John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...
formed the second Major ministry following the
1992 general election after being invited by
Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...
to begin a new administration. His government fell into
minority status on 13 December 1996.
Formation
The change of leader from
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
to
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...
saw a dramatic turnaround in Tory support, with the double-digit lead in the opinion polls for the
Labour Party being replaced by a narrow Conservative one by the turn of 1991. Although a general election did not have to be held until June 1992, Labour leader
Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British former politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader of ...
kept pressurising Major to hold an election during 1991, but Major resisted the calls and there was no election that year.
The recession which began in the autumn of 1990 deepened during 1991, with unemployment standing at nearly 2.5 million by December 1991, compared to 1.6 million just 18 months earlier. Despite this, Tory support in the opinion polls remained relatively strong, with any Labour lead now being by the narrowest of margins, although Labour still made some gains at the expense of the Tories in local elections, and seized the
Monmouth seat from the Tories in
a by-election.
Major finally called an
election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
for 9 April 1992 which ended the first Major ministry. In a surprise to most pollsters, Major won the election, which led to the formation of the Second Major Ministry and a fourth consecutive Conservative term in office.
There was widespread media and public debate as to whether the Labour Party could ever win a general election again, as they had failed to do so in 1992, despite the Conservative government having been in power for over a decade and presiding over a recession for the second time. At the same time, there was much private debate (made public many years later in the memoirs of senior figures including
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...
himself) within the Conservative government as to whether a fifth successive general election victory was a realistic possibility.
The new term of parliament saw Major gain a new opponent in
John Smith, who succeeded
Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British former politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader of ...
as Labour leader.
However, the months which followed the 1992 general election saw a series of events which went a long way towards deciding the outcome of the next general election long before it was even on the political horizon.
Fate
On Wednesday 16 September 1992, the
pound sterling
Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and t ...
crashed out of the
European Exchange Rate Mechanism
The European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II) is a system introduced by the European Economic Community on 1 January 1999 alongside the introduction of a single currency, the euro (replacing ERM 1 and the euro's predecessor, the ECU) as ...
after
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor is ...
Norman Lamont
Norman Stewart Hughson Lamont, Baron Lamont of Lerwick, (born 8 May 1942) is a British politician and former Conservative MP for Kingston-upon-Thames. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1990 until 1993. He was created a life peer in ...
had invested heavily in trying to keep it there, adjusting interest rates four times in one day as a desperate measure, an event which became known as
Black Wednesday
Black Wednesday (or the 1992 Sterling crisis) occurred on 16 September 1992 when the UK Government was forced to withdraw sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), after a failed attempt to keep its exchange rate above the ...
, leaving the Conservative government's reputation for economic excellence in tatters. Labour was soon ascendant in the opinion polls, and next few years brought a string of heavy defeats for the Conservatives in local council elections and parliamentary by-elections, with both
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
and the
Liberal Democrats benefiting at their expense.
Internal Conservative Party feuding on
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and the government defeat on the
Maastricht Treaty
The Treaty on European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU). Concluded in 1992 between the then-twelve member states of the European Communities, it announced "a new stage in the ...
further dented the government's popularity, as did coal mine closures announced in late 1992, and a series of scandals involving MPs.
The end of the recession was declared in April 1993 after nearly three years, and unemployment – which had peaked at nearly 3,000,000 people by the end of 1992 – quickly began to fall. It had fallen below 2,500,000 within two years of the recession's end, and by the end of 1996 it was below the 2,000,000 mark. Freed from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, the British economy outperformed the rest of the
continent
A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...
for the first time in a generation.
However, the strong economic recovery failed to make much difference to the dismal Conservative performance in the opinion polls. Labour leader
John Smith died of a sudden heart attack in May 1994 and was succeeded by
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
, who continued the modernisation process of the party which began under Smith's predecessor
Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British former politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader of ...
, by branding the party as: "New Labour", and by the end of that year the opinion polls were showing Labour support as high as 60% – putting them more than 30 points ahead of the Conservatives.
With the Conservative government remaining divided on Europe and much more,
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...
, in an attempt to silence his critics and opponents, announced his resignation as party leader – but not as Prime Minister – in June 1995, triggering a leadership election. He was opposed by
John Redwood
Sir John Alan Redwood (born 15 June 1951) is a British politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wokingham in Berkshire since 1987. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Secretary of State for Wales in the Major governm ...
, the
Secretary of State for Wales
The secretary of state for Wales ( cy, ysgrifennydd gwladol Cymru), also referred to as the Welsh secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Wales Office. The incumbent is a member ...
, and Major won the leadership election without much difficulty.
The Conservative majority of 21 seats was gradually eroded by a string of by-election defeats as well as the defection of one MP to Labour, and by the turn of 1997 the Conservatives were without a majority in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
.
Major left it until the last possible moment before calling a general election, finally
holding it on Thursday, 1 May 1997. He pinned his hopes of election success on a six-week campaign exposing New Labour's policies to scrutiny, as well as pointing towards a booming economy and falling unemployment. However, as the Conservatives had denied responsibility for the
recession at the turn of the decade, few voters were willing to give them credit for the economic recovery, and Labour returned to power after eighteen years in opposition, with a 179-seat majority that saw several powerful Conservative figures (most notably
Michael Portillo
Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo (; born 26 May 1953) is a British journalist, broadcaster and former politician. His broadcast series include railway documentaries such as '' Great British Railway Journeys'' and '' Great Continental Railway Jour ...
, widely tipped to be the next Leader of the Conservative Party) lose their seats and the loss of all Conservative seats in
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
and
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
; the Conservatives subsequently suffered their worst general election result of the twentieth century and their place in government was taken by
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
, led by
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
, after four successive parliamentary terms of Conservative Party rule.
The Conservatives did not return to government until
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
, and did not win a parliamentary majority until
2015
File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...
, having had to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in order to form their
first government under
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...
.
Cabinet
April 1992 to May 1993
Changes
*On 24 September 1992 David Mellor resigns as Secretary of State for National Heritage following tabloid reporting of an affair with actress
Antonia de Sancha
Antonia de Sancha (born 14 September 1961 in Hammersmith, London) is an England, English actress and businesswoman best known as the former mistress of British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Member of Parliament and Cabinet of the United Ki ...
. He was replaced by Peter Brooke.
May 1993 to July 1994
July 1994 to July 1995
July 1995 to May 1997
List of ministers
Members of the Cabinet are in bold face.
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Major 2
British ministries
Government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
1990s in the United Kingdom
1992 establishments in the United Kingdom
1997 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Ministry 2
Ministries of Elizabeth II
Cabinets established in 1992
Cabinets disestablished in 1997