Quotes By John Major
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.
John Major
You've had an extremely weak euro on the foreign exchange markets, you've had a very dubious policy being followed.
John Major
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.
John Major
The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change.
John Major
Whatever efforts for peace President Gorbachev had in mind, they were pretty substantially undercut very swiftly by Saddam Hussein.
John Major
A consensus politician is someone who does something that he doesn't believe is right because it keeps people quiet when he does it.
John Major
I think we can get respect for Parliament back providing governments and oppositions are frank.
John Major
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.
John Major
What happens when there is a conflict between the Scottish parliament, if it was established, and the Westminster parliament? Who is supreme?
John Major
My father was 64 when I was conceived, my mother 38, which was late for babies in the 1940s.
John Major
I think it's extremely unlikely that the European Union will fracture with nations dropping off the edge.
John Major
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.
John Major
'Government gets things right' does not encourage sales. 'Government makes another blunder' does encourage sales, so there's a commercial imperative that pushes sensationalism.
John Major
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.
John Major
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.
John Major
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.
John Major
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.
John Major
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.
John Major
Certainly we've seen the enormous changes across the whole of the Middle East. The democratic genie is out of the bottle.
John Major