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News from 2002 to 2008 is available here.

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8th September 2001 - Iain Duncan Smith, a rebel in the John Major years, has become the new Conservative Party leader. He beat Ken Clarke in a vote of Conservative Party members, despite Ken Clarke winning the support of more MPs.

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25th August 2001 - John Major has said that he favours Ken Clarke in the leadership contest of the Conservative Party. Writing in the Spectator Magazine he said that Iain Duncan Smith was inexperienced and untested, and that Ken Clarke had the experience and clout to win the next General Election.

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1st May 2001 - William Hague's Conservative Party has lost the General Election leaving the Labour Party with their second large majority.

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20th December 2000 - John Major has contributed to the fox-hunting debate in the House of Commons. His speech is here.

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8th December 2000 - Kenneth Clarke, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Major administration from 1993 to 1997, has said today that he would like a return to the Conservative front-bench, but that he would only do so if he was allowed to represent his views on Europe.

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7th December 2000 - John Major has called upon the European Commission to detail their plans for the future of the European Union saying that "Uncertainty is debilitating. We have uncertainty. Let us therefore offer certainty and the Commission can do that".

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5th December 2000 - Norman Lamont, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Major administration from 1990-1993, has today been awarded a medal by supporters of General Pinochet, for Lord Lamont's help in supporting the former Chilean dictator.

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27th November 2000 - John Major has made a speech in the House of Commons in response to the Prime Minister's plan to commit British forces to the European Rapid Reaction Force. His speech is here.

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26th October 2000 - John Major has made a speech in the House of Commons in response to the publication of the BSE enquiry. His speech is here.

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29th July 2000 - John Major's son, James Major, has become a father after the birth of Harrison John Major, weighing in at 8lb 13oz. John Major, a grand-father for the first time, said "I am just so thrilled that he is here and he is safe and absolutely lovely."

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26th July 2000 - Gillian Shepherd, who served as Education and Employment Secretary under Major's administration, has released her book about her time in office. She mentioned that "John Major should have seen he was not a normal bloke, he was an exceptional bloke, with exceptional gifts and he could have been a little more immodest."

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22nd July 2000 - John Major has made a speech in the House of Commons in response to the debate of the modernisation of Parliament. His speech is here.

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12th July 2000 - The Speaker of the House of the Commons, Betty Boothroyd, is to retire from both her role, and from the House of Commons. Boothroyd, who was speaker from 1992, throughout the rest of the time of Major's premiership. She will retire at the end of this Parliamentary session, and a replacement will be selected in October when Parliament returns. John Major said, "She has been an outstanding Speaker who has enhanced the reputation of the House of Commons throughout the world, I am very sorry she is retiring".

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11th July 2000 - William Hague has back-tracked from his tax guarantee. The BBC reported that John Major had warned that the policy would have been a "a hostage to fortune". Hague had previously promised to cut taxes over the course of the Parliament if he became Prime Minister, whatever the state of the economy.

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10th June 2000 - Jonathan Djanogly has been selected as the Conservative Party candidate for Huntingdon. John Major said if his selection, "An awful lot of Members of Parliament, an awful lot of people I have worked with for years, are members of different Conservative groups, including Conservative Way Forward. The fact there were a handful of people in that who were very difficult ought not to mar the general position of Conservative Way Forward as an entity. I think some of the comment about that has been frankly very silly."

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4th May 2000 - The Conservative Party candidate for London Mayor, Stephen Norris, has come second behind Ken Livingstone. Stephen Norris was a Minister under the John Major Government.

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27th April 2000 - Michael Heseltine, who was Deputy Prime Minister from 1995 to 1997, has announced his resignation from the House of Commons at the next General Election. Heseltine, who was viewed by some as one of the best Prime Ministers Britain never had, had been a Cabinet Minister under Thatcher's Government, before resigning over Westland. He stood in the 1990 leadership contest, and was appointed to John Major's Cabinet after Major won the leadership election. Heseltine remained one of Major's most loyal Cabinet members until the General Election defeat in 1997. The Home Secretary, Jack Straw, took the unusual step of writing to the Times to praise the Conservative politician and his political career. Heseltine is expected to spend more time on his business interests, and on enjoying his retirement.

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26th March 2000 - John Major's daughter was married today at All Saints' Church in Somerby, Rutland.

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13th March 2000 - John Major has announced that he is stand down from the House of Commons at the next General Election. Major has been an MP since 1979. William Hague, the Conservative Party leader, paid tribute to John Major and his contribution to the Conservative Party. Major's meteroic rise to power started in earnest in 1987 when Thatcher appointed him to the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Less than two years later, Major was appointed Foreign Secretary, before being made Chancellor of the Exchequer just 90 days afterwards. After just nine months in the Chancellor's job, John Major became Prime Minister.

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11th December 1999 - The race to be the Conservative candidate for London mayor has hit fresh controversy today after Steven Norris has been dropped from the candidate's list. The news follows the resignation of Jeffrey Archer two weeks ago. John Major refused to put his name forward as the Conservative candidate, saying that he had withdrawn from such high profile public positions, despite increasing support from members of the Conservative Party who felt Major would be a popular candidate.

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25th November 1999 - Michael Portillo has won the Kensington and Chelsea by-election for the Conservative Party. Michael Portillo lost his Enfield Southgate seat in the May 1997 General Election, and was formerly John Major's Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Defence Secretary under the last Conservative administration.

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24th November 1999 - John Major has won the Spectator's Parliamentarian of the Year award for his contribution in the House of Commons over the last year. The judges felt that his input and attendance in the House of Commons made him worth the award. Just the day before he had been making comments in the House about the Northern Ireland situation.

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15th October 1999 - The Times has reported that John Major's appearance at the Foyles Literary Luncheon attracted more people than previous lunches attended by former Prime Ministers Edward Heath, Alec Douglas-Home and Margaret Thatcher. Major said at the lunch, When I became Prime Minister I could trace my ancestry back as far as my father. Byt the time I had completed the first chapter of my book, I had discovered two half-brothers and a half-sister. In the interests of the family's reputation, I stopped there. Major also added about Robin Cook, He is the only Foreign Secretary in 700 years who has had more trouble at home than he has abroad. He also joked about Cook, Don't mock him, one day his looks will go.

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14th October 1999 - William Hague, the Conservative Party Leader is to tour Britain in the back of a truck to promote the Conservative's stance against the single European currency. Tory officials said it was an attempt to replicate the success of John Major's soap-box oratory at the 1992 General Election. The news came just a day after former Conservative Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine, and former Conservative Chancellor Kenneth Clarke, shared a platform with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Robin Cook and Charles Kennedy to promote the cause of "Britain in Europe".

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13th October 1999 - David Mellor, the former National Heritage Cabinet Minister in John Major's Government, has attacked John Major for his criticisms of William Hague. In a letter to the Times he said Major should leave William Hague to set the tone of the party policy without interference.

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12th October 1999 - John Major, as well as the former Conservative Foreign Secretary Lord Hurd (Douglas Hurd) and the former Conservative Party Chairman Chris Patten, have attacked William Hague for taking the wrong approach to the European Union. John Major expressed his concern that the anti-European fringe was taking over the Conservative Party.

It is the strongest attack John Major has made on William Hague, and he termed Hague's present European policy as "absurd and crazy". It was also rumoured that John Major may quit the House of Commons before the General Election after his treatment by the present Conservative Party leadership.

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11th October 1999 - The Major Years is being shown on BBC1. This is the first of three episodes about John Major's career up to and whilst he was Prime Minister. It features an interview with John Major, along with other key players from the time.

John Major revealed that he did not want much want the job of Foreign Secretary, and was disappointed to have to leave the Treasury so quickly, as it the job which he had always coveted most. Michael Portillo, the former Defence Secretary, criticised John Major for eating in Happy Eater. Portillo was strongly attacked by John Major in his autobiography for writing derogatory remarks about Major in 1995 and only admitting them once his name was leaked. Major added in a later interview that he hoped Michael Portillo's true talents would however be given a chance to succeed further in the future, and that the new Michael Portillo was preferable to the old one.

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10th October 1999 - William Hague has denied that he is attempting to air-brush John Major from the history of the Conservative Party. It was thought by many observers at last week's Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool that Major's period as Prime Minister was being re-interpreted by the present leaders of the Conservative Party in a more negative light. It is thought that Hague is seeking to promote the virtues of Thatcherism, and Margaret Thatcher was invited to speak from the Conference Platform for the first time in nearly a decade.

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9th October 1999 - John Major's autobiography has been released. It has received praise from Simon Jenkins of the Times who acclaimed it as the best political memoir for thirty years. Unlike Margaret Thatcher, John Major has written all of the text for the book, which criticises former Cabinet Ministers John Redwood and Michael Portillo, as well as the former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Major also reveals more details about a long-lost sister who he only found out about after his period as Prime Minister ended.

John Major also launched a sharp response to Lord Tebbit, who has been seen as a critic of John Major. Lord Tebbit condemned the Conservative Party policy on the EU said Major, despite Tebbit being the man who urged every Conservative MP to support the Single European Act in the mid-1980, widely observed to have passed more powers to the then EC than the Maastricht Treaty signed by Major nearly ten years after.

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8th October 1999 - Francis Maude, the Shadow Chancellor, has said that John Major and the discussions over the two books by John Major and Norman Lamont are both history and that the Party has moved away from them.

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7th October 1999 - Norman Lamont's book reveals differences in the account of events of Black Wednesday. Lamont's autobiography claims Major was a better Prime Minister than some credit him with, but that his leadership was often too weak and ineffectual. Sir Norman Fowler, one of the most senior Cabinet Ministers in Major's Government has said he is surprised by Lamont's version of events and he found them unlikely.

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6th October 1999 - The Editor of the Spectator has argued that William Hague is "handing a trick to Tony Blair" by an almost Stalinist air-brushing out of history of John Major. Boris Johnson, writing in the Telegraph, argued that to remove Major from the history of the Tory Party is simply allowing Tony Blair to gain the credit for the economic successes achieved by Major. William Hague's treatment of Major at the Party Conference has shocked some commentators.

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