John Major and the B*stards: Rant Against the Tory Right Caught on Tape (1993) | Political History

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On this day in 1993, prime minister John Major became the subject of controversy when a supposedly off-camera conversation with ITN’s Michael Brunson was monitored, transcribed, and leaked by BBC staff. Having won a vote of confidence from his party that day, the prime minister concluded an interview with Brunson before he began candidly discussing the internal politics of cabinet and the Conservative Party more broadly. Major vented his frustrations at the presence of rightwing Eurosceptics the parliamentary party, accusing it of “harking back to the Golden Age that never was”. He described complaints against him as a “poison” emanating largely from “the dispossessed and the never-possessed”. Therein, argued Major, lay his predicament as prime minister. Should he keep his Eurosceptic cabinet critics close and continue to face their opposition over Europe? Or let them resign, getting them out of the way, but risking them stirring opposition on the back benches? “You and I can both think of ex-ministers who are going around causing all sorts of trouble,” he told Brunson. “Do we want three more of the b*stards out there?”
The timing of the leak was unfortunate for Major. The vote of confidence seemed to have finally put to bed whisperings about his leadership as well as divides over Europe that had wracked the party since debates over the Maastricht Treaty the previous year. The bitterness of his words reopened wounds only recently healed.
The three ministers in question were almost certainly Michael Howard, Peter Lilley and Michael Portillo. For his part, Major has reflected on his words over the years. “Calling three of my colleagues, or a number of my colleagues, ‘b*stards' was absolutely unforgivable,” Major told journalists in 2013. “My only excuse is that it was true."
#JohnMajor #Major #UKPolitics #Europe #Maastricht #EU #Eurosceptic #EuropeanUnion #Brexit #Conservative #ConservativeParty #Tory #Tories #Gaffes #Gaffe #Leak #Leaks #Leaked
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24 июл 2023

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Комментарии : 67

@jameskvo 7 месяцев назад

The off-the-record interview is fascinating and infinitely better than the rehearsed stock replies Major gives at the start.

@chrismanners9091 4 месяца назад

I thought the actual interview was pretty decent as well, But the off the record stuff is really good. And rational, controlled, not a rant.

@gaskin86 2 месяца назад

The lady wasn't helpful 😅

@roscomeon3965 2 месяца назад

@@gaskin86she was a mad poisonous imbecile.

@owentill 28 дней назад

@@chrismanners9091yeah, I mean look at the current tories they just keep repeating the same lines whenever some scandal happens without ever actually answering questions. These were stock answers but he at least had the flexibility to give a semi-direct response to each question at the very least 😭

@blueknight07 3 месяца назад

Probably the nastiest John Major has ever been in his entire life.

@evertonfrancis640 Месяц назад

I can understand why 😂

@benreadspoetry7958 Год назад

Great to finally have this on video (as we've only had audio before) but why bleep out the actual word? Silly decision.

@nudisco300 6 месяцев назад

When Major was talking 'privately' he actually seemed quite charasmatic, animated, relaxed and likeable. This is the real John that should have also been his public image.- it seems he must have put on an 'act' as PM which made him seem a little wooden and formal.

@chrismanners9091 4 месяца назад

I thought the interview bit was pretty good too. Certainly no repeating soundbites to death.

@halfbakedproductions7887 20 дней назад

It was exactly the same when someone leaked a conference call featuring Theresa May. She was a totally different person in private, relaxed, jovial, using slang.

@niccolorichter1488 17 часов назад

6:40 he meant “Better to have your enemies inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”

@stewartburns2473 Год назад

im no tory but John Major was a good prime minister - he was head and shoulders above Blair, Brown, Cameron, Truss and Johnson - had something in common with Theresa May - shafted by his own party

@sglenny001 11 месяцев назад

I don't agree with his policy but I believe in how he delt with them

@chrismanners9091 4 месяца назад

I prefer Blair and Brown to Major, but he's easily the best of the Tory Prime Ministers. Undone not only by his own party but some of his own dogmas though- investment was terrible, no minimum wage, street homelessness appalling. 3 easy wins for the Labour government.

@MarkHarrison733 Месяц назад

@@chrismanners9091 Labour made the minimum wage worthless, and caused homelessness to skyrocket.

@ChrisDavis-nl7yu Месяц назад

Have to agree, the country could actually do with Major as PM and May as number two. Both 'steady eddies', pro growth, pro European, but then boring politics doesn't sell.

@Inquisitor_Mad_Dog Год назад

Why are there not people like him I government today?

@BlyatimirPootin 2 месяца назад

Lower standards

@James-dv1df Месяц назад

He wasn't good right?

@nathanielgrant3909 11 месяцев назад

03:40 he's talking to Gus O' Donnell here, his press secretary, and later Cabinet Secretary to Major's three successors. Intimations of 'The Thick of It' already...

@chrisbayes2972 24 дня назад

"THE BAR-STARDS"...😂

@johnking5174 4 месяца назад

Interesting to hear Major talk about his tiny majority - in 1992, he won that election with a 21 seat majority. By 1993 when this happened it was down to 18 and would whittle away until in 1996 he lost his majority. I don't think I have ever seen a Prime Minister lose their majority during the course of one term in office.

@chrismanners9091 4 месяца назад

Jim Callaghan did, but the majority was tiny to start with, Callaghan was extremely skilful in governing without a majority.

@MarkHarrison733 Месяц назад

@@chrismanners9091 Callaghan did not have a majority.

@chrismanners9091 Месяц назад

@@MarkHarrison733 Think he had a majority of one for a bit, but yeah, Wilson had started with the majority, not Callaghan.

@jasonkingshott2971 10 дней назад

John Major?...now we're talking, one of the worst UK prime Ministers ever along with Gordon Brown and Teressa May. His disastrous 'Black Wednesday' resulting in Britain's exit from the ERM almost made the UK bankrupt, had no economic credibility. The word 'sleaze' was coined of his government and became ever synonymous with Major. He refused to give the UK electorate a referendum on the so-called Maastricht Treaty, no vote, no public consultation, no questions asked then started shipping billions to Brussels no questions asked. A figure of ridicule, a spitting image character of him and his tawdry affair with Edwina Currie, the UK public doesn't need any lessons from this clown.

@LoLzZ85 25 дней назад

Was it really necessary to censor _bastards_ ?

@chrismanners9091 4 месяца назад

Thank you for this stuff. Both the interview itself and the off the record chat are very good. Note too how he answers questions with no soundbites repeated to death. Michael Brunson clearly trusts that Major will answer and doesn't press him like Andrew Neil and Jeremy Paxman would. It works very well. Sadly if you did that with Sunak, he'd just piss about and not answer the questions.

@wilsonfisk6626 3 месяца назад

Did you threaten to overule him?

@jwillk42 2 месяца назад

The why do I keep winning everything comment, I thought he was surprised himself when he won the 1992 election.

@MarkHarrison733 Месяц назад

Smith caused Labour to lose in 1992.

@erniemccracken2429 12 дней назад

@@MarkHarrison733 You mean Kinnock?

@westminsterwatcher5152 Год назад

Decent bloke!

@stephenconway2468 Год назад

Yes. I may not have agreed with him but I felt and still do feel he is decent and capable. Boris ripped up the Tory party and allowed the ERG to take over. They are not decent and mostly not capable. As for policy, they only have ideology and no policy.

@knebworth1986 7 месяцев назад

I think it’s appalling that they broadcast someone having a private chat when they have every right to think they are talking off the record. I always liked John Major. He was just outgunned by Blair’s thin veneer of charisma

@chrismanners9091 4 месяца назад

IIRC they didn't broadcast it, but it was certainly leaked. Black Wedenesday did for Major (even if the losses from it weren't very high). The Party had been winning elections on economic confidence alone- once that went, they were just left with "they're bastards, and incompetent!"" That wasn't entirely fair on Major.

@MarkHarrison733 Месяц назад

Blair had no charisma.

@Nick-io9uk Месяц назад

@@chrismanners9091 The irony was a greater percentage of Labour MPs voted for entry into the ERM than did Tory ones. I suspect even without ERM the tories would have lost. 18 years & ever more sleaze & scandal did it for them. Even if labours first sleaze & scandal event, the ecclestone affair, was public knowledge by november of 1997. It was their time to lose. In order for the two party one regime facade to endure, we must have a change of party every 10-15 years to maintain the illusion of choice/democracy.

@chrismanners9091 Месяц назад

@@Nick-io9uk Think that "one regime" stuff is putting it too strongly. While Major was a serious man who was underrated at the time, it's easy to forget how grim lots of the public realm was. Labour did improve that. I didn't know there was a vote on the ERM. When was that?

@Nick-io9uk Месяц назад

@@chrismanners9091 I seem to recall 1987 or 88. Not sure if it was a commons vote or some kind of media straw poll of MPs. I read this long ago. The urban realm was indeed grim, but the damage of the 60s/70s (again, by both the uniparty brands) was gradually being undone by the 80s docklands etc. Sadly it seems to have progressed along american urban lines with money lavished on a small urban core surrounded by miles upon miles of decay...everywhere i look there seem to be HMOs run for profit with minimal investment, sheds in beds & a planning free for all that is increasingly turning urban areas into overpoplated slums. And as ugly as the 60s/70s developments were, they generally had good communal gardens & landscaping, whereas now it seems all urban developments directly abut roads, all for maximum profit.

@lordjohnbercow 8 месяцев назад

Well said, Sir John!

@jackwilliamsmith8734 Месяц назад

Those Eurosceptic Cabinet Ministers oughta have owned that label thrown on them by Major and wear it with pride. Imagine a Twitter bio reading like this: one of “the bastards” according to John Major 1993.

@Nick-io9uk Месяц назад

Perhaps it was 'the downing street years' or something. One of the later episodes of a documentary on The Thatcher years featured John Major recalling a conversation with Thatcher. She was upset about his stance on something, perhaps Europe, and said to him 'Why are you doing this John, its not very conservative.' To which he replied 'whoever said I was one' I recall he said she looked visibly hurt, perhaps even shedding a tear, that she had thrown her weight behind him, only to be betrayed. He was smiling in the interview as he recalled this. I simply regard Major as a proto-blair without the marketing hype. It was under Major all the Blairite revolutions begun. The Buy-to-let boom, the NHS PPPs, the student loans plans, the treating immigration as a mass economic tool, the PFI disasters. All may have been expanded under Blair, but all were initiated under Major. Major & May struck me as similar in terms of strategy. They both rose to the top of the tory party by impressing no one, but by offending no one either. Just getting to the top by being enough peoples 'second choice' On the other hand, it was May herself, not even a Labour MP, who christened the Conservatives 'The Nasty party'

@Fruzhin5483 4 дня назад

Phahahah, yeah man, the witch shedding tears...

@syedadeelhussain2691 11 месяцев назад

Sensible man.

@roscomeon3965 Год назад

Sir John Major an outstanding leader and Prime Minister. So good humored,relaxed and natural. So open with the media and civil servants.

@louisbeerreviews8964 9 месяцев назад

@roscomeon3965 2 месяца назад

@@louisbeerreviews8964 Cameron, May,Johnson, Truss,and Sunak. 😂😂😂😂😂 Time has and historians in the future will consider him a collosus .

@user3.1112 11 месяцев назад

And fined for churchill

@BossySwan 6 месяцев назад

Major mistake

@dianethibault4265 11 месяцев назад

Paul gAVIN...... JM...a nice man till you get to know him

@nudisco300 6 месяцев назад

Please expand !

@johnking5174 4 месяца назад

0:05 - Says the man who had a four year affair with Edwina Currie

@royalegamer2704 Год назад

Oh he right 😏

@GoldMario5500 3 месяца назад

Not only you have slept with Currie but you have privatisation of some railway company and causes trouble to passengers

@gaskin86 2 месяца назад

He's ppirt🎉

@roscomeon3965 11 месяцев назад

Sir John really had his finger on the pulse. He read it superbly. Probably one of the best Prime Ministers over the last 150 years . In the top 3 definitely.