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Summary The Rise of John Major
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Includes a fact file on John Major and summarises the AQA 2S History book (OXFORD), including economics, sleaze and scandals and foreign policy.
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Rise of the ‘Reluctant PrimeMinister’
Created @November 19, 2022 1:28 PM
Topic Politics
Gov and PM Conservatives Major
Type Classwork Homework
1. How responsible is John Major for the failings of his premiership?
2. Black Wednesday was Major’s greatest failure - assess
3. 1992-1997 Major’s successes outweigh his failures
Group 1: How responsible is John Major for the failings of his premiership?
- Partially repsonsible as it was outside of his control
- Sleaze scandals - hypocritical
- Economy was poor thorughout the whole of Europe not just in Britain
Overall he wasn’t really goo dor memorable, he also wasn’t the worst, he was just there.
Fact File on John Major
What was his upbringing like?
His birth had been a difficult one, with his mother suffering from pleurisy
and pneumonia and John Major requiring several blood transfusions due to an
infection, causing permanent scarring to his ankles.
The Major family lived in a middle-class area where Major's father ran a garden
ornaments business and his mother worked in a local library and as a part-time
dance teacher. John Major later described the family's circumstances at this time
as being "comfortable but not well off". After entering Rutlish, the family's fortunes
Rise of the ‘Reluctant Prime Minister’ 1
, took a turn for the worse, with his father's health deteriorating, and the business
in severe financial difficulties. A recalled business loan which the family were
unable to repay forced Tom Major to sell the house in Worcester Park in May
1955, with the family moving to a cramped, rented top-floor flat at
144 Coldharbour Lane, Brixton.
With his parents distracted by their reduced circumstances, John Major's
difficulties at Rutlish went unnoticed.
What was his educational background?
In 1954 John passed the 11+ exam, enabling him to go to Rutlish School, a
grammar school in Merton Park. Acutely conscious of his straitened
circumstances vis-à-vis the other pupils, Major was something of a loner and
consistently under-performed except in sports, coming to see the school as "a
penance to be endured". Major left school just before his 16th birthday in 1959
with just three O-level passes in History, English Language and English
Literature, to his parents' disappointment.
Major's interest in politics stems from this period, and he avidly kept up with
current affairs by reading newspapers on his long commutes from Brixton to
Wimbledon
How did John get into politics?
In 1956 Major met local MP Marcus Lipton at a local church fair and was invited
to watch his first debate in the House of Commons, where Harold
Macmillan presented his only Budget as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Major has
attributed his political ambitions to this event
What jobs did he hold and how did he rise up the ladder?
In 1959 Major had joined the Young Conservatives in Brixton and soon became a
highly active member, which helped increase his confidence following the failure
of his school days. Encouraged by fellow Conservative Derek Stone, he started
giving speeches on a soap-box in Brixton Market. According to his
biographer Anthony Seldon, Major brought "youthful exuberance" to the Tories in
Brixton, but was sometimes in trouble with the professional agent Marion
Standing
Though a Labour stronghold, the Conservatives received a huge boost
following Enoch Powell's anti-immigration 'Rivers of Blood speech' in April 1968
Rise of the ‘Reluctant Prime Minister’ 2
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