Major prefers bench in Commons to seat on the board

JOHN MAJOR has turned down more than a dozen offers of company directorships since he left No 10.

The former prime minister said on BBC1's Frost on Sunday interview that he was hoping to accept one or two offers "because they are of great interest that will take a very small amount of my time". But he added that as MP for Huntingdon, "I intend to play a full part in the House of Commons ... I have turned down a number of - I think about 15 - non-executive directorships."

Mr Major said: "I thought a period of silence after the election was both prudent and necessary, but I now propose to speak my mind whenever I feel the need to do so in the House of Commons."

He said he expected he would stand at the next election, but added: "I haven't definitely decided that I will do so." But he ruled out any possibility of returning to office. "I don't think I'm going to get back into government again," he said.

Mr Major said Tony Blair had made fundamental errors on the economy. "What we have now seen is that because of those tax changes, because of the five interest rate-rises we have had, you now have an extraordinarily high rate of exchange for the pound sterling that is beginning to cause real pain for manufacturing industry," he said. His view was that Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, was building up a war chest of cash for pre-election bribery of the voters.