page_title: John Major
section_title: 1997 general election defeat
hierarchical_section_title: John Major / Prime Minister (1990–1997) / Domestic / 1997 general election defeat
context_page_description: Sir John Major KG CH is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. Major was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Foreign Secretary and then Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Thatcher Government from 1987 to 1990, and was Member of Parliament for Huntingdon from 1979 until his retirement in 2001. Since the death of Margaret Thatcher in 2013 he has been both the oldest and earliest-serving of all living former prime ministers.
  Born in St Helier, London, Major grew up in the South London suburbs of Worcester Park and later Brixton, a move necessitated by his family's worsening financial situation. Leaving school in 1959 with just three O-levels, Major worked in a variety of jobs, as well as enduring a period of unemployment, before eventually establishing a career in banking at Standard Bank. However Major's ambitions lay in politics, and after a period as a Councillor at Lambeth Council, he was elected to the House of Commons at the 1979 general election as MP for Huntingdon. He served as a Parliamentary Private Secretary, Assistant Whip and as a Minister for Social Security.
context_section_description: There was a brief boost in Major's fortunes following his victory in the self-declared leadership contest in 1995, however this did not last, and his premiership continued to be undermined by Conservative MPs defecting to other parties, further by-election defeats, ongoing 'sleaze'-related scandals and party disunity, most notably over Europe. By December 1996 the Conservatives had lost their majority in the House of Commons. Meanwhile, the Labour Party, re-branded as 'New Labour' by its new leader Tony Blair (John Smith having suddenly died in May 1994), seemed vibrant and fresh; having shifted decisively to the political centre (notably with the jettisoning of Clause Four of the party constitution, which committed them to common ownership of industry), it seemed a much more appealing prospect to many floating voters. Labour remained far ahead in the opinion polls as the general election loomed, despite the economic boom and swift fall in unemployment that had followed the end of the early 1990s recession (later dubbed a 'voteless recovery' for the Tories).
  Major faced 1997 knowing that he would have to call an election at some point before May. He considered conducting an early election in March, but decided against it following a Conservative defeat at a by-election in Wirral in February. On 17 March Major announced that the election would be held on 1 May, hoping that a long campaign would enable him to benefit from the continuing economic recovery and expose 'New Labour' as a shallow marketing gimmick, via the slogan 'New Labour, New Danger'. However, Major refused to conduct a 'dirty campaign', only reluctantly green-lighting the infamous Blair 'demon eyes' poster, and vetoing the use of a similar TV advert showing Blair making a Faustian-style pact with a shadowy spin doctor.
  In his memoirs Major admitted that he knew the election was a lost cause from the outset: "people believed Labour were bound to win before the campaign even started. They were right." Major stated that the public were tired of 'sleaze' and Conservative Party bickering over Europe, and after the fourth consecutive Conservative election victory in 1992 even he thought that they had perhaps "stretched the democratic elastic too far." His main hope was that Labour's margin of victory could be kept relatively small, enabling the Conservatives to regroup and fight to win the next election. The hope proved to be forlorn, with support for the Conservatives being further eroded by the fielding of several candidates by the Referendum Party, founded by billionaire James Goldsmith on a platform of leaving the EU. The 'cash-for questions' scandal continued to focus unwelcome attention on Tory 'sleaze' (focused especially on Neil Hamilton, who to Major's annoyance refused to resign and continued to fight the election), with the opposition accusing Major of proroguing Parliament earlier than usual so as to delay the publication of a report into the scandal. There was also only lukewarm support for Major from the Tory press, with The Sun famously switching its support to Labour.
  Major launched the Conservative manifesto on 2 April (entitled 'You Can Only be Sure with the Conservatives'), which lauded the performance of the economy, and proposed tax benefits for married couples, pensions reform and a referendum on the Euro. The latter proved particular divisive, with many Conservative candidates publicly condemning Major's 'wait and see' policy on the single currency, prompting him to implore them not to "bind my hands when I am negotiating on behalf of the British nation." Major also brought back his soapbox, hoping to recapture some of the spirit of the 1992 campaign, though with little success. Labour meanwhile ran a much slicker professional campaign, with a highly organised media team under Alastair Campbell ensuring that all its candidates were consistently on message. An electoral pact with the Liberal Democrats in parts of the country further aided their cause.
  As the results came in after the vote on 1 May 1997, it became clear that Labour had won by
caption: Tony Blair leader of the Labour Party, beat Major in the 1997 election.
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