This is the text of Prime Minister John Major’s speech to the Conservative Party conference.
Prime Minister John Major speech to Conservative Party conference.
Well I’m glad you came!
Shall I tell you what I felt when I first used to come to this conference and I sat down there, where you are at the moment? I used to sit there and I used to wait, and I used to look up at this platform up here, that great barrier that we used to have between the people who lead this party and the people out here who work for this party, and you know what it looked like to me? It looked just like the politburo at Vladivostok.
So this year we’ve decided to change, to lower that barrier and get nearer to you, the people who make the Conservative Party work up and down the country.
And there’s a message in that for all of us: we now have to get closer to the people who vote for this party, and help make this country what it is, from one end to the other.
Mr. President, the political landscape has changed in the last few years, and it’s changed again in the last few months. The language of politics is now Conservative language. With every speech and every copied aspiration, the Labour Party finally admit how wrong they’ve been for so long, and how right we have been.