Steve Richards: Brown should remember the forgotten man of British politics - and follow his advice

While an avalanche of articles commemorates 10 years of Labour, a related anniversary is ignored. A decade has passed since John Major fell from power.

These days Major rarely reflects on politics in public, but earlier this week he took part in an illuminating conversation with Channel 4's former political editor, Elinor Goodman, at a packed meeting at the LSE. The exchange was witty, revelatory and unexpectedly relevant to the current political situation. Gordon Brown should have been in disguise in the audience taking copious notes.

When Brown's enemies want to torment him they raise the case of Jim Callaghan, a prime minister that took over a tired Labour government and led it to a general election defeat. But there is a more reassuring parallel for Brown, if only in terms of what happened in the short term. In 1990 Major succeeded a long-serving prime minister at a time when the Conservative administration was deeply unpopular in its third term, much further behind in the polls than Labour is at the moment. Within 18 months Major won a higher proportion of the vote than Labour managed in its landslide 1997 victory.

Major is the forgotten leader in British politics and that 18-month period is the most forgotten phase of his leadership, but he led an astonishing turnaround in circumstances much more difficult than anything Brown faces today.

In his LSE conversation Major expanded on this successful period at some length as well as the reasons for the catastrophe that followed the 1992 election win. He noted that as a new prime minister he had an advantage over Brown in that for most voters he was a relatively unknown figure. It was easier for him to convey the sense of a fresh start.

But he also made clear that there was much more of substance to the sense of change. He stated that he got most satisfaction from the increases he made in public spending aimed at poorer communities and the changes in tax that helped those on low incomes. He did not disagree when Ms Goodman suggested that he was a "closet redistributionist". Indeed Major told the meeting that he thought David Cameron and his close allies were to the right of him.

As far as the Conservative government was concerned, therefore, the period between November 1990 and the election in 1992 was marked by more than a cosmetic change. Conservative MPs had elected a different type of political figure even if some of them, including Margaret Thatcher, did not realise it at the time. Major appointed Michael Heseltine to abolish the poll tax, underestimating, as he admitted this week, the grief that bringing in her assassin to end her flagship policy would give him from the Thatcherite diehards.

Over this period Major sought also to work slightly more constructively in Europe, refused to criticise the BBC when his MPs wanted him to do so, and increased public spending in some areas that Thatcher had previously blocked. Briefly the Conservatives felt as if they were new because in some ways they were.

But at this week's meeting Major revealed his big regret. He told Ms Goodman that after the 1992 election he wished he had followed his instincts and views. Instead he sought to keep the Conservatives united, seeking to appease the right in the forlorn hope they would stop making his life hell. He admitted that if he had followed his own centre-ground policies the Conservative Party might have imploded in a different way, but he wishes he had tried.

Leaping forward to the present there are some differences between Major's position in 1990 and Brown's now. Major faced Neil Kinnock, a leader who had been in post for many years and had been destroyed already by the anti-Labour media. Brown is against a leader of the opposition who is still politically fresh and who receives on the whole a gentle press. Apart from that important difference the broader context favours Brown.

Major revealed at this week's meeting that he and others feared the state of the economy was much worse in 1990 than they admitted publicly. Indeed he said that Thatcher was extremely keen to join the ERM because she feared the economy was on the verge of complete collapse. He claimed it was a myth that she was pressurised in to joining. In contrast Brown will become Prime Minister with the economy in relatively good shape, partly thanks to his own stewardship at the Treasury. Major became PM after an act of regicide from which the party never properly recovered. Brown will get the job in awkward but more dignified circumstances.

Even so Labour is deeply unpopular, as the Conservatives were in 1990. For the Tories the issues that had sent them plunging in the polls were the poll tax and to some extent the divisions over Europe. For Labour Iraq and the mess in parts of the NHS are the most damaging themes. Brown must do something big about both as well as the surrounding issues relating to trust and competence.

On one level Major had the easier task. He could abolish the poll tax. Brown cannot abolish Iraq, but he needs at the very least to announce an official inquiry, get British troops out before more are needlessly killed and look at new ways of approaching the region, including more constructive relations with Iran and Syria. Such is the continuing fallout over Iraq, this might not be enough (I am told by worried cabinet ministers that it comes up persistently on the doorsteps in the current elections, especially in Scotland).

On the NHS, Blair and the current Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt insist the pain now will produce gains within a year. Brown should review the entire array of reforms with a forensic objectivity. Too many were implemented in a macho atmosphere where "reform" was regarded as a virtue in itself. Where the Blair/Hewitt assessment is correct the changes should remain in place. Others should be scrapped or amended. If a settled view is formed amongst voters that the additional money on the NHS has been wasted progressive politics will be in trouble for decades.

Any changes in foreign policy will worry Rupert Murdoch and a new approach to public services would provoke more fuming anger from a few Blairites. But remember Major's big regret, spending too much time keeping his party together instead of following his own convictions about pursuing the right course.

Although Labour was ahead in 1990 when Major became PM the Tories were still winning easily the battle of ideas. Similarly now there is no obvious tidal wave against progressive politics even though the Government is in deep trouble. If Brown wants to win he should note the factors behind Major's highs and lows, or else he might be giving talks in much less than 10 years' time on where it all went wrong.

s.richards@independent.co.uk

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