Abstract
No leader suffered more consistently from speculation of his imminent demise than Prime Minister John Major. As a somewhat unexpected successor to a woman who dominated British politics for more than a decade, Major inherited quite a difficult situation from Margaret Thatcher. Initially, Major was generally considered a great success. His election helped heal festering party wounds and vastly improved the Conservatives’ public image, so much so that Major led the Conservatives to a fourth consecutive general election victory — a victory that, in all likelihood, would have eluded Thatcher. All of this was accomplished during Major’s first 18 months in the leadership.
‘We have a mechanism if people wish to challenge in the autumn -that is a matter for them. I don’t expect one. I will be waiting here if there is one.’ — Conservative Prime Minister John Major, 13 June 1994
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Notes and References
By contrast, there was no institutional check on Harold Wilson’s paranoia about being toppled from the premiership. If Labour’s rules had provided a mechanism for challenging Wilson when he was prime minister, he might not have wasted so much time and anguish in fear of plots against him. Wilson’s obsession with plots is constantly remarked upon in the diaries and memoirs of his cabinet colleagues. See, for example, Tony Benn, Office Without Power: Diaries 1968–1972, Arrow Books (London), 1988: 352
James Callaghan, Time and Chance, Collins (London), 1987: 203
Richard Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, Volume HI: Secretary of State Social Services, 1968–70, Hamish Hamilton (London), 1977: 43–91
Denis Healey, The Time of My Life, Penguin Books (London), 1990: 339.
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© 1996 Leonard P. Stark
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Stark, L.P. (1996). A ‘Silly Season Story’?. In: Choosing a Leader. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230375758_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230375758_9
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