Date formed 10 April 1992 Head of government John Major Member party Conservative Party | Date dissolved 2 May 1997 Head of state Queen Elizabeth II | |
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Deputy head of government Michael Heseltine (1995–97) | ||
John Major formed the Second Major ministry following the 1992 general election.
Contents
Formation
The change of leader from Margaret Thatcher to John Major saw a dramatic turnaround in Tory support, with the double-digit Labour lead in the opinion polls being replaced by a narrow Tory one by the turn of 1991. Although a general election did not have to be held until June 1992, Labour leader Neil Kinnock kept pressurising Major to hold an election during 1991, but Major resisted the calls and there was no general election that year.
The recession which began in the autumn of 1990 deepened during 1991, with unemployment standing at nearly 2.5million by December 1991, compared to 1.6million just 18 months earlier. Despite this, Tory support in the opinion polls remained relatively strong, with any Labour lead now being by the narrowest of margins, although Labour still made some gains at the expense of the Tories in local elections, and seized the Monmouth seat from the Tories in a by-election.
Major finally called an election for 9 April 1992. Most pollsters suggested a hung parliament or a narrow Labour majority, but in the event the election produced a Tory win. The Tories had their majority reduced to 21 (they had held a 102-seat majority at the election five years earlier) but attracted a record mandate of more than 14 million votes. Neil Kinnock then resigned as leader of the Labour Party, a position he had held for nearly a decade.
There was widespread media and public debate as to whether the Labour Party could ever win a general election again, as they had failed to do so in 1992, despite the Conservative government having been in power for over a decade and presiding over a recession for the second time. At the same time, there was much private debate (made public many years later in the memoirs of senior figures including John Major himself) within the Conservative government as to whether a fifth successive general election victory was a realistic possibility.
The new term of parliament saw Major gain a new opponent in John Smith, who succeeded Neil Kinnock as Labour leader.
However, the months which followed the 1992 general election saw a series of events which went a long way towards deciding the outcome of the next general election long before it was even on the political horizon.
Fate
On 16 September 1992 the pound sterling crashed out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism after Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont had invested heavily in trying to keep it there, adjusting interest rates four times in one day as a desperate measure, an event which became known as Black Wednesday, leaving the Tory government's reputation for economic excellence in tatters. Labour was soon ascendant in the opinion polls, and next few years brought a string of heavy defeats for the Tories in local council elections and parliamentary by-elections, with both Labour and the Liberal Democrats benefiting at their expense.
Tory feuding on Europe and the government defeat on the Maastricht Treaty further dented the government's popularity, as did coal mine closures announce in late 1992, and a series of scandals involving MP's.
The end of the recession was declared in April 1993 after nearly three years, and unemployment – which had peaked at nearly 3 million by the end of 1992 – quickly began to fall. It had fallen below 2,500,000 within two years of the recession's end, and by the end of 1996 it was below 2 million. Freed from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, the British economy outperformed the rest of the continent for the first time in a generation.
However, the strong economic recovery failed to make much difference to the dismal Tory showing in the opinion polls. Labour leader John Smith died of a heart attack in May 1994 and was succeeded by Tony Blair, who continued the modernisation process of the party which began under Smith's predecessor Neil Kinnock, and by the end of that year the opinion polls were showing Labour support as high as 60% – putting them more than 30 points ahead of the Tories.
With the Tory government remaining divide on Europe and much more, John Major announced his resignation as party leader - but not as prime minister - in June 1995, triggering a leadership election. He was opposed by John Redwood, the Secretary of State for Wales, and won the leadership election.
The 21-seat Tory majority was gradually eroded by a string of by-election defeats as well as the defection of one MP to Labour, and by the turn of 1997 they were without a Commons majority.
John Major left it until the last possible moment before calling a general election, finally holding it on 1 May 1997. He pinned his hopes of election success on a six-week campaign exposing New Labour's policies to scrutiny, as well as pointing towards a booming economy and falling unemployment. However, as the Tories had denied responsibility for the recession at the turn of the decade, few voters were willing to give them credit for the economic recovery, and Labour returned to power after 18 years with a 179-seat majority that saw several leading Tory MP's (most notably Michael Portillo, widely tipped to be the next Tory leader) lose their seats and leave them without any MP's in Wales or Scotland. The Conservatives suffered their worst general election result of the 20th century and their place in government was taken by Labour, led by Tony Blair, after 18 years and four successive parliamentary terms of Conservative government.
The Conservatives did not return to government until 2010, and did not win a parliamentary majority until 2015, having had to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in order to form their first government under David Cameron.
April 1992 to May 1993
Also attending Cabinet:
Changes
May 1993 to July 1994
Also attending Cabinet:
July 1994 to July 1995
Also attending Cabinet:
July 1995 to May 1997
Also attending Cabinet:
List of Ministers
Members of the Cabinet are in bold face.