John Major

British politician and Conservative Prime Minister. Major began his Prime Minister term as Margaret Thatcher's hand-picked successor in the Tory party. Under his leadership, Britain stumbled into an economic recession, poll-tax hostilities, sexual and political scandals within the Tory party, difficulties with the European Community, and the Persian gulf crisis. Unpopular since his election in 1992, his approval ratings hovered below 20 percent for almost five years. While the British economy began to improve in 1997, British voters handed his Labor Party opponent a landslide victory in the general elections on 5/01/1997 ushering in the Labor party and Tony Blair into Parliament. Major grew up by humble standards in the working-class neighborhood of Brixton, England. His dad was a circus trapeze artist, but later owned a business in which he manufactured lawn ornaments; he was 66 when John was born. His dad's business failed and the family was forced to move to a three-room flat. John dropped out of school at the age of 16 to help out the family, working various manual labor jobs; he never finished high school. At 19, he spent eight months on public welfare. He failed to secure a job as a bus conductor because he could not make change. In 1965, he landed a stable position with Standard Chartered Bank and soon rose rapidly in the ranks. In 1968, he entered politics by winning a local London election. In 1979, Major won a Conservative seat for Huntingdonshire in Parliament the same year that Margaret Thatcher was swept into power as Conservative Prime Minister. Major caught Thatcher's political eye after he challenged some of her policy issues at a working dinner in 1983. Thatcher recognized Major's sharp intelligence, complexity, dedication and drive for the Tory party. In 1987, Major became the Treasury chief secretary. When her Tory party wanted to replace the Iron Lady, she resigned on 11/22/1990 and chose her loyal protégé, Major, to lead the party. He ran against Michael Heseltine and Douglas Hurd for the Tory leadership and won. At the time, he was the youngest Prime Minister in the century until Tony Blair took the title in 1997. Never popular with the British electorate he fought off successive challenges to his authority and won a startling victory in 1995 against Labor party leader Neil Kinnock in the general elections. Major resigned as head of the Conservative party in 1997 after his party suffered its worst finish since 1832 ending 18 years of Tory party rule. Before the general election, the Conservatives held 323 seats, after 5/01/1997 the Conservatives seat number went down to 165 seats. Major married his wife, Norma in 1970. The couple had two children, a daughter, Elizabeth born in 1972 and a son, James. The couple lived at the Prime Minister's official residence, 10 Downing Street and their family residence in Cambridgeshire. In 1993, rumors about a possible relationship with a caterer and unhappiness on the marriage front dogged John Major. He decided to sue the two magazines Society and the New Statesman for publishing the rumors. Link to Wikipedia biography