Biografia
Sir John Major is the son of Tom Major-Ball, a retired circus performer who was 65 when Major was born. He attended Cheam Common Primary School and Rutlish Grammar School, where his academic performance was unremarkable. In the mid-1950s, his family moved to Brixton, a poor area in South London, living in a small flat on Coldharbour Lane. Major struggled in secondary school and left at the age of 16. Later in life, he admitted he could have been a better student and wished he had stayed in school longer.
During the early 1960s, Major held various temporary jobs but was unemployed for much of the time. He spent time joining the Young Conservatives. In 1963, he secured steady work with the London Electricity Board and pursued a correspondence course in banking, which became his main career path. He took a position as an executive at Standard Chartered Bank, which sent him on a business trip to Nigeria in 1967. At the time, Nigeria was embroiled in the Biafra War, and Major nearly died in a car accident there, losing a kneecap. He married Norma Wagstaff in October 1970, and they have two children.
In the 1979 General Election, Major was elected Conservative MP for Huntingdon and served in Parliament for twenty-two years. When neighboring MP John Wakeham was seriously injured in the 1984 Brighton bombing, Major temporarily covered Wakeham's constituency. The following year, he was appointed Minister for Pensions and Social Security. In 1987, he became Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and in 1989, he was made Foreign Secretary. He accompanied Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on a trip to Malaysia to meet other Commonwealth leaders. However, after just three months as Foreign Secretary, he was moved to Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In November 1990, Michael Heseltine challenged Thatcher for the Conservative Party leadership. Thatcher failed to secure the required two-thirds majority, leading to a second ballot. Her cabinet advised her to resign, anticipating defeat. On November 22, 1990, Thatcher stepped down as Prime Minister. The Conservative Party then needed to elect a new leader. Heseltine remained a candidate for the second ballot, and Major entered the race as Thatcher's preferred choice, alongside Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd. Major won the second ballot and became Prime Minister.
Upon becoming Prime Minister, Major had significant expectations to meet. Initially, his quiet, modest demeanor was welcomed, but it soon became apparent he struggled with the role. Nevertheless, he narrowly led the Conservative Party to victory in the 1992 General Election. His tenure saw Britain's embarrassing exit from the ERM in late 1992. Major attempted to balance the party's stance on Europe, which alienated both pro-Europeans and Eurosceptics. His failure to ratify the Maastricht Treaty in the UK weakened his position. He sought to refocus the Conservative Party on core issues like the rule of law, policing, family values, and education, but this backfired as the media began uncovering scandals.
Major's authority eroded to the point that in 1995 he called a leadership contest, pledging to resign if he did not achieve the necessary majority, challenging his opponents to "Put up or shut up." Although he won, the contest failed to settle party divisions, and he spent his final two years in office largely inactive. The Conservative Party lost its parliamentary majority in December 1996, yet Major remained Prime Minister for several more months.
Major's term ended with a General Election in May 1997. During a lengthy campaign, he aimed to delay defeat and give the Labour Party, led by Tony Blair, an opportunity to falter. However, on May 1, 1997, the Conservatives suffered their worst defeat ever, with Labour winning a landslide 179-seat majority. Major retained his seat, but several cabinet members lost theirs. He resigned as Conservative Party leader immediately after the election but stayed in Parliament until his retirement in 2001.
As Prime Minister, Major initiated the first substantive negotiations with Sinn Féin to advance peace in Northern Ireland, laying the foundation for the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended three decades of violence.
