Sir John Major is a model former Prime Minister

Sir John Major does political intervention just right, doesn’t he? Never mind what he actually says. Once a year, twice max. Lob in a perfectly prepared hand grenade, wave and get the hell out. None of that terrible neediness of Tony Blair, still so stricken that he’s not in office. No children will cry, nor dogs howl, as they might at the biannual haphazard sight of Gordon Brown. Major is never hysterical, and never cheap, and he always disappears again within 24 hours. Precisely how an ex-prime minister ought to be. David Cameron, wherever he is, should be taking notes.

This is an extract from Hugo Rifkind’s column, which appears in this week’s Spectator