• This Conservative Government ~ Whither The Future?

• Sir John Major KG CH PC;

• Sir John Major KG CH PC a successful UK Prime Minister up Close.

According to Conservative Party political pundits who believe they are God’s greatest gift to Man they can quite easily run up an endless list of the most hopeless Conservative party leader since its inception in 1760.

The individual analysis usually ending with the word “Useless”.

Well certainly Johnson and his marionette master Sir George Iain Duncan Smith M.P. hit the nail right on the head with this present shambolic, not to say criminal generation, of current  government politicians.

The consequences of which, for democratic government, individual Cabinet Ministers, and the Judiciary,  the Bugler will examine in detail later in Current Affairs.

As a collective the Conservatives are about as unforgiving a bunch of party hacks as one is likely to meet in England when, as they see it,  it comes to political failure  conveniently forgetting that it was they who elected their ‘leader’ in the first place.

So much for their judgement or greed for power.

The Bugler’s forced introduction to politics came at a very early age because when the mighty Big Ben gonged at 18:00hrs on the BBC ‘wireless’ the silence of the tomb was imposed at the fireside and thus the Bugler daily imbibed the local and world ‘News’, like it or not.

The first childhood recollections in 1948 were of course just post WWII reinforced in 1949 (aged 6) with repetitive visits to the endless war graves mostly of WWI  Western Front vintage and of course the recent D-Day landing beaches. The climbing on the Mulberry caissons, up through the shell case and barbed wire strewn sand dunes into the quite extraordinarily huge concrete gun emplacements the interiors of which were covered in black cordite soot.

Their ominous presence proof of Hitler’s great Atlantic Wall which ran endlessly all the way from France into central Denmark.

In 1955 the Bugler was in Switzerland up close when the first ‘Big Four’ conference was held and recollects seeing the red starred aircraft of the Soviet Air Force for the first time.

All this was his Father’s great plan for his children not just his annual escape to adventure in his very modern home designed and built caravan drawn by its Austin 12 HP car journeying annually all over post war Europe  but our inculcation as future European Citizens was continuous to which the Bugler remains an adherent  of today.

Meantime, the ‘Wireless’ spewed out Kenya’s Kamau Ngengi otherwise known as Jomo Kenyatta  his Kik Kuyu and Mau Mau patriots/terrorists; Singapore and the rubber plantation wars;  EOKA and Archbishop Makarios; Aden and its ‘insurgency’ against British Rule as this British Empire like many another slowly and rather bloodily collapsed into corrupt history.

Of course as many English Kings and Queens will verify all their governing politicians came and regularly went. They still do, with a great sense of relief it has to be said. The optimistic thought always being perhaps the next ‘Leader’ might be better or at least distinctive by being pragmatically capable?

On the international political stage the US Presidents equally came and went until with the passing of time John F. Kennedy arrived.

A man of the Bugler’s preceding generation who was a WWII US Navy Veteran. Someone who uniquely captured and captivated the hearts and mind of the youth of the World. A visionary who spoke with passion about how the World should be and the standards of decency and goals it should set for itself.

In a series of famous visionary speeches, which the Bugler still retains, include Kennedy’s condemnation of racism and its anathema for normal human beings; the steel industry’s greed.

Kennedy faced down Nikita Khrushchev over Cuba when the World held its breath and stared nuclear war and oblivion in the face with his political life effectively concluding with his famous and inspiring ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ speech in defense of Democracy and Freedom at the Berlin Wall.

Today there is an awful resonance of this historical moment with Putin and Ukraine’s 15,000+ innocent dead.

The facing down of Putin  must be achieved once more without War but where is the mighty United Kingdom and its influential ‘Leader’ in all this?

Literally shamefully laughed out of the Kremlin through the Spasskaya Clock Tower onto Красная площадь (Krasnaya Ploshed ~ Red Square) where the Bugler and his Lancashire Firefighters passed through regularly on rescue missions at least doing so with pride and integrity.

British political history seems to have stopped at the Churchill era which might not be what it seems to be as historians unpeel the onion of fact and Johnson dare not.

Ask the Australians about Gallipoli and Churchill and the Poles about Churchill returning them to servitude under the Soviets? They have a distinctly differing opinion.

Currently the Conservative Party have unique problems generated within the Party and presented to themselves.

The first problem is that the government is controlled by an unimaginative Duncan Smith with his putsch group of carefully chosen Freemasons who are equally unimaginative and frankly talentless and incapable of running a wheelbarrow never mind a nation.

Statemanship is clearly not in their Lexicon nor their heads and one wonders about their expensive exclusive education at the Etons, Harrows, and Oxford.

What did they actually learn?

The second unparalleled problem is that it turns out, for all the world to see, is that their Party Leader confirms his tendency to common thuggery in his earlier days and then turns out to be just an ‘ordinary’ criminal who lies habitually with engaging but unimaginative mendacity to Parliament.

Smith presupposed that he would be able to manipulate and control his loose cannon Johnson when he got him into power but power corrupts the corruptible and Smith is stuck simply because he is not the Prime Minister and Johnson is and thus he has no power over him disregarding the fact that he thought he had Freemason support and leverage neither of which he now possesses after this gross embarrassing debacle.

So the decision having been made that Johnson is to be ejected (Remember Thatcher?) who is to replace him?

Where is the critically needed necessary person to be found with an innate sense of Statesmanship, quiet dignified patriotism, common decency, and above all transparent integrity, warts and all?

This is not only a self-selecting destiny but a self-fulfilling prophecy but the capable and politically experienced intellectual cupboard is bare, or is it?

A glance at the current horse flesh is utterly uninspiring but what of the ‘Old Guard’?

Perhaps the Bugler more in hope than aspiration writes the by now rhetorical question…

“Cometh the Hour Cometh the Man” ?

Perversely the Conservative Party chooses to ignore, to denigrate, and be dismissive of those of their Party who are not one of ‘them’; as PM May put it the Nazty Party, but the acualite is that they did achieve greatness but achieved it in a particularly dignified patriotic, modest, and self-effacing manner with a sound underlying sense of good humour which is the English way.

A glance by the Bugler at English leaders throughout a catholic lifetime of political interest produces only one of noteworthy distinction but which the Conservative Party chooses in its well-practiced insidious smearing way to whitewash out of its history book disdainfully labeling him as the ‘Grey Man’, Rt Hon Sir John Major KG CH PC ; just a few months older than the Bugler.

His way was the different way.

A less appealing way to the right and left wing flag waving warlike jingoists who never actually go to war, choosing not to put themselves on-the-line.  Johnson and Smith are the epitome of this but Sir John Major’s achievements speak quietly and patriotically for themselves.

Thankfully History is the final arbiter, not the Tory Party.

It has been said that a politician is someone who sends your children to war but never their own…

SirJohn Major chose never to take his country or its children to war.

SirJohn Major was, and remains in Conservative true blue eyes, unforgivably ‘ordinary’.

He came from an ‘ordinary’ decent family in the back streets of London. He went to an ‘ordinary’ school , not Eton, Harrow or the like. He climbed through his own unaided efforts from the back streets of his youth to the pinnacle of his ambitions rising to successfully politically command his Nation for two economically successful terms of office over 7 years.

All that took great fortitude and determination and yet these inbred ‘silver spoons’ carp and criticise with their warped childish self-serving, selfish vision, of the real world, when the reality is that they could not achieve what Sir John Major achieved so they fester on, consumed by envy and thwarted ambition, because in more reality they had not the personal ability nor intellectual  drive to fulfill their own feeble ambitions. Johnson and Smith fall into that category.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is a highly accomplished and shrewd Sovereign knows her Prime Ministers and most particularly knows them as real people, ordinary people, with all the fallibilities each of them possesses.

At the end of this, one hopes, first phase of his political life, as a mark of personal esteem Her Majesty awarded John Major one of only 24 Knighthoods of the Garter, hers alone to gift. The mark of a Decent Man.

The Irish have a special place in their Heart for Sir John Major.
With outstanding courage and against all the odds he brought the greatest gift mankind could bring to any land, Not War but Peace, to the Island of Ireland ~ with the edict of the ‘Comhaontú Bhéal Feirste’ The Belfast Agreement.

He it was who took the first step initiative to encourage and approve a dialogue with all the warring factions to end the blood running down the streets of Ulster.

Once more in semper fidelis he was awarded by his Sovereign the ‘Companion of Honour’. It bears the words “IN ACTION FAITHFUL AND IN HONOUR CLEAR”.

Recently Sir John made a speech at the Institute of Government before an invited audience and Nation. The subject was ‘In Democracy We Trust’.

This Speech ranks a place in the Pantheon of Democracy alongside the speeches of President John F Kennedy and President Abe Lincoln.

He delivers with patriotic passion built on a bedrock of ‘ordinary’ decency about the decline in standards in political life in a country he clearly and dearly loves.

As ever Sir John delivered an historic speech carefully crafted by himself and his accomplished speech writer Jill Rutter which she comments upon with feed back after the speech to be found at https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/john-major-standards#comment-5948

 Ladies are allowed just a little bias…

And what might the ‘ordinary’ man on the Clapham Omnibus think of Sir John Major, A Prime Minister Up Close, when he evaluates him after these videos?

• Was he fair minded?

• Tough when he needed to be tough?

• Had he a clear understanding of his ‘ordinary’ fellow man’s struggling lives ?

• Had he sufficient detailed  knowledge of politics and diplomacy to form considered opinions?

• Did he honour his word when he gave it ?

If this was so then this is indeed an ‘ordinary’ honourable Decent Man.

Sir John Major continues to be just a decent ‘ordinary’ person carrying the burdens of his family life like us all with a sense of loving duty to them and his country.

It is not an ill measure of the Man that he chose to remain outside the House of His Peers because as he may see it modestly he has a clear duty to his Nation, perhaps as yet unfulfilled, and his moment may well come for a second time to serve it well.

Perhaps that moment has come?

Perhaps in its hour of greatest peril he might be persuaded to saddle up his old warhorse and ride to the rescue because right now his distressed Nation sorely needs his knightly virtues.

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The Bugler presents the video of his Speech  in two Parts.
Part A  is the actual speech which is followed by Part B, in an open Q&A Forum, which provides a further fascinating insight into this ‘ordinary’ man who went quietly and  of his experience as a Prime Minister …

The Speech is also available in PDF format for those wishing to download and reflect on its contents a la ‘book at bedtime’ and what it is Sir John is passionately, thoughtfully, and patriotically saying…

All three elements in addition will of course be available in the TMB General Correspondence Library Section 2022 for download, but in the meantime;

For Video Part ‘A’ Go Here.

For Video Part ‘B’ Go Here.

For a Transcript of the Speech in Full, © Copyright Major/ Rutter ~ Courtesy of the Institute for Government. Go Here.