Fatalism, Extenuation and Despair
Peter Clarke
- Major: A Political Life by Anthony Seldon
Weidenfeld, 856 pp, £25.00, October 1997, ISBN 0 297 81607 1
It may seem surprising that, within nine months of a famous election triumph, a government can look in such bad shape – its sense of purpose challenged by events and its supporter’ loyalty tested by unpalatable policy commitments. A particularly bitter personal twist is added when a prime minister, so recently hailed as the architect of victory, encounters increasingly open disparagement within his own party – not least from MPs owing their Westminster seats to his popular appeal. Or so John Major came to feel by the end of 1992. Tony Blair must be thankful that things are now working out so differently for his government, and that, having been elected as New Labour, it is finding it so easy to govern as New Labour, free of the ideological tensions, ministerial bungling, personal rivalries, sex scandals, financial sleaze and general bad publicity that dogged and doomed the Major Government.
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