“Caring” John Major : portrait of a Thatcherite as a One-Nation Tory
When John Major came to office, the Conservatives had already been in power for eleven years and the new Prime Minister tried to strike a balance between continuity (building on the Thatcherite legacy) and change (with a return to the rhetoric of “One-Nation Toryism”). His attitude and choices were...
Kaydedildi:
| Yayımlandı: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/osb, |
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| Yazar: | |
| Materyal Türü: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Dil: | Anglais |
| Baskı/Yayın Bilgisi: |
Observatoire de la société britannique
2011
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| Konular: | |
| Online Erişim: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Özet: | When John Major came to office, the Conservatives had already been in power for eleven years and the new Prime Minister tried to strike a balance between continuity (building on the Thatcherite legacy) and change (with a return to the rhetoric of “One-Nation Toryism”). His attitude and choices were partly influenced by the context, for he stood at the helm of both a party and a government sailing in a sea of challenges : Gulf War, economic crisis, splits over Europe, sleaze scandals, rise of New Labour and setting up of Eurosceptic parties, etc. In this context, the Conservatives’ communication strategy focused on John Major’s conciliatory figure and on the “caring” Conservatism he was supposed to incarnate. This article examines the relationship between the Conservative Party’s ideological positioning and the image it tried to project through the various speeches delivered by John Major. It also analyses how John Major’s persona was created and how he constructed a first-person narrative : that of the Brixton kid who would be Prime Minister. |
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