-party support, and Major actively campaigned against his own party.[[note]](He backed pro-Remain independents who had been booted from the Tories for opposing Boris Johnson's Brexit plans -- he did not endorse any party other than the Conservatives, or indeed, any other candidates.)[[/note]] With Johnson winning the Conservatives their biggest majority since 1987, and ''every candidate'' Major endorsed going down to defeat, it appears he has irreparably poisoned relations with the party he once led going forward. Ironically, it was once rumoured that fellow Remainer UsefulNotes/DavidCameron had planned to appoint Major a ''hereditary peer'', the first since another previous PM, UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan.

* ''Magazine/PrivateEye'''s prime-ministerial parody of him was "''The Secret Diary of John Major (Aged 47¾)''" (obviously based on ''[[Literature/AdrianMole The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole]]'' in style) with {{Running Gag}}s "my wife Norman", "oh yes!", "I was not inconsiderably incandescent" and "the book of bastards".

* Mr Bent, the stuffy uptight chief clerk of the [[Discworld Ankh-Morpork]] bank in ''Literature/MakingMoney'' has a clear reference to John Major in that [[spoiler: he ran away from the circus to become an accountant.]]

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/John-Major_1034.jpg]]

Sir John Major, [[UsefulNotes/KnightFever KG, CH, PC]] (born 29 March 1943) is a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. He served consecutively as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Thatcher government from 1989 to 1990, and was the Member of Parliament for Huntingdon from 1979 to 2001 (it was called Huntingdonshire until 1983). Like UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher to UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, Major can be seen roughly as the TransatlanticEquivalent to UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush.

In the wake of the ousting of Thatcher, Major took over the Conservative Party at a time they were trailing the Labour Party by 20 points and more in the polls. Not only did Major recapture support in the campaign (most famously making {{Literal Soapbox Speech}}es[[note]]It was a tactic he had used in his prior campaigns for his seat on the Lambeth London Borough Council in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[[/note]]), but the 1992 general election with a surprise victory and a (still unbeaten) record 14,093,007 votes.[[note]]In his own constituency, he was re-elected with a personal majority of 36,230 votes over his closest competitor, then the largest any MP had won by since universal suffrage was introduced, a record that stood until George Howarth was re-elected for Knowsley in 2017 with a 42,214-vote margin.[[/note]] Major ended up with a barely-working majority in the Commons of only 21 seats (in contrast, Thatcher had achieved 144- and 102-seat majorities in 1983 and 1987 respectively), but even this was mostly dismissed as a side effect of lingering resentment towards Thatcher, with most political commentators predicting afterwards that Major would likely call another election in 1994 or 1995 and win back the huge majority the Tories had enjoyed for most of the 1980s. Instead, everything swiftly went downhill from there.

Five months after the election, Britain was expelled from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) in what was called "Black Wednesday".[[note]]This was a system where all European currencies were pegged together, as a precursor to the Euro.[[/note]] This unexpectedly helped the economy recover in the long run, but since the Conservatives had spent the last year trying their hardest and spending billions to stay in the ERM, it greatly damaged their reputation for good economic management. There was also significant progress in the [[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles Northern Ireland Peace Process]] -- the only thing that prevented a full peace agreement was the government's demand that the IRA lay down their weapons first before negotiating. Despite these developments, Major's government was dogged by scandals, PR disasters, and Conservative infighting, especially over [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion European]] [[UsefulNotes/WithEuropeButNotOfIt issues]]. Having been in power since 1979, the Conservatives had little left to offer to voters, whereas Labour were regrouping and modernising, firstly under the leadership of John Smith, and then UsefulNotes/TonyBlair following Smith's untimely death in 1994. Rumours of leadership challenges came and went, resulting in Major calling a leadership election ''against himself'' in 1995 in an attempt to secure his control over the party. It worked, as Major (who had disappointed the party's Thatcherite right wing by being politically and temperamentally more moderate than she was) faced only token opposition from John Redwood and was easily re-elected, but it really just delayed the inevitable. In the 1997 general election, the Conservatives were [[LandslideElection routed]] by Blair's reformed Labour Party, losing over half their seats. Major resigned the leadership less than three weeks after he lost government.

Easily forgotten between the iconic personalities of Thatcher and Blair, caricatures tended to depict him as a rather boring, grey little man, an image that his large glasses, dull image, and habit of dressing in grey only encouraged. Major's stodgy old image in contrast to Blair's youthful one is ironic, as Major was [[YoungerThanTheyLook one of the UK's younger prime ministers]], taking office at age 47, just three years older than Blair when he took office.[[note]]While much hay is made about Blair taking office at age of 43, he was only four days away from turning 44. Thus, his distinction as the UK's youngest prime minister since 1812 was easily bested by the also 43-year-old UsefulNotes/DavidCameron, whose own 44th birthday was almost five months after he became PM. Major himself was the youngest PM since UsefulNotes/TheEarlOfRosebery was appointed just before his 47th birthday in 1894.[[/note]]

While initially considered one of the UK's worst prime ministers upon leaving office, Major is [[VindicatedByHistory viewed much more favorably in hindsight]]. His reputation has improved especially sharply in TheNewTens -- something doubtless helped by the massive falling out of public opinion his immediate successor Tony Blair has suffered in the same period -- and he is now a respected elder statesman and a sought-after speaker whose opinions carry a respectable amount of clout with politicians and the public. [[http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2013/10/majors-underrated-premiership-is-long-overdue-for-reappraisal/ Some analysts now accept that he was underrated as PM.]] Moreover, the '90s boom, the longest post-war boom, began under him. Crime began to go down, his decision to retain the Pound and not adopt the Euro is now seen as a very wise move (he claimed to have negotiated "game, set, and match for Britain" at the Maastricht Treaty in December 1991), and in foreign policy (Kuwait and other countries) did well. He and concurrent Irish Taoiseach John Bruton did most of the legwork behind the Good Friday Agreement, but neither stayed in office long enough to see its final ratification in 1998,[[note]]Bruton was voted out of his office a month after Major was voted out of his.[[/note]] allowing successors Blair and Bertie Ahern to finalize the deal and take credit. His term also saw his regular jousting partner in the Commons, the Labour leader John Smith, die of two heart attacks. The two men had had an excellent relationship away from the despatch box, and Major, obviously affected, [[http://youtu.be/jz8_zU-gviU?t=3m20s reminisced]] in the chamber about he and Smith would privately share "sometimes tea, sometimes not tea", an awkward-but-sweet remark that became famous. The improvement in his reputation is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that he was ranked as the third worst prime minister of the 20th century[[note]]Only UsefulNotes/NevilleChamberlain and UsefulNotes/AnthonyEden were ranked worse, and they oversaw ''serious'' loss of British prestige internationally in being seen to have helped start UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and the Suez Crisis respectively.[[/note]] in [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/579061.stm a poll]] among various academics and historians in 2000, before being ranked as the sixth ''best'' post-war prime minister[[note]]UsefulNotes/ClementAttlee, Thatcher, Blair, UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan, and UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson ranked higher, and they're noted for the economic prosperity and/or transformative social change that happened on their watch.[[/note]] in [[https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/3930/britains_post-war_prime_ministers_ranked_by_politics_experts a similar poll]] in 2016. An increasingly common assessment of Major is that his struggles as leader of the Conservative Party distracted the public from his many successes as prime minister, which are now finally being recognised.

Even some more left-leaning people, while disliking the Tories on principle, will concede he was a better leader then his successors. These include William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, and Michael Howard, none of whom appealed to many non-Tories while they led the Opposition; UsefulNotes/DavidCameron, whose austerity helped fuel polarisation and who called a Brexit referendum, which is seen as having damaged the country irreparably; UsefulNotes/TheresaMay, who failed to achieve Brexit while pushing extreme anti-immigrant ideas leading her to lose her majority; and the notoriously untrustworthy and bigoted UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, who is widely believed to have supported Brexit just so he could become PM, and for whom Major has always had a strong dislike.

He is also one of the few people to have held three of the Four Great Offices of State (the exception being Home Secretary), having been at various points in his political career Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Foreign Secretary.

John Major's father, Tom, was a circus acrobat. Many jokes were made about Major being the only boy to ever run away from the circus to become an accountant. He's not the only circus child to reject the circus life for a more stable livelihood by a long shot, but it certainly didn't help his image as TheBore.

In 2002, a revelation broke out that he had had an extramarital affair with former Health Minister Edwina Currie MP prior to becoming prime minister; this was greeted with universal incredulity by the British media, as they couldn't conceive of him doing something so interesting.[[note]]Still, it dovetails nicely with his [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_Basics_(campaign) Back to Basics]] campaign, an appeal to [[GoodOldWays traditional values]]. This was never really much more than a bunch of platitudes about how people should be decent to one another, but nonetheless blew up in Major's face when it was interpreted as him promising to double down on the social conservatism of Thatcher's reign. As a result, left-leaning newspapers immediately accused him of being a bigot, while right-leaning newspapers initially applauded the campaign, but then turned on Major when he failed to deliver on his (supposedly) promised social conservative policies, and then a succession of Conservative politicians were caught up in a string of scandals, mainly sexual.[[/note]] But then again, Major could be the only PM in history who managed to make ''being attacked in Ten Downing Street by the IRA with mortar bombs from a nearby rooftop'' 'unmemorable'.

He declined elevation to the Lords after leaving the Commons in 2001, a precedent that every subsequent PM to date has followed. While mostly keeping a fairly low profile after leaving office (a trend he started by announcing his plans to see a cricket match at South Oval at the end of his concession speech after the 1997 election), Major returned to the limelight about two decades later by campaigning in favour of a second referendum to address and resolve Brexit, an issue in which he favoured Remain. The irony of Major pushing so hard for a second referendum when he worked so hard to deny the public a ''first'' referendum on Maastricht over 25 years earlier did not pass without comment. He also joined a lawsuit launched by activist Gina Miller to reverse the controversial prorogation of Parliament in 2019 by Prime Minister UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, in what was widely seen as an attempt to undermine parliamentary oversight of the government's efforts to negotiate a Brexit deal and force a "no-deal" exit by ''fait accompli''. This suit was successful, forcing Parliament to be reconvened. After yet ''another'' delay in Brexit was arranged with the EU, Johnson then called an election with cross-party support, and Major actively campaigned against his own party.[[note]]He backed pro-Remain independents who had been booted from the Tories for opposing Boris Johnson's Brexit plans -- he did not endorse any party other than the Conservatives, or indeed, any other candidates.[[/note]] With Johnson winning the Conservatives their biggest majority since 1987, and ''every candidate'' Major endorsed going down to defeat, it appears he has irreparably poisoned relations with the party he once led going forward. (Ironically, it was once rumoured that fellow Remainer UsefulNotes/DavidCameron had planned to appoint Major a ''hereditary peer'', the first since another previous PM, UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan.)

Major is the earliest PM who is still living. All subsequent ex-prime ministers (Blair, UsefulNotes/GordonBrown, Cameron, and May) are also still living. He's also the most recent PM who never attended university -- he took correspondence courses to be certified in banking.

* Along with UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher, he was a regular character on the British puppet comedy series ''Series/SpittingImage''. When he first appeared, he constantly mentioned to people that he was a son of an circus performer. Upon taking power, he had a radar dish on his head to pick up orders from Thatcher; this was dropped later for a puppet coloured entirely in shades of grey. Major was depicted as an extremely boring man (indeed, the writers felt he was quite dull when compared to the far more interesting Thatcher) who, in one famous sketch, sat with his wife, Norma, eating dinner almost completely in silence only piping up to ask for more peas. The same puppet appeared in an ident for the then-fledgling [[Creator/{{ITV}} Carlton Television]] network. The real kicker is that in an attempt to make Major a more interesting character, they invented an affair between him and Virginia Bottomley. When Major's affair with Edwina Currie became public knowledge, the creators of ''Spitting Image'' had to go on record as saying it was a coincidence, not advance knowledge, but that they couldn't believe [[HilariousInHindsight how funny it had become given the new context]].

* ''Magazine/PrivateEye''[='=]s prime ministerial parody was "''The Secret Diary of John Major (Aged 47¾)''" (obviously based on ''The Secret Diary of Literature/AdrianMole'' in style) with {{Running Gag}}s "my wife Norman", "oh yes!", "I was not inconsiderably incandescent" and "the book of bastards".

* Creator/KimNewman wrote two short stories about alternative versions of him under the banner title ''Alternate Majors'': "Slow News Day" (set in an AlternateHistoryNaziVictory where Major is the puppet UK prime minister) and "The Germans Won" (actually referring to the 1966 World Cup), where Major is a bus conductor. In the regular timeline, Major actually applied for a job as a bus conductor in his youth but couldn't do the mental arithmetic the job required[[note]]Major instead went on to become the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who deals with the country's finances[[/note]]; one of the explicitly-mentioned features of the story's alternate history is the adoption of a much simpler schedule of bus fares.
* Mr Bent, the stuffy uptight chief clerk of the Anhk-Morpork bank in ''Literature/MakingMoney'' has a clear reference to John Major in that [[spoiler: he ran away from the circus to become an accountant.]]

* The PM with whom Cornelius Fudge meets in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'' should be Major, in the real-world chronology. In practice it's unclear whether it actually is. (Creator/JKRowling, who is notoriously bad with numbers, has admitted that she had Tony Blair, who took office the following year, in mind as she wrote the scene.) Had it been Major, though, this would lead to the highly amusing image of a prime minister with a real-life reputation for extreme dullness having to put up with colourful figures like Cornelius Fudge periodically bursting through his fireplace. This also means that the PM's predecessor that tried to throw Fudge out of the window was ''Margaret Thatcher''.

* He's set to appear in the fifth season of ''Series/TheCrown'' which would focus on TheNineties. He will be played by Creator/JonnyLeeMiller.

[[caption-width-right:300:Britain's prime minister from 1990 to 1997, [[SarcasmMode in glorious Technicolor.]]]]

While mostly keeping a fairly low profile after leaving office (a trend he started by announcing his plans to see a cricket match at South Oval at the end of his concession speech after the 1997 election), Major returned to the limelight about two decades later by campaigning in favour of a second referendum to address and resolve Brexit, an issue in which he favoured Remain. The irony of Major pushing so hard for a second referendum when he worked so hard to deny the public a ''first'' referendum on Maastricht over 25 years earlier did not pass without comment. He also joined a lawsuit launched by activist Gina Miller to reverse the controversial prorogation of Parliament in 2019 by Prime Minister UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson, in what was widely seen as an attempt to undermine parliamentary oversight of the government's efforts to negotiate a Brexit deal and force a "no-deal" exit by ''fait accompli''. This suit was successful, forcing Parliament to be reconvened. After yet ''another'' delay in Brexit was arranged with the EU, Johnson then called an election with cross-party support, and Major actively campaigned against his own party.[[note]]He backed pro-Remain independents who had been booted from the Tories for opposing Boris Johnson's Brexit plans -- he did not endorse any party other than the Conservatives, or indeed, any other candidates.[[/note]] With Johnson winning the Conservatives their biggest majority since 1987, and ''every candidate'' Major endorsed going down to defeat, it appears he has irreparably poisoned relations with the party he once led going forward. (Ironically, it was once rumoured that fellow Remainer UsefulNotes/DavidCameron had planned to appoint Major a ''hereditary peer'', the first since another previous PM, UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan.)