The Reunion

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Factual: Life Stories

Series which reunites a group of people intimately involved in a moment of modern history

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The Reunion: The Final Years of John Major's Government

The Final Years of John Major's Government

BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion, The Final Years of John Major's Government

Senior politicians relive the final years of John Major’s government.

Senior politicians relive the gruelling final years of John Major’s government when rows over Europe and sleaze threatened to split the party in two.

Bitter divisions over Europe, inflation, mad cow disease and sleaze – the final years of John Major’s government were one long disaster. Kirsty Wark reunites key figures who were in the thick of it to discuss what went wrong and whether Major could have done more to end the civil war within his party. 

The man who had unexpectedly won the 1992 General Election spent much of the rest of that term trying to contain Eurosceptic antipathy, in and outside of the party. The largely loyal press had become increasingly hostile and exposes on the private lives of MPs and financial misdemeanours dominated the front pages. 

By 1997, the Conservatives were a minority government and even the PM didn’t expect victory in the General Election, but the scale of their defeat by New Labour was crushing.  

The guests include Kenneth Clarke, now Lord Clarke, who was made Chancellor of the Exchequer seven months after Black Wednesday and was the party’s most prominent Europhile. John Redwood, an arch Eurosceptic, says standing against John Major in the 1995 leadership contest saved the pound. Elinor Goodman was Channel 4's political editor and compares the troubled times of the late 1990s with today's Conservative Government. And Howell James was the Prime Minister’s Political Secretary, being called upon to write speeches and advise on crucial decisions. He remembers driving through London with John Major and his family on the night of the 1997 election with “Things Can Only Get Better”, Labour’s campaign anthem, ringing out across the River Thames.  


Producer: Karen Pirie
Series Producer: David Prest 
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4

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