This book seeks to re-examine John Major’s leadership using techniques developed through Presidential Studies: namely using Fred Greenstein’s seminal study of Presidential Leadership, The Presidential Difference, and its six criteria for leadership (public communicator, organisational capacity, political skill, public policy vision, cognitive style, and, finally, emotional intelligence). It is through Greenstein’s model that a fresh look can be taken at not only Major’s time in office, but equally the man himself, which proves to be just as revealing. Major’s tenure has often been characterised as being weak and incompetent, as he presided over a sleaze-ridden and divided party on the issue of Europe. With almost a quarter of a century having passed since Major left office, it looks to be an appropriate moment to re-assess his premiership and important role in the recent seismic events surrounding the 2016 Brexit referendum and its outcome.
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of one of the most momentous general elections this country has ever seen. John Major's defeat in 1997 ended a record eighteen years of Tory government, prompting accusations of failure and ignominy. A controversial leader, Major oversaw numerous crises in international and domestic policy. Between 1990 and 1997, he presided over Britain's participations in the Gulf War, the start of the Northern Ireland peace process, the Maastricht Treaty negotiations and, famously, Black Wednesday and Britain's exit from the ERM. Towards the end, Major's government was split over Europe and ridden with allegations of sleaze. Widely criticised by the media and politicians from all parties, Major went on to be crushed by Tony Blair and New Labour in the 1997 general election. An Unsuccessful Prime Minister? is the first wide-ranging appraisal of John Major's government in nearly two decades. This book reconsiders the role of John Major as Prime Minister and the policy achievements of his government. Major's government faced many more constraints and left behind a more enduring legacy than his critics allowed at the time or since.
John Major's autobiography is one of the most personal and revealing ever written by a former British Prime Minister. Eagerly awaited, the remarkable story of his life, from an extraordinary childhood to becoming an influential leader at the forefront of global politics and subsequent fall, is candid, scrupulous, and unsparing. With complete candor and compelling insight, Major describes how he left school at fifteen, was unemployed, and through hard work and determination was elected to Parliament as a member of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party, which would transform Britain. Quickly becoming one of Thatcher's Cabinet members, he served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Foreign Secretary, and then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the powerful position from which he vaulted to Prime Minister in 1990 when, after Thatcher fell, he fought and won a shrewd campaign to succeed her. Major vividly recounts his role in shaping some of the most profound world events, including conferring with George Bush on the Gulf War, making the most decisive steps in a generation toward peace in Northern Ireland, leading Britain through the formation of the European Upon, and calling a general election in 1992 in which his party won the most votes in British political history. Yet within months of the 1992 election his government was in troubled waters, and Major is candid about his difficulties and losses and the controversies and divisions within his own party. Through it all, including the landslide defeat of his Conservative Party on May 1, 1997, and his immediate stepping down as party leader and Prime Minister, John Major acted with a dignity rare in politics. As he talks about his leadership triumphs and defeats and his work with a diverse range of inter-national figures including George Bush, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, Helmut Kohl, and Nelson Mandela, he offers invaluable insight into how political power is exercised both in the United Kingdom and abroad. Here is a fascinating story of a man, his passion for politics, and the genuine and significant contributions he has made to the lives ofthe British and people around the world.
How have the American presidency, the British premiership and the German chancellorship changed over the last half-century? Has there been convergence or divergence in the development of political leadership in the United States and in the two largest democracies of Western Europe? And what difference can individual leaders make in an ever-more complex political environment? Presidents, Prime Ministers and Chancellors addresses these questions by looking at the leadership performance of more than two dozen American presidents, British prime ministers and German chancellors of the post-1945 period. In so doing, it offers a unique perspective on the nature of executive leadership in Western democracies that takes into account both the international and the historical dimension of comparison.
This book examines the UK prime minister’s political leadership in the domestic executive. By offering a comparative study of the political leadership of James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair with regard to European monetary policy, it challenges the thesis that British prime ministers today have more power, resources and autonomy than their predecessors, giving them a greater capacity to act. Taking key European monetary policy decisions by the British government between 1976 and 2007 as empirical cases, the book assesses the extent to which the political leadership of each prime minister was affected by the cabinet, the parliamentary party as well as the media, and the extent to which he or she was able to manage these factors. It becomes clear from this analysis that prime ministerial predominance is not as frequent as suggested, while collective leadership does not represent a return to cabinet government. Moreover, particularly the party in government affects the prime minister’s leadership by shaping his or her options on appointments (and therefore the composition of the core executive), and through its behaviour in parliament, e.g. through rebellions or the threat of them.
A landmark history of the men and women who have defined the UK's role in the modern world - and what makes them special - by a seasoned political journalist.
A study of prime ministerial leadership in Britain and Australia. Tony Blair and John Howard were election winning leaders in two similar countries. They succeeded in dominating politics for over 10 years, but both fell dramatically from office. This book asks how these prime ministers established such predominant positions.
John Major's rapid rise to power has left people of all political persuasions asking, "Who is the Prime Minister?". This book provides the answer. It tells the story of Major's political career as it developed, in the words of the journalists who wrote about him all the time. All the articles - from both the national and the regional press - represent the original coverage of events as they happened, viewed both from Fleet Street and from Major's Cambridgeshire constituency.;From Major's entry into Parliament in 1979 as MP for Huntingdon, through his first ministerial appointment, in the Department of Health in 1985, to his sudden elevation to the premiership in 1990, all the details are here: the facts and the figures, the campaigns and the policies, the modest successes and the blazing triumphs. Reports and features covering his early life, his political infancy as a Lambeth councillor and his initial attempts to win a parlimentary seat in the general election of 1974 are also included.;Illustrated with 60 photographs spanning the full eleven and a half years of his parliamentary career, this book is enlivened by newspaper headlines and Press Association timed newsflashes. It provides an assessment of the man whose meteoric ascent through the House of Commons has made him the nation's youngest Prime Minister since Lord Rosebery.
