The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Royal Family

  • Sir John Major’s Letter to the Daily Telegraph on The Crown – 5 November 2022

    The letter sent by Sir John Major to the Daily Telegraph on 5 November 2022.

    SIR – I, and many others, have voiced our disquiet and dismay over some of the scenes which we are told are depicted in the forthcoming season of The Crown.

    Netflix may well take the view that any publicity is good publicity. But I assure them it is not – most especially when it disrespects the memory of those no longer alive, or puts words into the mouths of those still living and in no position to defend themselves. Fiction should not be paraded as fact.

    I have not seen the forthcoming series, but have been told by those who have that there are scenes depicted which I know to be utterly untrue, and will be profoundly hurtful to a family who are still grieving for the very person on whose life the entire drama was founded.

    I gather Netflix continues to refuse to put out a disclaimer at the very top of the opening credits, on the basis that “everyone knows this is a drama series”. But this is simply not good enough. If everyone knows, why not acknowledge that? Without such action, many millions – around the world – could still be influenced by a damaging and fictional script, which claims “authority” by being interspersed with historical fact.

    Entertainment is a great and glorious industry that brings enormous pleasure to many millions. Netflix should not demean it with portrayals which are both injurious and untrue.

    Sir John Major

    London, SW1

  • Statement on The Crown – 15 October 2022

    A statement issued on 15 October 2022 by Sir John Major’s spokesman regarding The Crown.

    STATEMENT ON THE CROWN

    1. Sir John has not co-operated – in any way – with The Crown. Nor has he ever been approached by them to fact check any script material in this or any other series.

    2. Discussions between the Monarch and Prime Minister are entirely private and – for Sir John – will always remain so. But not one of the scenes you depict are accurate – in any way whatsoever. They are fiction, pure and simple.

    3. There was never any discussion between Sir John and the then Prince of Wales about any possible abdication of the late Queen Elizabeth II – nor was such an improbable and improper subject ever raised by the then Prince of Wales (or Sir John).

    4. Neither Sir John nor Dame Norma have discussed the Monarchy remotely in the terms you suggest in your email. What you report as depicted in the script has never been their view, never would be their view, and never will be their view.

    Thus, if the scenes you describe are broadcast, they should be seen as nothing other than damaging and malicious fiction. A barrel-load of nonsense peddled for no other reason than to provide maximum – and entirely false – dramatic impact.

  • Sir John Major’s Interview on the Andrew Marr Show – 11 April 2021

    The text of Sir John Major’s interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on 11 April 2021.

    ANDREW MARR:

    1992 was famously the Queen’s annus horribilis. The failure of three of her children’s marriages, and then the fire at Windsor Castle. Now, the prime minister at the time, the man who had to help support the royal family and sort of difficult financial problems was my next guest, Sir John Major. He was later appointed special guardian to princes William and Harry, and from all of that, of course, he dealt with the late Duke of Edinburgh pretty regularly. Sir John, welcome. Fondest memory?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    There are so many, but perhaps for this moment I could give you an early memory. I had just been elected leader of the Conservative Party and I bumped into Prince Philip and he came up looking extremely mischievous and he said, “I see your party are electing outsiders now.” He knew what it was like to be an outsider.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Of course he did.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    And he often came out with very cryptic remarks like that.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Now, one thing that you shared, I know, is an enthusiasm for cricket, which involves sitting down for many, many hours and watching test matches, sometimes together. What kind of conversations were you having? I think it could be fairly intimidating to be sitting next to the Duke of Edinburgh for that long?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    It wasn’t intimidating at all, because we either talked about cricket or we watched the cricket. Nothing is more irritating in life than somebody sitting at your side babbling away when you’re trying to enjoy a cricket match. I felt that way and so did the Duke. But what did happen about cricket, frequently, when we met on occasions, he would sidle up to me with a grin on his face and say, “what’s the cricket score?” if there was a test match or an important game on. He was an off-break bowler, he had an interest in it. He’d been President of the MCC twice, I think, and he maintained that interest in cricket, as in other sports, throughout his life.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Now, I mentioned the annus horribilis there of course. 1992. You had a lot of engagement with the royal family, lots to talk about, lots of difficulties happening, including over money, and I wonder to what extent, people talk about this being almost like a joint monarchy, he was very involved in its decisions. Did you get an impression that he was engaged from the palace side in taking decisions, in negotiating a way through?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    He wasn’t so indiscreet as to talk about it in quite that clarity, but I had not the slightest doubt from my discussions with the Queen and with him that he was very much involved with what was happening. It was of course an annus horribili, there was more than one of them. He had them and they rather coincided with mine. I had the odd difficulty at the same time, I recall, with a little help from my friends. And of course we discussed those issues and there was no doubt about the depth and concern of Prince Philip for what the monarchy was facing, and in particular, the Queen.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Now, he was very involved, as you said, in understanding politics, took a close interest in politics. There was a famous moment, I think, in Ghana, when he was asked about the Ghanaian parliament, and he was told there were 200 Ghanaian MPs and he said something like – I’ve got it here – said, “quite right, that’s about the right number. We have 650 and most of them are a complete bloody waste of time.” Does that really reflect his view of parliament, do you think?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I’m not sure. You’d have to ask someone who knows him better than I do. But I rather agree with him about the number of MPs, I think there are too many and there are certainly far too many in the Lords. I think that is self-evident. But often those remarks that he made, those that were regarded as gruff and sometimes caused offence, I think they were remarks to put people at ease more than anything else. It wasn’t intended to be offensive. He was trying to put people who were nervous at meeting him at ease. If you’re meeting the Queen or Prince Philip for the first time, if you’re a normal person you’re nervous. His determination was to put people at ease and by saying something from left field, something that’s a bit anti-establishment, because parliament is the establishment of course, that does create a different perception in the mind and eyes of the people he’s meeting. It relaxes them, and I think that is what he’s about. He often suffered extremely bad headlines and stories as a result of that.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And offended people too presumably?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Indeed, and I think that is what he was about.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Now, apart from cricket and apart from some of the aspects of politics, what do you think really drove him in terms of his, as it were, broader political passions? What excited him?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think he was excited by things that worked and things that had an element of compassion underneath them. I think that was the driving force for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. It really was a remarkable thing that he began, and of course it was aimed, not exclusively, it was aimed at all young people, but I think it was particularly aimed at young people who weren’t sure they could meet their potential. He wanted to show them that they could meet their potential, here were things that they could learn to do that perhaps they thought they couldn’t do. And if in doing that it gave them confidence, helped them mark out what their future might be, well so much the better. It was amazingly successful and his compassion for that was absolutely genuine. And of course it spread, I think, probably far further, far wider and for far longer than he possibly imagined. But it was indicative of what lay underneath the gruff, the occasional gruff manner. It was the real
    Philip, I think, who appeared when he pursued that.

    ANDREW MARR:

    There’s one phrase that everybody uses about him, they said he was great support to the Queen. But, I wonder, what could that actually mean?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Consider the position the Queen is in, she is the head of state. That is a very lonely position in many ways. There are a limited number of people to whom she can really open her heart, to whom she can really speak with total frankness, to whom she can say things that would be reported by other people and thought to be indelicate. Of the handful of people to whom she can speak frankly, her husband Prince Philip was obviously the first one, and I am sure that happened. That is why, I think, the Queen said at a later stage that he was her great stay and support.

    At times of difficulty, he was the person who was there. He was the person to whom she could unburden herself. When you’re facing a sea of problems as she so often was, and sometimes when you’re overwhelmed by what has to be done, someone who understands that, someone who can take part of the burden, someone who can share the decision making, someone who can metaphorically, or in the case of Prince Philip, I think probably literally, put their arms around you and say, ‘it’s not as bad as you think. This is what we have to do, this is how we can do it. This is what I think.’ I think when you talk of him being a great support, that was it.

    If you saw them at receptions together the Queen would lead, Prince Philip would be behind her, but it would be Prince Philip who would often bring people up to meet the Queen who were too nervous to meet her. So in every way I think he was an astonishing support.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Which leads sort of inevitably to the question how will she manage without him?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well, it will be difficult. There are no doubt millions of people watching this programme who have lost a partner, a spouse and it is a very lonely time. The Queen and Prince Philip had 73 years of marriage together. That is extraordinary, I can think of no one else who’s had a marriage of that length, in my experience. So it will be an enormous hole in her life that suddenly Prince Philip isn’t there.

    How will the Queen manage? I think there are several things to say about that. Firstly, I hope she will be given some time and space. I know she is the monarch, I know she has responsibilities, but she has earned the right to have a period of privacy in which to grieve with her family. After that I think there are two things effectively to say. Firstly, Prince Philip may physically have gone, but he will be in the Queen’s mind as clearly as if she was sitting beside him. She will hear his voice, metaphorically, in her ear. She will know what he would say in certain circumstances, he will still be there in her memory.

    ANDREW MARR:

    His loud echo is there still.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    The echo will be there and it always will be, it is with very close relationships. I think after that the Queen is both a stoic and a remarkable public servant. She will return to her work, but I do hope she’s given a little space and a little time and a little freedom to grieve in the way anybody else would wish to do so after having lost their spouse.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Let me ask you about him as a father and as a grandfather. You were special guardian for Harry and William during a very difficult time. Tell us a little bit about the support he offered them.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I saw more of Prince Charles and the boys than I did of Prince Philip. But, of course, he spoke to me about it and he was deeply concerned to make sure that they were getting proper care, and they were. The first time I went to see Prince Charles in the capacity of guardian ad litem, the two boys were there, they were very young still. If you remember, it was a tragic time in 1997, so they were still quite young, but the affection between Prince Charles and the boys was evident. In terms of being a guardian, I had nothing to do with their emotional care, that was in very good hands with their family, and that included Prince Philip.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Now of course there’s been a lot of trouble since then and there is now a funeral coming where the whole family will be together. Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Roman Catholic cardinal, has said that “many a family gather and get over tension and broken relationships at the time of a funeral, something very profound unites them all again, and that will be true for this family, I am sure.” Do you agree with him?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I’m sure he’s right, I hope he’s right. I believe he is right and I certainly hope so. The friction that we are told has arisen is a friction better ended as speedily as possible. They share emotion, they share grief at the present time because of the death of their father, of their grandfather, and I think it’s an ideal opportunity. I hope very much that it is possible to mend any rifts that may exist.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Now, he was a reformer of course, the Duke of Edinburgh, at the beginning of his time. Very active and challenging when he thought it was stuffy protocol in the way things were done now. Do you if somehow he could be back now as a young man again he’d be reforming the monarchy again? Is this an institution that has to keep changing to survive?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think he was an evolving reformer. He didn’t want to tear things down and start again, he just wanted to ensure that it kept pace with modern times. If you consider not all your listeners will remember the monarchy as it was in the early 1950s, when Her Majesty became Queen, but it has moved an enormous amount, faster in the last 50 years than in any previous 150 at any stage. I think Prince Philip would have been one of the guiding forces behind that. But the Queen too of course. I remember when it was made evident in the time I was Prime Minister, that the Queen thought it was right for her to pay tax. So there is a constant consideration of reform, and I think the Duke, the Duke as a young man, were he still a young man, would be keen to see the monarchy evolve so that it retains its rationale, it retains its centrality, its importance to British life. It is extraordinarily important. You’re seeing it now with the number of people who had never met the Duke, who had never dreamed of meeting the Duke, but they are upset that the Duke has died.

    You have probably had the same experience that I have. People have phoned Norma and I from abroad to express their condolences to us because the Duke has died, because they know us and they don’t know the Duke. Now, that will have been multiplied right across the United Kingdom, and only I think damped down by the wretched effect of this virus at the present time.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Now one thing which doesn’t unite us is that I wasn’t invited to Harry and Meghan’s wedding and you were. I wonder will you be attending the funeral?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I have absolutely no idea. I think funerals tend to be family occasions but I have absolutely no idea who will be attending at all.

    ANDREW MARR:

    We talked about change and reform. Because nature takes its course, inevitably takes its course, we are probably living through the final act of the great Elizabethan age, of this Elizabethan age. Have you any reflections on how the monarchy might have to change in the next period?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think and hope they’re going to be quite a lot of curtain calls over the next few years. I think it is evolving, the central portion of the royal family has become more evident in the last few years. You can see that gradual change occurring.

    ANDREW MARR:

    So a smaller royal family at the core perhaps?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    A smaller core taking a higher profile and I think over the next few years, for a raft of reasons, not least the Queen’s venerable age, you will see Prince Charles and Prince William and other members of the family taking a greater role. The burden will be spread a little wider, a little deeper than it has been in the past, I think those changes will come. People often overlook how much the royal family has opened up in the last few decades. I think that is going to continue. I don’t think we’re going to become a bicycling royal family, if I can put it in that way, but I do think they are becoming more open, more evident, more aligned to what happens these days. Particularly as the wider members of their family make that difficult step away from the royal centrality and form lives of their own amongst the grandchildren. That will speed it up, I think.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Now you are no longer Prime Minister and therefore when the House of Commons resumes you will not be speaking for the nation as it were about this, but if you were, what would you be saying now to the country about the Duke of Edinburgh?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I would be expressing my admiration for the way he has behaved as Consort to the Queen for so long. I would recall a point I made earlier about him being her stay and strength. That is absolutely true and now that stay and strength is no longer there, but the people they have cared about for the last 70 years, the four nations of the United Kingdom, the 50 nations of the Commonwealth, the people within it, their family, they’re still all around. I think it might be a nice legacy for Prince Philip if we began to return to the Queen some of the support that she has given to the country, to the Commonwealth, to the family, to the nation during this difficult period of time. I think it is something we owe the Queen. I think it would be a good legacy for Prince Philip. I very much hope that that is what happens, I think it would be a wonderful tribute to him were it to do so.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Sir John Major, thanks very much for talking to us this morning.

  • Sir John Major’s Statement on the Death of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh – 9 April 2021

    The statement made by Sir John Major on 9 April 2021, following the death of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh.

    It is impossible to exaggerate the role that HRH The Duke of Edinburgh has played in his lifetime of service to the Monarchy and to the United Kingdom.

    A distinguished naval officer, he was – for over seventy years – the ballast to our Ship of State.

    Modest to the core, and hating any kind of fuss or bother, he epitomised the British spirit and remained true to himself right up to the very end.

    The outpouring of affection and sadness that will follow his loss would both surprise and embarrass him, but it will be real and heartfelt.

    Our hearts go out to HM The Queen – and all members of the Royal Family – who have lost a much beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

  • Article on HM Queen Elizabeth II in the Sunday Mail – 6 September 2015

    The text of Sir John Major’s article on HM Queen Elizabeth II, published by The Sunday Mail on Sunday 6 September 2015.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Princess Elizabeth was not born to be our Monarch: it was fate that made her so. When her uncle Edward VIII abdicated, her much loved father became King George VI, and she became heir to the throne.

    In 1952, by the age of 25, the young Princess had become Queen. On that day few, if any, could have imagined that she would still be on the throne 63 years later, having surpassed Queen Victoria as the longest-serving Monarch in 1,000 years of our history.

    Throughout her adult life, the Queen has dedicated herself to public service. You have to be aged over 70 to be able to recall any other face on our banknotes and postage stamps; and of the seven billion people in the world today, only one billion have known another British Monarch.

    She is the most widely travelled head of state in history: indeed around the world whenever anyone refers to ‘the Queen’, they mean our Queen. Her 63 years on the throne is, quite simply, an awe-inspiring achievement.

    When she took the Coronation Oath in 1953, the United Kingdom was still emerging from the aftermath of the Second World War. Her people had not forgotten the sacrifices of war. Some were still grieving for those who had perished, yet – with characteristic British spirit – they were determined to pull together to lift the nation out of its economic and social gloom. The Coronation inspired the British to put the grim days behind them.

    Hundreds of thousands lined the streets and many millions more crowded into the homes of neighbours to watch the procession and ceremony on small, flickering black-and-white television screens.

    Street parties celebrated the dawn of a second Elizabethan era and small children clutched treasured Coronation souvenirs. It was a time of hope and cheer – a new start – and no one who took part in the events of that day will ever forget them.

    The privations following war were easing, but far from ended. As a ten-year-old boy, I confess that one of my own personal highlights of 1953 was the end of sweet rationing – followed closely by eggs and sausages. For others, the beginning of Coronation year was less happy, as floods ravaged the east coast and caused huge devastation.

    But mostly it was a year of hope and triumphs. On the very morning of the Coronation, news came through that Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing had reached the peak of Everest.

    Some sporting heroes achieved lifelong ambitions. After 28 years of trying, Sir Gordon Richards finally won the Derby on Pinza. Stanley Matthews led Blackpool to victory over Bolton in the most famous FA Cup win of all time. And Len Hutton’s England team regained the Ashes at The Oval after years of Australian domination.

    Popular culture changed our world: James Bond made his debut in Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, while Bill Haley and the Comets introduced us to rock and roll music. It would be another ten years before we heard of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and then only on a mono record player.

    In the home, very few people knew the luxury of vacuum cleaners or washing machines, let alone tumble driers. Fewer than ten per cent of households possessed a refrigerator, and although the Coronation produced a surge in sales, there were only around 1.5 million households with a television, with BBC1 being the only channel, and the black-and-white image barely visible through the fuzzy screen. It would be another 15 years before we would see anything in colour. As for mobile phones and internet, such things would have been beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.

    For those of us who lived through this time, it seems like another age altogether.

    Overall, throughout the Queen’s reign, we in the United Kingdom have been lucky. We have known peace above war; prosperity above austerity; and, whatever hardships some may still face, we enjoy a quality of life in 2015 that is immeasurably better than it was in 1953.
    The Queen is as popular and revered today as when she was crowned, despite living through a world of enormous change.

    Since her Coronation, Man has walked on the Moon and explored far-away planets. The world’s population has more than doubled. Life-spans have dramatically increased as – for most, but not all – living standards have risen beyond any expectation.

    Around the world, politics and economics have shifted the global order. Change in every sphere of life shows no sign of stopping. Even the Royal Family – at the behest of the Monarch – has evolved. But amid all the change, the Queen has remained a constant – both here at home and overseas – for it is not only the people of the United Kingdom she serves: she is Queen to more than two billion people around the Commonwealth.

    At the time of her Coronation there were only seven nations in the Commonwealth. There are now 53. No one should underestimate the Queen’s dedication to, and affection for, her Commonwealth family. When consulted about how best to mark her Diamond Jubilee year of 2012, the Queen did not want memorials to commemorate the past; she wished to create a much more human legacy for the future. Thus, The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, of which I am chairman, was founded.

    With her active approval and support we have established two Commonwealth programmes: to end avoidable blindness; and, each year, to identify a group of young leaders who we hope will play a significant role in the future of their own nations and others. This is but one illustration of the Queen’s support for the Commonwealth, and her central role as its head.

    I attended the first award ceremony for these young leaders, which took place at Buckingham Palace last June.

    As each winner approached the Queen to receive their medal – many in national dress – I saw the future of the Commonwealth before me: beaming faces, bursting with pride as they represented their own home territory, full of hope, positivity, and the will and wish to work together in the name of their Queen. It was a truly moving occasion, the memory of which I will long cherish.

    The core of the Queen’s life – apart from family and long-standing friends – has been duty. Almost every day since her accession, she has received and read State papers. Each week she meets her Prime Minister in a private audience attended by no one else (except, perhaps, a few corgis).

    No notes are taken, no reports made, no subject is off-limits – and its privacy is total.

    The Queen’s first Prime Minister was Winston Churchill: it would be another 16 years before David Cameron was born. As one of the 12 who have occupied that office during her reign, I can say in all truth that – on matters of State – there is no one whose personal judgment I would value above that of the Queen.

    It is that unique, informed, experienced, yet impartial insight which is so valuable to the Government of the United Kingdom, and although it is a crucial aspect of her duties as Monarch, it is one which remains largely unknown.

    The Queen does not involve herself in party politics, but may well offer counsel – perhaps through well-directed questions – that any Prime Minister would be foolish not to consider with care. All of them soon learn that the Queen, far from being cut off from her people, is very much aware of the shifting tides of public opinion – indeed often ahead of it.

    Beyond her duties, the Queen has a private hinterland. No one – apart from her family and close confidants – can truly claim to know her thoughts and wishes. In addition to her expanding family, her affection for dogs and passion for horses is well-known – and widely shared across every part of our country. No one who has seen her walking her dogs in the early morning rain at Balmoral, or watching her horses race at Ascot, can doubt how deep, or how genuine, these interests are. When her horses win, her joy is absolute.

    While we honour this historic landmark, we must not overlook the service of the Duke of Edinburgh, who gave up a promising naval career to marry the young Princess Elizabeth.

    Through 67 years of marriage, he has been an unfaltering and indefatigable support to the Queen: a pivotal part of our ship of state. At the age of 94, he continues to play an important role in public life and, I believe, is held in greater affection today than ever before.

    How does one sum up our remarkable Monarch? Compassionate, shrewd, well-informed, pragmatic and wise, with an unshakeable commitment to duty – and a great sense of humour.

    Throughout her reign she has led by example and served our country well. She has entrenched a popular Monarchy so firmly in the affections of our nation that even the most hostile critics have been silenced.

    In an egalitarian age, this is an extraordinary achievement. As a nation we have been very lucky: in a world of change – the pace of which is often bewildering, even frightening – the Queen has provided a stability that is comforting and true.

    Nearly 70 years ago, the then Princess Elizabeth broadcast a message to the Commonwealth in which she pledged: ‘I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service…’

    In that, and so much else, HM Queen Elizabeth II has never failed us.

  • Sir John Major’s Contributions on BBC Radio 4’s Royal Activist – 29 June 2014

    The transcript of the contributions made by The Rt Hon Sir John Major KG CH on BBC Radio 4 “Royal Activist” on Sunday, 29 June, 2014.

    [ELINOR GOODMAN NARRATING – Under Britain’s unwritten constitution there’s a delicate balancing act between the Head of State and the elected Government. At the heart of it is the weekly private audience.]

    SIR JOHN MAJOR

    It’s simply the Queen and the Prime Minister, they sit entirely alone, nobody else is present, nobody takes notes and it’s a conversation much as you’d have with two adults with a common interest in something.

    [ELINOR GOODMAN NARRATING – This secret conversation between the Queen and her premiers is where a Monarch might influence the Government. Sir John Major was the ninth Prime Minister of the Queen’s reign]

    ELINOR GOODMAN

    Can you remember actually being influenced by the Queen and can you remember changing things as a result of your discussions with her?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR

    I think that every Prime Minister can think that and can think of occasions when they happened. I have no intention of indicating what they are, but the answer is yes of course. It would be very foolish indeed not to be influenced.

    ELINOR GOODMAN

    Influence in so much as withdrawing a Bill, changing a clause in it or changing the tone of a argument, what kind of detail would it go into?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR

    I can’t recall an occasion where a Bill was withdrawn. I can recall occasions where the Queen, in discussion, put a gloss upon something which made one think and reflect upon whether it was being done in the right fashion at the right time or perhaps reflect upon what the impact of it would be.
    …….

    [ELINOR GOODMAN NARRATING – Sir John Major does’t think he should have to bite his tongue on every issue]

    SIR JOHN MAJOR

    Prince Charles is his own man, he has his own views, his own thoughts, his own interests and his own style. He is often, if you look back on the last twenty years, ahead of events and not behind them. I think that will be a strength and not a weakness.

    Do we really want a Monarchy that takes an interest in the lifestyle of people in this country, or do we not? If we do, then we can’t expect the Monarch to be a cipher and not express their views, in private, to the Prime Minister of the day so that he, or she, is aware of them.
    …….

    [ELINOR GOODMAN NARRATING – But Sir John Major defends the Prince’s contacts with Ministers]

    SIR JOHN MAJOR

    I think it is encouraging that the Prince of Wales is entirely free, from his unique perspective, to write to Ministers or the Prime Minister in a way that is invariably intended to be helpful. I think to cut that off, or to make sure that those letters are much more bland than they otherwise might be, would be a loss.
    …….

    SIR JOHN MAJOR

    The Queen has a special bond with the Commonwealth, but Prince Charles has quite a bond. He knows the Commonwealth very well, he’s travelled to many parts of it on many occasions. I have no doubt, from what I know of Commonwealth leaders over the years, that Prince Charles will become Head of the Commonwealth in precisely the same way the Queen has.

  • 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 Speech at the Carlton Club – 15 May 2012

    The text of Sir John Major’s speech, in May 2012, held at the Carlton Club to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Sir John was introduced by Baron Freeman, who as Roger Freeman was the MP for Kettering from 1983 until 1997 and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from 1995 until 1997.

    BARON FREEMAN:

    Members of the Carlton Club, and their guests.

    Thank you for coming for the Jubilee dinner, it’s a great privilege to introduce our former Prime Minister, and a tremendous supporter of the Carlton Club, both personally and in his many responsibilities in Government.

    And so it’s a great pleasure to introduce and ask Sir John Major to say a few words about our Jubilee dinner celebrations.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Roger, thank you very much and good evening to all.

    As you can see I’m a touch under-dressed. I’m going elsewhere, less glamorous, maybe a bit more hard-working, I think you may have more fun than I will this evening. But my apologies for being less well turned out than the rest of you.

    I was coming in through this door a few moments ago and I recalled a conversation I had with Boris Yeltsin about twenty years ago. We were walking in the Kremlin, I said to him, “Boris, tell me in one word, what is the state of Russia”, he replied “good”. I was surprised, it was falling to pieces. I said “tell me in two words”. He said, “not good”.

    We, I think, are immediately in front of what is going to be a very good, very memorable, very remarkable weekend with the Queen’s sixtieth anniversary Jubilee.

    As I look around, and I hope it’s not unkind to say, I can see quite a number of people amongst us who will remember the Queen acceding to the Throne and will remember King George VI dying.

    I remember very plainly, I was 10, I remember my mother coming into the kitchen with tears in her eyes and saying “the King is dead, we have a Queen now”. And it was very different, suddenly at the end of those grey, dreary post-war years with the hardships and the rationing for so many people, we had a young glamorous Queen, with a young husband and a young family and the future suddenly looked rather different.

    She presented a new beginning, she offered that most elusive of all human emotions, hope. And those of us who were around at that time will remember that emotion very well indeed. And it seemed suddenly to be coming true. Very shortly afterwards we had a bonfire of many of the war and post-war controls, Rab Butler and the Government got rid of so many of them, they just suddenly disappeared.

    Then some very remarkable things happened, on the very eve of the Coronation, Edmund Hillary got to the top of Mount Everest in a quite remarkable feat, which no-one had thought given what had happened in the past would ever be done.

    And then we won back the Ashes. I may have been only 10, but I remember Denis Compton sweeping the ball backwards to square and thousands of people running onto the pitch, we had won the Ashes for the first time since the early 1930s. It seemed that all things were possible.

    Old favourites at last got their due, Stanley Matthews won the cup final for Blackpool, perhaps the most popular footballer this country has ever had. In a remarkable game when his team were losing 3-1 and he turned it around and they won. It was the new Elizabethan Age.

    And then miracles of miracles, a few months later, on a grey day at Oxford, with no pre-preparation Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway eased Roger Bannister round to run a mile in under four minutes for the first time in history. It seemed in this new Elizabethan Age that all things were possible.

    I personally remember the Coronation very well. My family, God knows how, scraped together enough money to buy a little black and white television. It was about ten inches, the pictures were dubious, but they came through occasionally. And most of the street crowded into our tiny little bungalow to watch those flickering pictures on the screen, it seemed then to be a miracle. Aged ten I watched them in between trips to make the tea and bring it back for what seemed the whole street who were there.

    And how things have changed in the reign of Elizabeth. World population has doubled, extra-ordinary, has doubled, it took us 1900 years from the time of Christ to increase world population by a billion, we now do it every 12 years, that’s why it has doubled under the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. In her reign, man has been put on the moon and we have reached far out to the skies.

    Things that were a miracle then are conventional necessities today but no young couple would think of marrying without actually having in their home. It was 25 years after the Queen had been on the throne that the first microwave came out. At then it was about 200 to 250 pounds for a microwave. So things have changed very dramatically, we may grumble sometimes, times at the moment are tough, not just tough in this country but tough almost everywhere and the difficult economic scenario overseas reflects back at home as well, and our difficulties reflect overseas.

    And so we grumble. And sometimes we complain about what the situation is, but however rose-coloured our glasses are about the past, so much has changed. And so much in the way in which we live our lives has changed for the better. We live longer, our health is better, our nourishment is better and child mortality is minute compared to what it was. So many changes and all to the good.

    And yet in a very material way, the Queen hasn’t changed at all. Of course, the Monarchy has evolved, and of course, the Queen is older than she was. Even Queens can’t hold birthdays at bay as the years come around.

    But in many material ways she hasn’t changed. As a 21 year old Princess Elizabeth, she pledged herself to the service of the nation and to the Commonwealth. My, how she has kept that promise over the last sixty years. In that way, she hasn’t changed at all, with a remarkable example of duty and selflessness and a commitment to public service. And I have been privileged to see her behind the scenes from time to time. And I can tell you that she’s every bit as remarkable as she seems from a distance, quite extraordinary. She is, we tend not to think of it.

    I travel around the world for six months every year, the Queen is the most famous woman anywhere in the world. When people in any far corner of the world talk of the Queen, they mean our Queen. In every single part of the world she is the central image that people across the world have of Monarchy as an institution.

    And consider what she has done, and what she has lived through, what you are celebrating this evening, at this particular dinner, in the last sixty years she has met every significant figure in the world, she is a living encyclopaedia of history. Almost impossible that in the whole of history that anyone has met quite so many people, even in times gone by. Even Queen Victoria, who reigned for slightly longer than our Queen could not have matched the people she met, for travel did not permit her to do so. So the Queen’s record in this respect is unique.

    And now we celebrate a very remarkable anniversary of hers. And those people who are the sneerers and the knockers will find what a tiny minority they are in our country when the whole country comes out to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Queen’s accession to the throne.

    And what does the Queen say of this anniversary? In history it is entirely traditional that people present things to their Monarchs at great anniversaries. And what the Queen has said, “I would not wish to have any gifts or any presentations but I would like any gifts or presentations which people wish to offer as a tribute to me to go to the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust”, of which I’m honoured to be Chairman.

    That trust was set up by all the heads of Government in the Commonwealth in Perth a few months ago. The purpose is to raise as much money from Governments, from local Governments, from companies, from foundations, individuals, to raise as much money as they can, and then the Queen would like it to be spent on projects that will be a legacy to her reign and will improve the lives of Commonwealth citizens in every single part of the Commonwealth.

    You might say ‘why the Commonwealth?’, and I emphasise for those that doubt it, that includes us in the UK, we will also get a slice of that money. So please don’t hold back on the donations. Anyone accessing our web-site, www.jubileetribute.org may found it perfectly easy to make any size of donation you’d like.

    So, why the Commonwealth? I think the answer to that is very simple. When the Queen came to the Throne, how many members of the Commonwealth do you think there were? The answer is eight. Eight members of the Commonwealth, there are now 54. The Queen and the Commonwealth have grown up together, and she is an essential part of it.

    To see her at a Commonwealth Heads of Government conference is to see a quite remarkable sight as people crowd around to see the Queen, meet the Queen, talk to the Queen and be photographed with the Queen.

    Do no doubt for one moment the enormous value of the Monarchy to Britain’s position in every part of the world, and most especially, within the Commonwealth. In 1952, when King George VI died and the Queen ascended to the throne, Truman was President, Churchill was Prime Minister and Stalin was in the Kremlin. It sounds like ancient history, but yet she has lived through every part of it. Even more incredibly, every day, every week during those 60 years, she has seen State papers, seen them and read them and built up a vast accumulation of knowledge that the head of MI5 and MI6 could only gasp at in admiration.

    And then a few years ago, the Queen Mother died, 102, and a much loved figure. But when she died, in a curious way that happens sometimes in countries such as ours, the Queen stood out alone, she became iconic. Not only in our country, but in every country of the world. She became, quite literally on the death of her mother, the mother of the nation.

    Anybody under the age of 70 would not remember, not really remember, anybody else on the Throne. They, and she, have grown up together. She, and the Duke of Edinburgh, who has been such a tremendous support to her, are a constant in everybody who is under the age of 70. And today, I think that the Monarchy is as secure in the affections of the nation as at any time I can remember in my lifetime or as in any time.

    We had in the 90s the ‘Annus Horribilis’, actually as I recall, the Queen and I had ‘Annus Horribili’ at the same time. It all seems such a long time ago, but I’m certainly not yet in a position to celebrate my Diamond Jubilee.

    Let me just say something else about the Queen, she is remarkable, but she isn’t remarkable just because she is the Queen. She is remarkable for her own virtues and assets. She has enormous common sense, she has the common sense of the English country-woman, if I might put it that way. Anyone who has seen her walking her dogs in the rain, early in the morning in mackintosh raincoat and wellington boots, will know exactly what I mean when I say she has the common sense, and many of the attitudes and instincts, of an English country-woman.

    Take it from me, I had the privilege of sitting with her every week for seven years, when we discussed all manner of things, both international and domestic. She’s a very wise lady. And how many people are there who have been in a position of public eminence, where the cameras of the world are focused on them every day, who still retain the affection of their nation after sixty years?

    The shelf-life of most personalities, of any sort, whatever they are involved in, is far, far, shorter than that. They move like fire-crackers up in the air, they fizzle for a while, and then they fall back to earth. But the Queen has gone on from strength to strength.

    I will give you one illustration of why. I remember a banquet in 1995, a very grand banquet, of which President Mitterrand and President Clinton were both attending, it was the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day. I looked at the table plan, President Mitterrand, not the most reserved of men, and also President Clinton, also not especially reserved, were both sitting way below the salt at the Queen’s long table. And my private secretary suggested to courtiers that this perhaps wasn’t the best placement there might have been.

    “Ah” he was told, “but it is protocol, members of the European royal families sit next to the Queen”. I thought this was perhaps mistaken. And in a manner in which I won’t bore you, with the message was delivered to the Queen that this was a bad idea. It changed instantly, and what was it the Queen said? I will tell you exactly what the Queen said, “You’re quite right, I should sit next to President Clinton and President Mitterrand, after all I can sit next to my cousins at any time I like”.

    I am, and always will be, very supportive, and indeed when you have your back turned to a Cecil [referring to a painting behind him at the Carlton Club], it is very wise to be supportive of the Monarchy.

    I think we’re here because we’re all supportive of the Monarchy, not just the Monarchy as an institution, but supportive of this particular Monarch as well. Let the knockers and the carpers have their hour in the sun from time to time. Get out of the familiar chattering circle of Whitehall and Westminster and get out into the counties and the cities of the United Kingdom, and you will see how deep and how secure and how enduring are the roots that sustain our Monarchy, and in particular, this special Monarch.

    And so tonight, on an evening when you are gathered here to celebrate that sixty years, and I am sadly going off to do some work, on the night you are gathered here, I would like to promote a toast that I think that we can all join in with a great deal of pleasure.

    The toast is to someone who has served our nation as well in my judgement as anyone in our long history of 1,000 years

    As anyone in our long history, the toast is,

    Her Majesty the Queen

    Thank you very much.

  • Sir John Major’s Comments on HM the Queen – 6 February 2012

    The text of Sir John Major’s comments on HM the Queen, made for the BBC programme “The Diamond Queen”, a third part series presented by Andrew Marr.

    PROGRAMME 1/3 – First broadcast on Monday 6th February 2012 on BBC1

    [25.33 minutes in – Referring to the weekly audiences with the Prime Minister]

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    It’s simply two people sitting down talking in an entirely relaxed and informal way. But they cover everything. The Queen as a Head of State has a right to know what is happening, has a right to know what her Prime Minister has in mind to do.

    PROGRAMME 2/3 – First broadcast on Monday 13th February 2012 on BBC1

    [26.43 minutes in – Referring to the reform of the Monarchy – Andrew Marr asked whether Sir John was worried about the status of the Monarchy during the early 1990s]

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I was concerned at the shower of criticism and unpopularity that the Monarchy was facing in the short-term. I wasn’t worried about the long-term for two reasons.

    Firstly, we have seen this before, Queen Victoria being an obvious example, very unpopular for a very long period of time after Prince Albert died.

    Secondly, the roots of the Monarchy are so deep, that even in a period of unpopularity it can sustain that and come through at the end of it.

    [49.19 minutes in – Referring to foreign state visits]

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think people may not realise around the world what an iconic figure the Queen is. The highlight of the state visit is the Buckingham Palace banquet. It does an enormous amount of good.

    Can you quantify it? Very difficult.

    Does it matter? Yes.

    Is it in the British interest? Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

    Would we lose something if it wasn’t there? We certainly would.

    PROGRAMME 3/3 – First broadcast on Monday 20th February 2012 on BBC1

    [7.55 minutes in – Referring to his own memories of the Queen’s Coronation in 1953]

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I was ten at the time and I remember my family scraping together their savings and buying a small black and white television to watch it. But it was hugely exciting, everybody was really uplifted. For most of the adults present it was the first great event since the dreary days of the war and the tough days that immediately followed, but it was symbolic of a new life people thought.

  • Sir John Major’s Interview on the Andrew Marr Show – 5 February 2012

    The text of Sir John Major’s interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, broadcast live on 5th February 2012.

    ANDREW MARR:

    We were looking at that extraordinary Irish visit there. And of course the process began when you were Prime Minister, although Tony Blair picked it up and went further forward with it. How conscious were you when you were doing that, that this might be difficult for the Royal Family? They’d lost Lord Mountbatten, they’d seen these terrible scenes of carnage not very far from Buckingham Palace in the old days.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well of course when we began it in the early 1990s with Albert Reynolds, who was then the Irish Prime Minister, of course I discussed it with the Queen at our private meetings. I have no intention of telling you how it went, but of course the Queen was aware of what we were doing. And we had two objectives, both of which I think the Queen approved of. The first was to stop the slaughter that we were seeing in Northern Ireland, the indiscriminate murder that had gone on for far too long; and, secondly, to normalise relations between the United Kingdom and Ireland and North and South within Ireland. And I think the Queen approved of both of those. And the visit she made to Ireland, I think set the final seal on a relationship that has wholly changed in the last twenty years. Ireland are our nearest neighbour, they should be a close and enduring friend, and I think that is the circumstance we now have.

    ANDREW MARR:

    One of the things that certainly I came across a lot was people talking about the Queen’s religious side of her character, and therefore forgiveness being absolutely central to what she is for.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    The Queen’s a wise lady. She understands different views. She’s never been perturbed by people who’ve had different views to her. She understands them, she has her own clear view, so certainly she would have understood that point very well. And I think the fact she is Head of the Church in the United Kingdom, she would fully understand other people’s convictions in a different church. That wouldn’t phase her in the slightest.

    ANDREW MARR:

    So she understood and in fact she was encouraging those very, very difficult early talks with the IRA?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I’ve no intention of telling you what was said privately. Let me simply say the Queen was fully informed and you have seen from the visit and what others have said how she feels about the outcome.

    ANDREW MARR:

    A lot of people are very interested about not what is said during those meetings, but are they really useful to Prime Ministers? David Cameron said that you know it was a chance during the week to really ask himself what he was up to in a sense because he was just in front of one person.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    They’re very useful. I mean where else can you talk to one person in total certainty that it’s entirely secret; that nobody is going to talk to anybody else about what is said? So they’re very free, they’re very frank, they’re very useful. And of course the Queen has been there for sixty years, her first Prime Minister was Winston Churchill. Most of the present cabinet weren’t born when the Queen became monarch. So there’s very little she hasn’t seen and very little she doesn’t understand, and anyone who doesn’t listen to her view and consult her where necessary is missing a huge opportunity.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Well we’re allowed just a little clip of you with the Queen. I think you’ve just come back from Russia at this moment. Let’s look at that.

    [Clip from Elizabeth R shown which was broadcast in the 1990s]

    ANDREW MARR:

    A nice little clip there. So these things are terribly important. You know she’s obviously very interested in her constitutional role, so that’s the Irish side. What about Scotland now because you know we’re at the edge of some difficult decisions about Scotland? I mean whatever happens, she will be Queen of Scots. I just wondered what you thought of Alex Salmond’s kind of comment that the United Kingdom would carry on because the union of crowns would carry on?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well I’ve no intention of mixing the Queen and politics and I think you know that, but I think I heard Alex Salmond say last week that whatever may happen in Scotland – and I have my clear views about what should happen, that whatever may happen in Scotland, the Queen would remain Queen as far as the Scots are concerned, and I think that is absolutely the view of, I would imagine, the vast majority of Scots.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Unlike any other country, we have someone therefore at the apex of the system who’s been there for sixty years. Does she have a sort of reasonable recall of the previous crises, all the ups and downs? I mean she’s been through the Cold War, she’s seen all this you know.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Andrew, you don’t forget crises, believe you me. You don’t forget crises and neither does the Queen.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Yes.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    She remembers them very well. And in some cases within the Commonwealth, I mean she has this special affinity for the Commonwealth, and I think for two reasons. Firstly because King George VI, her father, to whom she was evidently very close indeed, was significant in setting up the Commonwealth in the first place. And, secondly, because she has grown up with the Commonwealth. When it began, it had eight members. It now has fifty-four. So she’s very close to it. And often when we discussed, she would not only know something about the country in the Commonwealth we were talking about or the head of state, but their father or their mother and often there were occasions where background information was extremely useful.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Yes. We saw Prince William in that quote, in that clip earlier on there, speaking very, very eloquently about the Queen and Ireland. He’s of course now down in the Falklands in his helicopter. But you’ve in some respects watched him grow up because you were involved when he was younger. Just give us your sense of how he’s evolving in the role that he’s got now.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Oh I think if you travel abroad, you can see a different perspective and you can see that the Duke of Cambridge and the Duchess are becoming iconic around the world. I think they’re a tremendous bonus for the Royal Family at the present time and I think the way they have conducted themselves has been absolutely without fault, and I think most people can see that. Clearly his career is very important to him, as it is to Prince Harry. He’s carrying out his role extremely well and I think that’s what people admire and respect.

    ANDREW MARR:

    But for all those people who kind of perhaps rather glibly open the papers and say “Oh well, can we not have him as our next King?” …

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    No, no.

    ANDREW MARR:

    As a constitutionalist explain why not.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    No, no. Constitutionally not. The Queen took an oath at the Coronation that she would remain as Queen for the rest of her life. When, hopefully many years hence, the Queen is no longer with us, Prince Charles will become King. There can be no question of skipping a generation. It simply isn’t going to happen. It’s a piece of newspaper sophistry from time to time. After the Queen will come Prince Charles. After Prince Charles will come Prince William. That is I think a matter that is settled and is beyond doubt.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Now tomorrow I think, you are going to be launching a huge charitable project: the Diamond Jubilee Trust. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I don’t want to spoil your fire for it, but tell us a little bit about it and what you hope to achieve.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    We’re establishing tomorrow the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust. It was agreed that it would be set up by all the Heads of Government at the Commonwealth at their recent meeting in Australia, and I’m greatly honoured to have been asked to chair it.

    The purpose of the trust is to raise money across the whole of the Commonwealth, I hope governments, companies, individuals will all contribute. We will raise this money just for a single year and then we will spend it on appropriate projects across the whole of the Commonwealth, including of course the United Kingdom. We’ll enter I hope into partnerships with people, so that we can leverage, so we can increase the amount of money we have had donated, to use it for the sort of projects I think that most people would approve of.

    ANDREW MARR:

    So we’re talking about projects involving children and disadvantaged groups?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Yes, no detailed decisions have been taken, but that sort of project. And it will all be there specifically as a legacy to the Queen and her long reign and her long service to the Commonwealth. I don’t think people who haven’t seen her with the Commonwealth, heads of government, can possibly understand what it’s like. There’s a very good relationship, she is iconic to them. And she and the Duke of Edinburgh – and the Duke has been quite superb of course throughout her reign – she and the Duke of Edinburgh are enormously popular across the Commonwealth and it’s unsurprising that when there was a suggestion from the heads of government of a tribute that the Queen would like the sums raised to be dispersed across the Commonwealth, including – as I say – the United Kingdom.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Of course the Falklands are part of the Commonwealth. Prince William down there at the moment and a huge amount of kind of jumping up and down and shouting in Buenos Aires.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think there’s bound to be a certain amount of shouting. I think that’s what it will amount to – shouting and no more.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And no more. Alright, for now thank you very much indeed, Sir John Major.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    My pleasure.

    [Break for news]

    ANDREW MARR:

    Sir John Major is still here and we’re going to talk a little bit just at the end about Syria because we’ve used enormously strong language at the United Nations yesterday, as have the Americans, about the Russians and the Chinese. I just wanted you know your perspective on actually what can happen, because it seems that the international community is now badly stuck.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think there are two things that are happening. Certainly we’ve seen the enormous changes across the whole of the Middle East. The democratic genie is out of the bottle and I don’t think it’s going to stop at the borders of Syria. So I think this is an issue that is going to continue. I think two things are happening at the moment. First, we are moving perilously close to a full-scale civil war. Secondly, I think Syria is becoming a pariah state. And if I can add a third thought. I don’t think in these circumstances that the Assad regime will survive. How much damage it will do in the short-term, I can’t say. How long it will survive is unknown, but I don’t think it will be a credible government for all that much longer. It has no support, except no doubt for Iran and for China and for Russia, beyond that no-one can possibly sanction what they’re doing.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And is there anything more do you think that a country like Britain can do, you know to avoid the break-up and the fall of the regime – if that’s what’s going to be happen – being too bloody, being too disruptive – not least I suppose to Israel which is next door, of course?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well I think there are several thoughts related to that. Firstly, I think those in China and Russia might search their consciences about their veto. They are effectively giving a green light to a pretty bad regime to murder people, and I think one needs to put it bluntly so they understand what they have done and so the world understands what they have done. As far as what other nations can do, it’s possible to apply sanctions through the European Union, it’s possible to apply sanctions through nation states, it’s possible to use diplomacy. I think all those measures should be used and used as a matter of urgency and I don’t think the United Nations should leave this matter. If China and Russia have vetoed it once, let us see if they will at some stage veto it again as public pressure and international condemnation builds up.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Good final thought. Sir John Major, thank you very much indeed for joining us today.