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John Major [1943-0] British

Rank: 104
Politician, Former British Prime Minister

Sir John Major, KG, CH, PC is a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997.

Politics, War, Change, Family, Intelligence, Moving On, Patience, Respect

Quote	Tags	Rank
When the euro was born, it was born in the wrong economic circumstances.		101
It is time to return to core values, time to get back to basics, to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for the others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family - and not shuffling it off on other people and the state.	Family, Respect	102
Of course there are regrets. I shall regret always that I found my own authentic voice in politics. I was too conservative, too conventional. Too safe, too often. Too defensive. Too reactive. Later, too often on the back foot.	Politics	103
The first requirement of politics is not intellect or stamina but patience. Politics is a very long run game and the tortoise will usually beat the hare.	Patience, Politics	104
The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change.	Change, War	105
Recovery begins from the darkest moment.	Moving On	106
I think the majority of the British people are still sanguine about the need for war.	War	107
Well, I think there's a distinction between sexing-up the intelligence and sexing-up the presentation of the intelligence.	Intelligence	108
Life is full of surprises.		109
I have a huge admiration for the House of Lords, I have a huge admiration for the people who work in the House of Lords, they're great public servants and they do an absolutely tremendous job.		110
I think the biggest mistake I made was this wretched ability to see both sides of an argument.		111
I inherited a sick economy and passed on a sound one. But one abiding regret for me is that, in between, I did not have the resources to put in place the educational and social changes about which I cared to much; I made only a beginning, and it was not enough.		112
The politician who never made a mistake never made a decision.		113
A consensus politician is someone who does something that he doesn't believe is right because it keeps people quiet when he does it.		114
Well, I have concerns about the effectiveness of Europe to compete.		115
'Government gets things right' does not encourage sales. 'Government makes another blunder' does encourage sales, so there's a commercial imperative that pushes sensationalism.		116
The sight of allegedly sophisticated politicians parroting complete tripe trivialises and demeans government and it has to be stopped. It's played a significant part in public disillusionment with politics and has led to the absurd situation where more people vote for 'Strictly Come Dancing' than voted in the general election.	Politics	117
Whether you agree with me or disagree with me; like me or loathe me, don't bind my hands when I am negotiating on behalf of the British nation.		118
If we want to deliver opportunity for all, we need an economy that delivers jobs for the future.		119
I don't think nations can stand aside for ethnic cleansing and genocide.		120
Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less.		121
Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be too clever by half. The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.		122
There are more myths about Black Wednesday than the Greeks ever created.		123
If you look at things that really affect people's lives - sport, the arts, charities - they were always at the back of the queue for government money - health, social security, defence, pensions were all way ahead. And each of those areas - sports, the arts, the lottery - got relatively petty cash from the government.		124
Certainly we've seen the enormous changes across the whole of the Middle East. The democratic genie is out of the bottle.		125
Well British troops are superb in the field in terms of conflict.		126
The British don't runaway from terrorism. We have had 30-odd years of terrorism in our own country from the Irish Republican Army. We're used to it.		201
I think we can get respect for Parliament back providing governments and oppositions are frank.		202
You don't forget crises and neither does the Queen.		203
Too many people looked to me in the eye and did not tell me the truth.		204
Disunity costs votes.		205
I think it's extremely unlikely that the European Union will fracture with nations dropping off the edge.		206
Well what would happen is that if Greece defaulted and couldn't pay its debts, all the Greek bonds that are held in other banking systems across Western Europe would suddenly have no value. You could as a knock-on effect create a banking crisis in Western Europe.		207
I'm very proud of what my parents achieved and what they stood for. They didn't have much, but in many ways they were richer than most.		208
I thought I could do something different from any Conservative prime minister before me. But I couldn't.		209
I'm not about to write my memoirs. Not for a long time.		210
In housing in the fifties in Britain and the sixties, we pulled down the terraces - destroyed whole communities and replaced them with tower blocks and we built walkways that became rat-runs for muggers. That was the fashionable opinion. But it was wrong.		211
Let's turn British inventions into British industries, British factories and British jobs. Let them make pounds for us, not dollars marks or yen for others.		212
What happens when there is a conflict between the Scottish parliament, if it was established, and the Westminster parliament? Who is supreme?		213
September the 11th was a huge shock in the United States. It was the first time you had been hit at home in your own territory by terrorist on this scale.		214
I mean if you have ever found a politician who says, 'No, no, I would do everything exactly as I did,' then you can tell when he is lying because his lips are moving.		215
I don't have a shred of regret about entering the exchange-rate mechanism.		216
Ronnie Barker will forever be remembered as one of the great comic actors.		217
I don't think it's the role of the prime minister to court the press.		218
You've had an extremely weak euro on the foreign exchange markets, you've had a very dubious policy being followed.		219
I have been reading the press more regularly than others over 50 years and it seems to me that there are things that have changed in the press that have changed its character.		220
I like the best of the British press. The best of the British press is very good.		221
My father was 64 when I was conceived, my mother 38, which was late for babies in the 1940s.		222
If you look back historically, admittedly a long time ago, there were three Afghan wars in which Britain didn't even come a good second. In more recent years the Russians were there with 120,000 men for ten years.		223
When I was in office the fundraising was done by the party treasurers.		224
My mother was the center of the family.		225
I want Britain to punch its weight in the European Community.		226
Whatever efforts for peace President Gorbachev had in mind, they were pretty substantially undercut very swiftly by Saddam Hussein.		301

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