Politicians should follow John Major’s example and get a soapbox
All the parties have been slow to bring out their big beasts in this campaign. Where’s Heseltine? Where’s Mandelson? Where’s Gordon Brown? Well, today we get a glimpse of John Major, speaking in the West Midlands.
Sir John will probably go down as the Tory leader who led his party to their worst ever defeat, in 1997. But it should also be remembered that he also led them to one of their most unexpected and substantial victories. In 1992, he only won by 21 seats, but that failed to reflect his decisive seven per cent margin over Labour. And the 14 million votes the Conservatives got in 1992 were the highest achieved by any British party. In history. Ever.
Halfway through the 1992 campaign John Major decided to abandon his previous methods, and return to the street-fighting style he’d learned as a young man in south London, where on Saturdays he’d regularly harangued shoppers from a soap-box near Brixton Market.
