Major?s underrated premiership is long overdue for reappraisal

We get the politicians we deserve, but politicians do not always get the reputations they deserve. None has been short-changed by history more stingily than Sir John Major, the former British prime minister still invoked in some quarters ? including his own Conservative party ? as a synonym for haplessness and weak leadership.

Not the least of his qualities is a grown-up disinclination to fight for his good name. He could, as Margaret Thatcher did and Tony Blair still does, hover about in public life, talking up his achievements, nudging his successors this way or that. Instead, he has gone for a kind of dignified elusiveness. All we can surmise about his life now is that he puts his name to some good causes and still enjoys a Test match. Yesterday, a wowing guest turn at the parliamentary press gallery lunch restored him to the headlines for the first time in an age.

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Source: http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2013/10/majors-underrated-premiership-is-long-overdue-for-reappraisal/

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