John Major’s term in office saw few successes. Rowe explains that “between Black Wednesday and the 1997 election, Major suffered a slow political death”, however the extent to which this was of Major’s own doing is questionable. The effects of a suffering economy, internal divisions within the Conservative Party and questions over Europe meant that Major had his ‘hands full’ throughout his time in office and as a result he didn’t manage to push through many successful, or popular, bills. By the time Major became Prime Minister, Britain had begun to hit a huge recession which saw inflation rise to 10.9% in 1990. This recession followed the ‘Lawson Boom’ of the late 1980s whereby Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, pushed through the 1988 …show more content…
Joining the ERM was, arguably, Major’s first poor decision. The agreement of the ERM was that the £ wouldn’t fall below a certain level (a semi-fixed exchange rate). By September 1992, the £’s value had come under pressure and was struggling to stay above the agreed level. As a result Major feared that the £ would be devalued. To avoid this, the government conducted a wave of speculative selling of the £, increasing interest rates to keep competition high: this became known as ‘Black Wednesday’. These attempts were however, unsuccessful. Major was forced to withdraw from the ERM. In the short term the Conservative Party suffered greatly; receiving fierce criticism from opposition leaders and the press. Unsurprisingly the hostility from the press was followed by an enormous drop in support for the Conservatives in opinion polls. These economic difficulties were described as the “beginning of the end” by Major himself when he looked back on his term in office. Historians also agree that Black Wednesday was the spark for Major’s fall. Major’s difficulties, however, were arguably, no fault of his own. The economic recession of