The standard joke is that Sir John Major is the ultimate grey man, as if Charles Pooter had been painted by Wilhelm Hammershoi in particularly pallid light. But the pea-eating caricature of yesteryear was not in evidence on the Andrew Marr Show this morning. There was something calm and old-fashioned about Major during his interview; even his platitudes carried an air of wisdom. The former Disability Minister praised the Olympic and Paralympic Games, revelling in the fact that the games had revived aspects of our national character which he had assumed dead.
The conversation was about old times: his father’s career in Music Halls during the early years of the 20th Century, past battles with the European Union and the legacy of Black Wednesday. He said that the lesson of that calamity was to look for green shoots in the darkest of places.
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