John Major, English banker and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon, formerly Huntingdonshire, from 1979 to 2001. Prior to becoming Prime Minister, Major served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the third Thatcher government.

Major was born in St Helier, London. He left school in 1959 with three O-levels, worked a variety of jobs and endured a period of unemployment, later establishing a career at Standard Bank. He was elected as a Conservative councillor on Lambeth London Borough Council, and later became an MP at the 1979 general election, when the Conservative Party returned to government with leader Margaret Thatcher becoming Prime Minister. He held several junior government positions in the early years of Thatcher's government, including Parliamentary Private Secretary and assistant whip. After the 1987 election, he was promoted to the Cabinet by Thatcher, becoming Chief Secretary to the Treasury. He was later promoted to become Foreign Secretary in July 1989, and again promoted three months later to become Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In November 1990, Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister following a challenge to her leadership. Major entered the second stage of the contest to replace her and emerged victorious, becoming Prime Minister on 28 November 1990. Major went on to lead the Conservative Party to a fourth consecutive electoral victory at the 1992 election, winning over 14 million votes, which remains to this day a record for any British political party.

As Prime Minister; Major created the Citizen's Charter, removed Poll Tax and replaced it with Council Tax, committed British troops to the Gulf War, took charge of the UK's negotiations over the Maastricht Treaty of the EU, led the country during the early 1990s economic crisis, withdrew the pound from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (a day which came to be known as Black Wednesday), promoted the socially conservative back to basics campaign, passed further reforms to education and criminal justice, privatised the railways and coal industry, and took steps to encourage peace in Northern Ireland.

Internal Conservative Party divides on the EU, a number of scandals involving Conservative MPs (widely known as "sleaze"), and questions about his economic credibility are seen as the main factors that led Major to resign as party leader in June 1995. However, he sought reelection as Conservative leader, and was comfortably re-elected. Notwithstanding, public opinion of his leadership was poor both, before and after. By December 1996, the Government had lost its majority in the House of Commons due to a series of by-election defeats and an MP crossing the floor. At the 1997 election, the Labour Party inflicted one of the largest electoral defeats upon the Conservative Party, resulting in a Labour government ending 18 years of Conservative rule. John Major subsequently resigned as Conservative Leader, and was succeeded by William Hague. Retiring as an MP in 2001, Major has since pursued interests in business and charity, while seldomly making political interventions.