John major

If Grant Shapps and John Major gave a speech but no journalists were there to cover it, did it really happen? That’s what happened today. The Tories invited one pooled camera into their headquarters to see the former prime minister stand next to the party chairman in a belated attempt to prove that at least two senior Tories did not go to Eton. Loyal MPs and spinners delivered the speech line-by-line on Twitter; but the only interesting bits were briefed out to the Daily Mail last night. Apparently, Sir John could only afford half an hour off from watching cricket, so there was no time for a Q&A – nothing

[audioplayer src=’http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_30_January_2014_v4.mp3′ title=’Douglas Carswell MP explain why he now agrees with this article’ startat=518] Listen [/audioplayer]Things could scarcely be going better for the Conservatives. Every week seems to bring more news of the recovery. High street tills are ringing, employment is at an all-time high and Britain’s economy is growing faster than that of any major country. No wonder the Labour party’s opinion poll lead has been reduced to one vulnerable point. Two years ago, the Conservatives had almost given up hope of winning the next election. Now, it looks within their grasp — if they keep it together. And therein lies the problem. Two groups of people are working

Sir John Major was beginning to make a habit of embarrassing Downing Street: by suggesting windfall taxes on energy companies and denouncing private school cliques. But he was on his best behaviour last night at the Institute of Directors’ annual dinner. He praised Cameron and Osborne for their ‘brave policy’, adding that their ‘unpopular policy’ had ‘been proved to be right’. He slammed Alex Salmond and the SNP. So far so good; but, when it came to Europe, the old dog reverted to being decidedly ‘unsound’. He believes that the EU would suffer if we were to leave (which is not something that overly concerns Eurosceptics): ‘Of course, we would survive

When Ed Miliband announced his eye-catching energy policy, Tory MPs hoped that their party would respond in kind with something similarly interesting to voters but that would really work. They hoped this would underline that the Conservative party is the party of government, while Miliband was only suitable for opposition. George Osborne’s conference fuel duty freeze and his noises about green taxes and levies on fuel bills reassured many of them, but Sir John Major’s intervention yesterday has highlighted the vacuum caused by a refusal by Number 10 to engage with what one strategist described to me as ‘the footling little things’. One MP said after Major’s speech: ‘Number 10

Now the latest on the Politicians Keeping In Touch front. It’s funny how it’s the wives who take the brunt of the endeavour. It was Samantha Cameron yesterday who had to parade at the Tory party conference in a teal £42 polyester dress from Asos.com…no question, then, of Mr Cameron being asked to take a turn in an M&S suit. Alas, Mrs C did what every sensible person does who has to wear something from Asos or Florence and Fred (and may I say, given their modest cut when it comes to fabric only skinnies can carry this off) and replaced their belt with one of her own. It was a

Party unity is one of those things you can measure by the frequency with which the idea is mentioned. The more often it is talked about, the less it exists. When a political party is actually united there’s no need to mention party unity. As Isabel notes, Sir John Major has long, wearying, experience of this. The speech he gave yesterday is full of sound advice. Like many other leading politicians, Sir John seems more impressive – and commands more respect – as the years roll on and the memory of his own time in office fades. At Conservative Home Harry Phibbs responds to Major’s speech with a piece that

John Major knows a thing or two about naughty Tory MPs and Europe. So David Cameron would do well to listen to his Chatham House speech today in which he advised the PM to give up on the ‘irreconcilables who are prepared to bring own any government or any Prime Minister in support of their opposition to the European Union’. He made two particularly strong points: 1. The Prime Minister should start preparing for the negotiation now. Major doesn’t want the UK to leave the European Union, and neither does Cameron. So the former Tory Prime Minister gave a detailed briefing on how Cameron can avoid this. A referendum would

If warm white wine and dodgy canapés are your thing, then party conferences will be your heaven and I urge you to gate-crash them before the parties become extinct. Gate-crashing is an innate skill. Mr Steerpike crashed a members-only do for constituency bigwigs at the Tories’ tempestuous conference in Birmingham, and found himself in good company: Tory party chairman Grant Shapps revealed that he is an expert gate-crasher. Back in the nineties, ‘a strong young Conservative, who was never going to be a real security threat’ swiped John Major’s schedule and invitation list for an entire party conference in the loos. While a flustered member of the prime minister’s security detail scoured

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

Tony Blair has chosen this summer to launch his re-entry mission into British politics. He hired a UK communications director in May, guest-edited the Evening Standard yesterday and agreed to a rather intriguing interview in same paper, stating he would like to return to office, while accepting it was not likely. So what is the aim of Mr Blair’s new campaign? Blair had little choice than to take a back seat during the Brown premiership. But the dismal failure of his successor, followed by Miliband’s growing authority and strong Labour polling, makes now the perfect time for the former prime minister to start rehabilitating his image. Until now, he has

It was back to the future at the Leveson inquiry today, as Sir John Major suggested how the press might be regulated. He was calm and confident, launching the odd softly-spoken salvo at former enemies, among them Rupert Murdoch. He said: “Certainly he [Murdoch] never asked for anything directly from me but he was not averse to pressing for policy changes. In the run up to the 1997 general election in my third and last meeting with him on 2 February 1997 he made it clear that he disliked my European policies which he wished me to change….If not, his papers could not and would not support the Conservative government.’

Bruce Anderson has written a typically trenchant piece today describing the Tory party’s treatment of John Major as ‘the most unworthy, the most shameful, period in Tory history.’ Based on both how close Bruce is to those around David Cameron and my own conversations, I would say that this is a verdict that many in the Tory leadership would agree with. Indeed, the way in which Major was treated by some Tory backbenches has informed — often with calamitous consequences — Cameron’s approach to party management. Take, for instance, Cameron’s effort straight after the election to neuter the 1922 Committee and turn it into the Conservative Parliamentary Party. This move was