Amol Rajan Interviews: John Major, review: the former prime minister is given space to let rip
John Major is not a man who riles easily. But a mention of the B-word put some colour in the cheeks of the famously grey man from Spitting Image, who’d previously been chatting quite congenially with interviewer Amol Rajan, as he spelled out exactly what he considers the impact of Brexit has been on Britain.
“I don’t think it’s done anything good,” he began with customary understatement before giving it both barrels. “It’s the most divisive thing that’s happened in my lifetime. It was meant to be milk and honey straight away. And it’s not milk and honey. We’re weaker, poorer… we are isolated and outside.”
So how did he think it happened? “There was a misappropriation of reality,” proffered Major, remembering his politician speak. “Lies?” offered Rajan. “That’s another way of putting it.”
This was the one moment when this latest instalment in the Amol Rajan Interviews (BBC Two) franchise truly flickered to life, with Rajan attempting – a touch unconvincingly – to play Devil’s advocate as he lit a fire under Major that is not often seen.
Major has undoubtedly found, rather like Tony Blair, the Labour leader who unseated him, that it’s tricky to find a niche as an ex-Prime Minister. But it’s now, with his party attempting to rebuild following a crushing election defeat, that he clearly feels his voice needs to be heard.
Still, you don’t spend a lifetime in politics without knowing how to slither round the sides of a question, and Major adroitly sidestepped inquiries about who he’d be backing to be the next Tory leader or what damage he thought Partygate had done to his party: “I’m not getting into individuals.”
It’s in moments like those when you wish that Rajan would, in the politest way possible, grow a pair. For while his soft interviewing technique, with its chummy nods of agreement and seemingly pre-agreed list of questions, puts people at ease, you’re left urging him to go for the jugular – or at least press a point home.
So rather than feel like this was John Major being interviewed, this was John Major being allowed to expound his views across a comprehensive range of current issues. An avowed opponent of the Rwanda scheme – which he views as “un-British” and “un-Christian” – he drew on his experience growing up in post-war south London, home to many migrants freshly arrived from the Caribbean, to press his point.
“I dislike intensely the way society has come to regard immigration as an ill, I don’t agree with that.” What the cricket-crazy young John Major saw, growing up in two Brixton rooms with a brother parked in a shed out back, was people trying to build a brighter future for their families. “Wouldn’t you do that for your family?” he asked Rajan, but it was a rhetorical query, aimed at the audience.
It left you pondering that if Major was in the running for the Conservative leadership in 2024, would he stand a chance?
Amol Rajan Interviews: John Major is on BBC Two at 7pm tonight, and is available on iPlayer now