John Major : News
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16th December 2007 - John Major has criticised the current Labour Government on BBC's Andrew Marr Show. He said that sleaze is now institutional and impacting on Government operations, whereas the problems he had faced in the 1990s had been personal indiscretions. He also added that it was now time for Gordon Brown to stop talking about ten successful years in the economy, following the Northern Rock crisis, which has cost substantially more than when the UK was ejected from the ERM.
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31st August 2007 - John Major attended the 10th death anniversary memorial service for Diana, Princess of Wales. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair was also present.
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1st May 2007 - John Major's book on the history of cricket, "More Than a Game - The Story of Cricket's Early Years" was published today by Harper Press of London. The ISBN is 9780007183647.
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13th March 2007 - Terry Major-Ball, the older brother of John Major has died at the age of 74. He died from prostrate cancer in a hospice in Chard.
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25th October 2004 - John Major, speaking on BBC's Breakfast With Frost, has said that anyone voting UKIP risks giving their vote to Labour. Mr Major said, "they are a single issue party, and other than on their particular subject they have nothing to say".
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25th October 2004 - Speaking on the 10th anniversary of the National Lottery, which Mr Major instigated in 2004, the former Prime Minister said, "the lottery is now being used as a substitute for Government spending, which it was not intended for". The Government responded that although the lottery was started under the Major administration, it now needed updating and re-energising.
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8th September 2004 - John Redwood, who stood against John Major for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1995, has been returned to the shadow Cabinet by the Conservative leader, Michael Howard.
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20th May 2004 - John Major has stated that he has no wish to either be knighted or enter the House of Lords, but said that when Prime Minister senior figures did lobby him for honours. He also added that he did not believe that Lord Archer should lose his peerage, stating that such action would be political.
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24th March 2004 - Howell James, who worked for John Major when he was Prime Minister, has been appointed as the current Prime Minister's Permanent Secretary for Government communications.
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2nd March 2004 - Alistair Campbell, Prime Minister Blair's former Press Secretary, has criticised John Major for opportunism after his calls for the Attorney General's advice on the Iraq war to be published.
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29th February 2004 - John Major, speaking on BBC One's Breakfast With Frost, said that he believed the Government should publish in full the advice given by the Attorney General to the Prime Minister on the legality of going to war. He also made comments about the recent difficulties experienced by the BBC over the Hutton Report, and he said that lessons should be learned, but that he did not support the merging or privatisation of the service. He added that he thought the BBC produced "too many trivial programmes, quiz shows and reality shows" instead of concentrating on high-end programming, which would still attract an audience.
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26th February 2004 - Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who served as Foreign Secretary in John Major's Government from 1995 to 1997, has won the Conservative nomination for the seat of Kensington and Chelsea. Currently held by Michael Portillo, who is standing down at the next General Election, Sir Malcolm said that he was delighted to have won the nomination. He lost his Edinburgh Pentlands seat at the 1997 General Election and failed to win it back at the 2001 General Election.
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16th November 2003 - John Major has said that the Conservative Party were right to replace Iain Duncan Smith as Leader of the Conservative Party. Duncan Smith recently failed to win a vote of confidence from his own MPs, and was replaced by Michael Howard, who served as Home Secretary in John Major's Government from 1993 to 1997. He said that the years since 1997 had not been wasted years, but that Michael Howard now presented a very real opportunity to win the next General Election for the Conservatives. He added that he did feel sorry for the way in which Mr Duncan Smith lost his position as Leader of the Party and added that he was also hopeful that Kenneth Clarke might return to a front-bench position if the Conservatives were to win the next General Election.
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29th October 2003 - Iain Duncan Smith, the Leader of the Conservative Party, has lost a vote of confidence in his leadership by 75 votes to 90 votes. He has now resigned as Leader of the Party, and a leadership election will be called.
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26th August 2003 - Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, has launched an attack on the Conservative Party leader, Iain Duncan Smith. He said that ten years ago Mr. Duncan Smith's clique was referred to as nutters, but now the main opposition party was run by these individuals. He said that people such as Chris Patten, Douglas Hurd and Kenneth Clarke, key members of John Major's Government (Party Chairman, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor respectively) were now marginalised.
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1st August 2003 - Denis Thatcher, the late husband of the former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, has said in a final interview only now screened, that his wife was forced out of office and that she was the best Prime Minister since Winston Churchill. He added that he believed that John Major was a ghastly Prime Minister, and said that the current disaster in the Conservative Party would not have happened if he had lost in 1992.
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22nd May 2003 - John Major has said that there should be a referendum on the proposed new European constitution, which will change the way in which the European Union works. He said that it would be a tragedy if the Government could use its Parliamentary majority to smuggle through changes to the constitutional status of the United Kingdom without the majority of the British people understanding what has been committed in their name.
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3rd April 2003 - John Major has said that he hoped the people of Northern Ireland would see peace in the near future. Speaking in Warrington, ten years after a bomb planted by the IRA killed two children, Mr Major said that he hoped the Northern Ireland Assembly could be re -opened and the search for peace continued.
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6th October 2002 - Iain Duncan Smith, the current Conservative Party leader, has said that the unpopularity of the Conservative Party is not down to him, but was the fault of John Major's 1990-1997 administration. He said that:

"Spending went through the roof, taxes started to rise, and the result of all that - and the Exchange Rate Mechanism - is that we put real tightness on everyone."
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5th October 2002 - Kenneth Clarke, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, has criticised the current Conservative Party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, for failing to get the Party's message across. He added that he expected the Conservative Party to start delivering policies, and although he said he expected Duncan Smith to lead the Party into the next General Election, he refused to rule himself out of any future leadership contest.
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2nd October 2002 - John Major has confirmed that he is not planning to make a statement over his affair with Edwina Currie in the 1980s. Edwina Currie has answered questions on BBC radio about the affair.
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1st October 2002 - John Major has confirmed that he did have an affair with Edwina Currie from 1984 to 1988, which ended following his promotion to the Cabinet.
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27th July 2002 - John Major has confirmed that he would have resigned sooner if he had known the problems he was to have uniting the Conservative Party after the 1995 leadership election. He made the comments in the Daily Telegraph whilst reviewing a book by former Cabinet Minister Ian Lang.
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25th March 2002 - John Major has cautioned against joining the Euro in the near future, saying that:
"It should not join yet. If it were to do so, it would be joining a weaker currency in a weaker European economy at the wrong stage in the economic cycle without adequate convergence and at a time when sterling is too strong."
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News from 1997 to 2001 is available here.