The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Olympics

  • Sir John Major’s Interview on the Andrew Marr Show – 16 September 2012

    The text of Sir John Major’s interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, broadcast live on 16th September 2012.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Back here, twenty years ago to the day Black Wednesday blew a hole through the Conservative Government of Sir John Major – a man who had one of the most unusual family backgrounds of any modern Prime Minister. His mother and father – a man born during Queen Victoria’s reign – were music hall artistes, and Sir John grew up on tales of their unconventional life. Well music hall is in many ways a lost world, killed off by the cinema and by television and radio, but perhaps its spirit lives on. Sir John Major’s written a book about it all. We’ll be talking about that, today’s politics, and much more. Sir John, good morning. Thanks for joining us.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Morning, Andrew.

    ANDREW MARR:

    You called this book My Old Man. And that really is where it starts, because your father wasn’t just a music hall artiste; he topped the bill in some of the great music halls of the time. He was a substantial figure in his way.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well he was in music hall for about thirty years, from 1900 to 1930, and he certainly topped the bill at the second tier theatres. I wouldn’t claim at all he was one of the greats of the music hall, he plainly wasn’t, but he and his then wife, Kitty, very dependable, very good, always working, on the bill with most of the greats at some time or another; and then formed their own show and then they topped the bill for a long time. So yes, he passed on many stories about those days.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Now it is a lost world, we’ll never know quite what it was like to hear these people because they weren’t recorded, or most of them weren’t recorded, until very late on. But just give us a sense of the range of performers who you describe in this book.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I learned quite a lot about it at my father’s bedside when he was very old and ill. I was his audience as a small boy, he was in mid-sixties when I was born. He would talk to me about his life on the stage and all the greats both that he had worked with and that perhaps he’d seen and not worked with. But music hall had a huge range. It might be singing comic songs – that’s the staple part of it – comedians, animal acts, monologists, black-face acts. Almost anything you could think of as variety today would have been part of music hall then.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And you argue that quite a lot of what we think of as quintessentially British humour from the age of sort of radio and television – you know The Goons and Monty Python and all the rest of it – has its origins in people like Dan Leno, some of those patter merchants on the musical stage?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. I mean if you actually look how they performed, what they did and what we know of it, a great deal of it has been handed down. Humour is continuous – what amuses the British psyche a hundred years ago tends to tickle it today – and, yes, it has been handed down. And they were astonishing characters, if you look at their background and their life stories, some of them are full of pathos, they came from nowhere. Some never got anywhere and their lives were full of hardship. Others had huge success, earned vast sums of money, perhaps spent it and then ended up dying young and often destitute. These stories are very remarkable stories of pretty remarkable people.

    ANDREW MARR:

    It struck me that they were quite like the stories of so many kind of would-be rock stars touring the country, hoping to make it, a few of them make it and maybe take too many drugs and drink and so on later on. But it’s also a bit like the sort of popular culture you see in so much television even now, the sort of dance shows and so on.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Nothing’s new and a great deal of it is repetitive. What I think is different was in those days music hall was the entertainment. There was very little to compete with it, as there is so much today, and it sunk deep into the British psyche. In the 1840s, for example, when it began, that was a terrible decade when the country might well have come to revolution. It turned revolution, potential revolution in the 1840s, into a patriotic roar of joy twenty years later. And of course it had its great days at the height of empire – hugely proud, hugely patriotic, hugely pro-British – but it fed mainly upon the lives of the people who actually attended those, and the great artists reflected those lives and sang back to them their lives and talked about their lives. It was empathetic across….

    ANDREW MARR:

    So quite hard-edged actually a lot of it, yes?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Very hard-edged. I mean some of the social commentary has the force of a pile driver, particularly artists we don’t remember today like Jenny Hill – very early feminist, talked very much about the lives of people who were downtrodden and why they were downtrodden. Well worth reading about her.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Revisiting her?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Absolutely worth revisiting her.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Okay. Let’s turn to politics rather more recently. I mentioned Black Wednesday.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    The music hall is much more fun.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Much sunnier perhaps than Black Wednesday. Nonetheless, that was a sort of existential crisis really in many ways for this country. Twenty years on, we are still looking at Europe and are particularly concerned about what is happening to the Euro project now. How dangerous do you think things remain because it’s you know the longest, most boring crisis I can remember?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well there are two things that are inextricably linked of course. Firstly there is Europe and the Euro crisis, and then there’s the state of the British economy. You can’t regard those as wholly separate entities, you have to look at the two of them. If you take Europe first, Europe has continually evolved. It’s evolved a good deal further towards centralisation because of economic failure in Europe over recent years than anybody imagined in this timescale; and what you’re now seeing out of failure, not success, is the Euro core looking to integrate further, much more towards a federal structure.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Which this country, in your view, could have nothing to do with really?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well if you recall you mentioned Black Wednesday. You might also have mentioned that at Maastricht, I opted sterling out of the Eurozone because I didn’t think the Eurozone would work without fiscal union as well as economic union, and so we are apart from that, thank goodness, and we will stay apart from it. But if the Eurozone, as I believe, continue to integrate over the next ten years, you’re going in essence within ten years – this isn’t going to happen overnight – within ten years you’re going to have a Euro core that is to all intents and purposes federal. Now if that happens to a portion, a core of the European Union, it changes that core’s relationship with the rest of the European Union. And if they do that, the rest of the European Union may feel that it is appropriate to change their relationship with the core and with the European Union as a whole. I think that offers an opportunity for us to clean up one of the long running sores of British politics, which is the nature of our relationship with Europe.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And that would have to be a referendum and so on if it was a treaty and all the rest of it?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well if it was a treaty, of course it would.

    ANDREW MARR:

    It would have to be, right.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    And it would be a treaty in due course.

    ANDREW MARR:

    So therefore. Let me ask about the British economy directly at the moment because these are grim times. I mean this is the third quarter of technical recession, the Chancellor incredibly unpopular. You’ve been through a period where you know you are just buffeting through a hard time. What’s your analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the economy; and what’s your advice?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well, firstly, it would be very surprising if the Chancellor wasn’t unpopular. The Chancellor has to do unpopular things. But I think it’s worth making the point that David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg aren’t imposing these cuts out of some malign wish to hurt people. They’re imposing these cuts because the last Government left the cupboard bare. The money was gone, the gold was gone. They had no choice but to take tough medicine, and I think people need to understand that is why they are doing it. That said, of course it’s unpopular and you must expect the Chancellor to be unpopular. Nothing surprising at all about that.

    But since I’m no longer in politics, I can say something that perhaps as a politician I wouldn’t. You mentioned Black Wednesday. Around about that time, Norman Lamont was taken to pieces by commentators for suggesting there were green shoots, but in retrospect, we can see that Norman was right. Recovery begins from the darkest moment. I’m not certain but I think we have passed the darkest moment and I will tell you why. There are some oddities in the figures at the moment. Why in the depths of this recession is employment growing, why is industrial production going up, why has the stock market risen? I could list a number of other things.

    There are things happening out there that will become apparent and we don’t quite know why or how. My guess – and this is something a minister can’t say but I can – my guess is in due course we will find that we pass the bottom, that that last revision of GDP when we had a 0.5 per cent reduction is less bad than we thought it was, and that we are starting on what will be a slow road to recovery. I think that is beginning to happen and I hope that is the case, but I believe it is going to turn out to be so for a vast range of reasons.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Meanwhile, party conference season, you don’t have to be involved in it anymore, but there is another Conservative Prime Minister, there are more kind of whisperings and challenges and so on. Of course he’s got Boris Johnson bouncing around, which you never had. Do you think the Conservative Party needs to calm down and settle down or do you think this is an inevitable part of you know the bad year?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well, there’s nothing surprising about people being critical when times are tough. That is true in the Conservative Party, is true in the Liberal Democrat Party, it’s been true in the past. You saw those divisions in the 80s in the Conservative Party with wets and dries. You saw it in the 90s between, well, on the general issue of Europe. You’re seeing it again, it is an inevitability of politics. But I would have thought if the Conservative Party has learned anything in the last twenty years, it’s learned that regicide is not a good idea.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Well has it? That’s the question.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think it has and I think the concept of people challenging David Cameron is an extremely good newspaper story, fills huge numbers of columns. And Boris is a very attractive and able and intelligent politician doing a supremely good job I think in London, but Boris isn’t in Parliament. Boris hasn’t said he wishes to become Prime Minister, quite the reverse.

    The belief that suddenly everything is going to change – you’re going to have a leadership challenge and you’re going to have a replacement of Prime Minister – I just think that isn’t in the real world. We aren’t. David Cameron is Prime Minister, he’s going to remain Prime Minister and he’s going to contest the next election and I very much hope he’s going to win it.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And so your message to all of those backbenchers who are constantly contacting newspapers and saying they want to kill the Prime Minister, they’re getting names on bits of paper, all the familiar stuff – your message to them?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    My message to them is look at history. Disunity costs votes. Unity helps a Government achieve the changes in our economy that we wish to see. There’s good for the nation, good for the economy, good for them and good for the next election.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And they should belt up?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Your words, not mine.

    ANDREW MARR:

    All right. After the death of Princess Diana, you were guardian for the Princes. Now they’re both back on the front pages again. These pictures have caused an absolute furore in this country and it seems that St. James’s Palace, the Prince is actually going to go to court in France to take action against the publishers and, who knows, also the photographers concerned. Do you think that’s an overreaction or do you think that’s fair enough?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think it’s absolutely right. I think it’s absolutely right, so that people in future know where the boundaries should be. I mean the boundaries have plainly been crossed. I mean I don’t think we need mince words about these photographs. The way they’ve been obtained is tasteless. It is the action of a Peeping Tom. In our country, we prosecute Peeping Toms. That’s exactly what they’ve done and they’ve been peeping with long lenses from a long way away. They’re very distasteful and I’m absolutely delighted. I have often in the past been critical of the British media. I thoroughly applaud the fact that they won’t touch these pictures with a barge-pole. I think they deserve credit for not doing so and it’s a pity that other people overseas have lower standards.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And if you bumped into Mr Berlusconi this morning, you’d presumably have a few words for him too?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    It’s very unlikely and it might not be a very good conversation.

    ANDREW MARR:

    It might not be a very good conversation. The more general media climate of course, the British papers are waiting for the outcome of the Leveson Inquiry and so on. What would you like to see?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well I gave my evidence to Leveson, I considered it carefully, I prepared it carefully, I gave lengthy evidence. I’ve no intention of either adding or subtracting to it.

    ANDREW MARR:

    All right.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Leveson heard evidence from every conceivable point of view. I didn’t hear it all. I’m content to wait and see what he recommends.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Prince Harry is obviously in a place of danger, Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. The Taliban claimed that they are attacking that camp and they have killed considerable numbers of people to try and get at him. Do you think it’s right that he is out there? The danger is always that he’s putting other people’s lives at risk. You know we understand that he wants to get out there and fight and do his duty, but is there a danger that by putting him into such a place we’re unnecessarily endangering others?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think there are several points to consider. The first is that Prince Harry trained with his colleagues, he will wish to serve with his colleagues. He most emphatically would not wish to move. The second point, I think it would be a huge propaganda triumph for the Taliban if Prince Harry were to be moved. And, thirdly, I think there’s a great deal of an attempt to create public relations in the posturing of the Taliban at the present time. The army knows what it’s doing. It will determine whether there is a risk to those serving with Prince Harry, as well as Prince Harry, and it will make its judgements based on that. I don’t think advice from external quarters on that will either be well informed or valuable.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And there’s been some talk about pulling out troops early from Afghanistan. Would that help the situation in any way?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well I don’t think it’s related. I don’t think you can relate that point …

    ANDREW MARR:

    Sure, to the Harry one. Sure.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    … to the question of Prince Harry. I think there is a credible case for looking at when we actually withdraw troops. The moment that President Obama said he was going to withdraw troops in 2014, the Taliban were on notice as to when the NATO troops would leave and a large part of the Taliban, if they have any sense, probably moved into North West Pakistan and are sitting there in that lawless wild west part of Pakistan waiting to come back after the troops have left. Having given notice of a date upon which we leave.

    ANDREW MARR:

    That’s difficult.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think you have changed the game and changed it totally.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Sir John Major, for now thank you very much indeed.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    My pleasure.

    [Break for news. Andrew Marr asked if the spirit from the Paralympics could be bottled].

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think it would be marvellous if we could. I mean, we saw some things at the Olympics that I think we thought we’d lost from the British character, the extent of the volunteers. The sheer, and I know it’s an old-fashioned word, the sheer patriotism of the British nation for the British athletes.

    I was fortunate enough to see a lot of the Olympics, and I think the moment I remember most was when the Paralympians came on in the opening ceremony, there had been an hour and a half of athletes parading. Suddenly the British team appeared, and as soon as the first British athlete appeared the whole of that 80,000 stadium were on their feet cheering. I freely confess that I had tears in my eyes and I don’t think I was the only one.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Were you surprised, because the Paralympics has always been, in the past, a slight downbeat after the main Olympics. This time the enthusiasm continued at the same level.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Absolutely. You will have forgotten this, but 27 years I was Minister for Disabled People.

    ANDREW MARR:

    I had forgotten it, you’re quite right.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    And I was absolutely thrilled to see it and there was a little vignette. I was talking to a foreign Paralympian athlete and he said “we have never seen anything like this. Who asked all these people to come?” and I said, “nobody asked, they came and they paid”. And they were thrilled with the size of the audience.

  • Sir John Major’s Comments on the Olympics – 8 August 2012

    The text of Sir John Major’s comments made in an interview on the Olympics, which took place on 8th August 2012.

    INTERVIEWER:

    [What is the legacy of these Olympics?]

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    The first legacy will be to make sure that all the buildings, all the facilities we now have are properly used.

    The second legacy is to make sure we take advantage of all the young people who now want to enter these sports, and bring them into sport.

    And the third legacy, something which is absolutely crucial to my mind, is that we actually look again at getting much more sport back in school. We are short-changing the kids. They have a right to a physical education, as well as an academic education, and over the last forty years that’s fallen away.

    INTERVIEWER:

    [What’s happened to cause this?]

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Sport was way down on the list, that was one of the reasons I established the lottery because sport and the arts were never going to get very much money from the Government. The whole country loves both of those things, and it needed funding, and the lottery has done that.

    One of the things I bitterly regret that I wasn’t able to do was to utilise money to put a full-time sports teacher in every secondary school and in every little cluster of primaries, because I think it’s going to be very difficult to persuade other teachers just to take sport. I don’t think that’s going to happen, so I do think that we do need to put teachers in the schools, and I think it’s an important national priority.

  • Mr Major’s Speech at the SPARKS Children and Sport Luncheon – 5 June 1995

    Below is Mr Major’s speech at the SPARKS “Children and Sport” luncheon held on 5th June 1995.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Sir Alexander, Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen. For many reasons, it’s a great privilege to be with you today.

    First, I greatly admire SPARKS and the work that it does.

    Secondly, as many of you may know, sport is a subject very close to my heart and – indeed, in the case of Chelsea and Surrey – close enough to break it from time to time.

    And thirdly, this luncheon enables me to set the stage for some sporting announcements the Government will make shortly.

    I have never believed that the quality of life should revolve simply around material success. That may be important, but it’s not all-important.

    Of equal importance to the quality of life for most people is the availability of sport, of all aspects of the Arts, and the maintenance of our built heritage. It is all too easy for these areas to be overlooked.

    Three years ago, as part of an attempt to redress the balance, I set up the Department of National Heritage. I did so to protect, enhance and develop those areas – because I believe they play an important part in the way of life in our country. Today, I wish to focus on sport.

    I don’t need to tell the supporters of Sparks about the value of organised sport. Your letterhead reads like a roll of honour of British sport. But sadly, I believe children play less sport than they should. I would like to change that because I believe sport is good for children and good for our Nation.

    Britain largely gave organised sport to the world. We invented many of the sports. And, even where we didn’t invent them, we codified and made them popular in every part of the world. We should be proud of that. Today, sport is as much part of the world’s heritage as of our own. But its genesis was with us.

    The pleasure of sport is open to all ages – but most open to those who learn to love sport when young. That is why – and you may feel the same way – I can’t readily accept a situation in which most 14 year olds are offered only an hour and a half a week of physical exercise in our schools – while surveys tell us they spend a day and a half a week watching television.

    This is a trend I intend to reverse. And, since I am where I am, with your help I can do something about it.

    Some people regard sport as frivolous. I don’t agree. It’s part of a rounded life for millions.

    A love of sport is also one of the gifts we can give to children. It’s good for both their physical and mental growth.

    It allows them to let off steam.

    It lets them enjoy the sense of growing strength and skills. It’s a binding force between generations.

    But all this is to be too dispassionate about sport. Above all, it produces pure enjoyment for those who play and those who watch. Frankly, for me, it needs no other recommendation than that.

    But competitive sport does teach something else very valuable as well. For every time it delivers both a winner and a loser. Sportsmen must learn to be both.

    Sport only works if both parties play by the rules, accept the result with good grace, and never shout at the referee. And those, too, are lessons which are valuable in later life, even if it doesn’t always look that way when you watch the proceedings of the House of Commons on television.

    And there is a wider social case for sport too; playing sport with others provides social skills. It opens doors. It offers the equipment for a more fulfilled life, both when taking part and when looking on.

    Many young people have always had good access to sport. But others have been less fortunate. Inadequate sporting provision takes something from young lives – and dangerously so, for it removes one of the best means of learning how to live alongside others and make a contribution as part of a team.

    I have an ambition to share with you all. And I’m going to need your help to deliver it. I want to put sport back at the heart of weekly life in every school. To re-establish sport as one of the great pillars of education alongside the academic, the vocational and the moral. It should never have been relegated by the educational theorists to be just one part of one subject in the curriculum. But it has and, over time, that must be reversed.

    If we are to bring about the sea change that I want to see, we in Government will need the help of men and women of goodwill everywhere, parents, teachers, coaches, sporting bodies themselves. I can tell you today that we will be publishing shortly a Policy Statement that will set out in the direction we wish to go, both in school and beyond.

    It will be a detailed programme. But it will also be the platform for further development beyond our immediate plans. It will sustain the place of minor sports that bring much enjoyment, but it will also ensure that our great traditional sports – cricket, hockey, swimming, athletics, football, netball, rugby, tennis and the like – are put firmly at the centre of the stage.

    Our policy plans will reassert our commitment to competitive and team sport in school and beyond school. They will encourage schools, governors and parents to match sporting provision in their school against the best – and help them to do so. But we know, also, that sports education is only the first step to a lifetime’s enjoyment of sport. We need to ensure that sporting opportunities continue after school.

    At present, too many teenagers find it difficult to transfer their sporting interests to the world outside school.

    So we will aim to improve links between school and club sport. To give improved access to high quality coaching and to promote sensible arrangements to share facilities and equipment.

    There is much in this for clubs as well as schools. If a club wants to see its sport grow, and the standard at which it is played improve, it will need to build up its pool of talent. Active links with local schools are clearly the best means of achieving this.

    More school sport, and better links between schools and clubs, will be two key themes of our policy. But there’s another aspect too.

    I take as much pride as anyone in seeing British sportsmen and women leading the world. That was why I was so keen to see the Olympics come to Britain. The Barcelona Games were a giant fillip for Spanish sport – and we must work to get high quality world sport here in the future.

    But the first ingredients we need to win are the men and women themselves. I don’t want to see them having to go abroad to learn how to exploit their talents to the full. We need fully developed programmes of talent spotting and talent support right here at home. And then we can see our sportsmen going out and showing the world how to do it – Cape Town, and Atlanta, and, please Heaven, Bridgetown, Barbados and Adelaide too.

    Sport in schools; sport in clubs; and a new deal for elite sport. These are not three separate themes – they will run together in our policy programme. We will soon set out in detail how the Government intends to deliver these objectives. But, as we do, I know one thing. The existence of resources from the National Lottery has transformed for ever the prospects of British sport.

    Indeed, when I decided to create the National Lottery that was among my aims. It was a way to provide the resources for sport – and indeed the Arts – that would be unlikely ever to come directly from the taxpayer.

    The £300 million a year that the Lottery in full flood will provide for sport will revolutionise it over the years ahead. So, too, will the huge and growing contribution of the corporate sector.

    Many businesses, such as the ones who provide SPARKS with sponsorship, already commit considerable time and money to sport and to charity. They do a fantastic job. We hear all too much today about the claims of corporate greed. I wish we could hear more about some of the amazing corporate generosity in this country and the tens of thousands of charities that British companies support.

    I wanted to take the opportunity today to underline the importance I attach to our forthcoming plans to improve sport in Britain – and by that I mean sport for all, girls and boys and those with disabilities too. Few people have brought more pride and honour to Britain than those superb disabled athletes who have won such a hatful of medals in the Olympic Games.

    Sport is fun. I hope it’s not old fashioned to say that. Fun, fun, fun. And we want as many people as possible to enjoy it. It’s fun to be the best. And so we also want to develop the skills to make us the best. These are our ambitions for the years ahead.

    The children who suffer from the illnesses which SPARKS is doing so much to combat will not all be able to participate in sport. But almost all can take pleasure from it. And, for these children, and for people of all ages, it is a relief from the hardships they face. They have a right to that pleasure. I hope we can increasingly provide it.

    So today, let me end by paying special tribute to the excellent work which SPARKS carries out. Their sort of voluntary generosity and concern for others stands foursquare in the British tradition.

    If by being here today we can further raise the profile of SPARKS and increase its capacity to carry on with its support for innovative medical research, then all will have been worth while. I, for my part, would like to thank you all for the excellent work which you do and to wish you every success for the future.

  • Mr Major’s Doorstep Interview after IOC Olympics Announcement – 23 September 1993

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s doorstep interview, made outside Downing Street on 23rd September 1993, on the announcement of the site of the 2000 Olympics.

    QUESTION:

    How disappointed are you by the decision?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think everyone is disappointed – in the United Kingdom – the Manchester bid was a very good bid, I don’t think they could have done it better. I’m very disappointed for them. That being said I congratulate Sydney. I think they’ll provide an outstanding games.

    QUESTION:

    Do you think it’s worth having a second go?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Manchester have had a second go. The question is whether they have a third go. That’s a decision they’ll want to take. I can only say I don’t think they could have presented the bid better. They may well wish to try again.

    QUESTION:

    Would you like to see another British bid in 4 years time?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Most certainly.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, why do you think China didn’t get the Games?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    More people voted for Sydney.

    QUESTION:

    Do you think, Prime Minister, this is going to fuel Australian’s demands to become a Republic?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    No. I don’t think it will make any difference at all. I really don’t think it will make any difference. I think this ought to be seen in a sporting context; that’s where I believe it’s best placed. Sydney produced an extremely good bid as well, and on the night they won.

    QUESTION:

    Will you be going?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I very much hope so.

    QUESTION:

    Prime Minister, what will your message be to the people of Manchester?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think my message would be they can be extremely proud of the bid Bob Scott and his colleagues put forward. Extremely proud. I think it’s given Manchester a remarkably good profile and I hope they’re not too downhearted.

  • Mr Major’s Speech in Support of Olympic Bid – 23 September 1993

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech in support of the Manchester Olympics bid. The speech was given in Monte Carlo on Thursday 23rd September 1993.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Mr President and Members of the IOC:

    We are all here today in our different capacities because we care about the Olympic Games. We know it to be the greatest sporting festival in the world. You must decide where it will be and I wish to help you make that decision.

    The Millennium Games will be a unique occasion, a time of hope, optimism, the beginning of a new century, a time for looking forward, a time to bring together young people from every corner of the globe skilled in athletic achievements and striving every muscle to prove themselves the very best in the world and television will take that friendly competition before the largest sporting audience in history. I want you to see that unique occasion at that unique time in that unique city in my country, Manchester.

    The city may be Manchester, one of our great cities but this is a British bid, not just the city but the whole country stands foursquare behind it. It has the full and utter support of the Government.

    Twice in this century – in 1908 and 1948 – Britain has hosted the Games. Each time it did so at short notice to save the Games, otherwise they could not and would not have been held but my country has never been awarded the Games, never had the chance to plan for them but we hope to be able to have that chance at the turn of the century and why? Why do we want the Games in Great Britain in Manchester?
    My country has a passion for sport and it is a passion I freely confess to you that I share. Past sporting events are planted indelibly in our minds. I can close my eyes now and see the White City when Chataway went thataway and beat the seemingly invincible Vladimir Kutz; I remember that incomparable Bob Beaman leap, the Fosbury Flop, all of it across a whole range of athletics memories could close our minds and bring back pictures of the past.

    But it is not just the past; it is the anticipation of the future as well and anticipating future sporting events to me at least is one of the great pleasures of life. Scratch a Briton and you will find a sports lover. In my country, new sports are taking root, old sports are growing in popularity.

    I believe that sporting endeavour represents much of the very best of life – the will to win, the determination to compete and to finish; it is about individual efforts and team excellence; it provides drama, romance, pathos and memories. In such an environment, the Olympic Games will thrive but to do so needs more than enthusiasm, much more than simply a love of sport.

    Organising the Olympic Games is a truly massive undertaking. No-one doubts that Manchester can do that spectacularly well. It has the right communication links, the right international access, it can offer excellence in television and in communications. The sporting facilities already are superb and those still needed will be provided. Even as we speak, the construction of future Olympic facilities is under way.

    Mr. President, I spent some time at the Barcelona Games. I went there to look and to learn. Barcelona was a success for the Olympic Movement and a success for Spain and I was happy to play a small part in that in helping athletes from the former Yugoslavia to compete in those Olympics. Today, I am delighted to support the IOC in its bid for observer status at the United Nations and in its efforts to secure an Olympic truce and I do so because I want the Olympic Movement and the Games to succeed, to go as it has done from strength to strength from year to year.

    Sport binds together the best of friends and the worst of enemies but it binds them more securely than any other endeavour and the world should use that gift.

    Mr. President, Members of the IOC, you have a difficult task. I for one don’t envy you for one second in the choice that you have to make. You have candidates of high quality each wishing to host the Games in the year 2000. To do will be an immense privilege and a very great responsibility. Whatever you decide today, we will readily accept and play our part in making the Games a success. I hope you will decide to have that success in Manchester. If you do, I can promise you that a very warm welcome awaits you and I am utterly confident that a great Games lie in store.

    I am grateful to you for listening.

  • PMQT Written Answers – 22 July 1993

    Below is the text of the written answers relating to Prime Minister’s Question Time from 22nd July 1993.

    PRIME MINISTER:

     

    Bermuda

    Mr. Chris Smith : To ask the Prime Minister what discussions he has had with the Bermuda Government about bringing the law on consensual sexual relations between adult men in private into line with the legislative position in Britain.

    The Prime Minister : This is primarily a matter for the Government of Bermuda.

     

    Ministerial Advisers

    Mr. Kirkwood : To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 18 November, Official Report, column 216, if he will publish the current list of special advisers attached to Ministers stating the Minister they work for, the date of their appointment and the name of their previous employer before their initial appointment as a special adviser attached to a Minister.

    The Prime Minister [holding answer 20 July 1993] : There are currently 41 special advisers attached to Ministers. The names of the advisers, the Ministers they work for, the date of the appointment and the name of their previous employer before their initial appointment as a special adviser is as follows :

    Name |Minister(s) served |Date of appointment |Previous employer

    ———————————————————————————————————————————————–

    1. Adams |Secretary of State for the Environment |28 May 1993 |Rt. Hon. John Gummer
    2. Barnes |Secretary of State for Social Security |3 May 1993 |Boston Consulting Group
    3. Blunt |Secretary of State for Defence |15 February 1993 |PI Political Consultants

    Sir R. Braithwaite* |Prime Minister |1 June 1992 |Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    1. Burke* |Secretary of State for the Environment |10 April 1992 |Green Alliance
    2. Caine |Secretary of State for Northern Ireland |17 June 1992 |Conservative Central Office
    3. Cameron |Jointly to the three Ministers of State and |21 June 1993 |Conservative Central Office

    the Under Secretary of State in the Home Office

    Dr. E. Cottrell |Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food |27 May 1993 |Conservative Central Office

    Dr. W. Eltis* |President of the Board of Trade |1 January 1993 |National Economic Development Office

    Sir C. Foster* |Secretary of State for Transport |1 June 1992 |Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte

    1. Fraser |Minister of State for Overseas Development |10 April 1992 |Conservative Central Office
    2. Grantham |Secretary of State for Education |11 April 1992 |Westminster Briefing
    3. Gray |Jointly to the Ministers for Local |27 May 1993 |GNI Ltd.

    Government and Inner Cities; Environment and Countryside and Housing and Planning

    1. Green |Prime Minister |1 June 1992 |Business Television

    Professor P. Hall* |Secretary of State for Environment |27 May 1993 |University of California

    Mrs. S. Hogg |Prime Minister |10 April 1992 |Daily and Sunday Telegraph

    Ms S. Hole |Chief Whip |13 April 1992 |Lord Rothschild

    1. Kemp* |President of the Board of Trade |28 May 1992 |CDP Nexus Ltd.

    Mrs. T. Keswick |Chancellor of the Exchequer |28 May 1993 |Cluff Investments and Trading

    Mrs. E. Laing |Secretary of State for Transport |13 April 1992 |Shopping Hours Reform Council

    1. Leggett* |Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food |21 June 1993 |National Farmers Union
    2. Loehnis |Secretary of State for National Heritage |7 November 1992 |Sunday Telegraph
    3. Mackay |Secretary of State for Scotland |8 May 1992 |Pieda plc
    4. MacLay |Secretary of State for Foreign and |19 July 1993 |The European

    | Commonwealth Affairs

    1. Marsh |Secretary of State for Health |21 April 1992 |Conservative Central Office

    Ms S. McEwen |Chief Whip (House of Lords) |29 June 1992 |Namara Cowan Ltd.

    1. McManus |Secretary of State for Employment |28 May 1993 |Conservative Central Office

    Dr. J. Nicholson* |Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster |1 September 1992 |John Nicholson Associates Ltd.

    Sir I. Pearce* |Secretary of State for Transport |16 June 1992 |Richard Ellis and English Estates

    Lord Poole |Prime Minister |13 May 1992 |James Capel

    Mrs. K. Ramsay |Prime Minister |2 June 1992 |Conservative Central Office

    1. Rock |Home Secretary |28 May 1993 |Conservative Central Office
    2. Rosling |Prime Minister |10 April 1992 |Hanson plc
    3. Ruffley |Financial Secretary |28 May 1993 |Clifford Chance
    4. Salmon* |Secretary of State for Transport |18 January 1993 |Cuff & Co. Ltd. and Fund Holdings Ltd.
    5. Stewart |Lord President |27 April 1992 |Conservative Central Office

    Lady Strathnaver |President of the Board of Trade |21 April 1992 |Haymarket Publishing Services Ltd.

    1. Swift* |Secretary of State for Transport |18 January 1993 |Barrister
    2. True |Prime Minister |10 April 1992 |Public Policy Unit
    3. Wilton |Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster |27 April 1992 |Conservative Central Office
    4. Young |Secretary of State for Scotland |8 May 1992 |-

    * Special advisers fall into two categories, political and those with specialised expertise relevant to their appropriate Secretary of State. The latter are indicated by an asterisk.

     

    Engagements

    Mr. Harry Greenway : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 22 July.

    Sir Peter Tapsell : To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 22 July.

    The Prime Minister : This morning, I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

     

    Olympic Bid

    Mr. Vaz : To ask the Prime Minister how many times (1) he has met the leaders of Manchester city council to discuss the bid to stage the Olympic games; (2) how much financial support the Government have committed to the Manchester bid to stage the Olympics; and how much money has so far been paid over.

    The Prime Minister : I have met the leader of Manchester city council with other members of the bid committee three times to discuss the British Olympic bid; I launched the formal bid document with the committee at Downing street on 17 February; and I have met them informally on a number of other occasions.

    Up to £75 million has been made available by the Government for the bid itself and for the construction of key facilities. Of that, some £22 million has been spent to date. If the bid is successful, the Government will ensure that all the necessary facilities are built by a mixture of private and public finances and that the funding necessary to stage and organise the games is provided.

     

    Meetings

    Mr. Vaz : To ask the Prime Minister when he last met (a) Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi and (b) the Pakistan high commissioner to the Court of St James.

    The Prime Minister : I last met Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi on 25 July 1989 when I was Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. I last met the Pakistan high commissioner on 29 March this year.

     

    Yugoslavia

    Mr. Wareing : To ask the Prime Minister what pressures Her Majesty’s Government are putting on the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina to attend and fully co-operate with the peace talks in Geneva; and if he will make a statement.

    The Prime Minister : We are encouraging the Bosnian presidency to engage in direct negotiations with the other parties under the auspices of Lord Owen and Mr. Stoltenberg. We have repeatedly made clear that a lasting and equitable peace can be achieved only by a negotiated settlement freely agreed by all three parties. We will not accept a territorial solution for Bosnia dictated by the Serbs and Croats at the expense of the Bosnian Muslims.

     

    Wild Birds

    Mr. Chris Smith : To ask the Prime Minister (1) what plans he has to discuss the EC directive on the conservation of wild birds at the forthcoming United Kingdom/French summit; and if he will make representations to the French Government over the fulfilment of the directive’s protection for migratory birds from netting, shooting and trapping; (2) what discussions he has had with the Prime Minister of France concerning the requirements under the EC directive on the conservation of wild birds to control the hunting and shooting of wild birds.

    The Prime Minister : I am not aware of any proposals by the French Government for the amendment to the birds directive. Nor do I expect the matter to be raised at the meeting between Heads of State currently planned. There have been discussions by EC Environment Ministers on proposals by the Commission to amend annex III of the directive, but no agreement has yet been reached.

     

    Security Service

    Mr. Allason : To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the directive circulated to former members of the security service regarding the biographer of the late Sir Dick White.

    The Prime Minister : There is no authorised biographer of Sir Dick White. Although the Government have recently taken a number of significant steps towards greater openness for the security and intelligence services, they continue to attach the highest importance to maintaining the principle that members and former members of those services are under a lifelong duty of confidence to the Crown in relation to information deriving from their employment.

  • Mr Major’s Comments on Manchester Olympics Bid – 3 July 1992

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s comments on the Manchester Olympics bid, made on 3rd July 1992, but embargoed until 18th July 1992.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Manchester led the world into this century with its industrial strengths and innovation. Now it can lead the world into the next century through its commitment to the Olympic ideals. Sport enriches our lives, yours, mine, everyones. I believe that hosting the Olympic Games would not only be a magnificent honour for our country, it will also leave a precious legacy of sport for generations to come.

    That is why the government has already given 53 million pounds for the immediate construction of new sports facilities in Manchester. If Manchester is successful, I have every confidence that a combination of public and private finance will ensure that the facilities for the Games are provided.