Wealth & Money Quote by John Major

John Major’s line is a masterclass in the understated self-defense of a politician who knows his legacy will be argued over in footnotes. The first sentence is pure ledger-book politics: I fixed what I could measure. “Inherited” and “passed on” frame the economy like an estate, a trustee’s duty fulfilled rather than an ideological triumph. It’s also a quiet rebuttal to the caricature of the 1990s Conservatives as exhausted and chaotic: don’t judge me by the scandals; judge me by the balance sheet.

Then comes the pivot that gives the quote its human bite. “Abiding regret” signals a long-running ache, not a convenient afterthought, and it’s doing two things at once. It softens the technocratic bragging by conceding a moral deficit, but it also narrows the blame. The culprit isn’t a lack of will; it’s “resources.” In other words: austerity by circumstance, not by choice. That’s a strategic move for a post-Thatcher Conservative trying to sound compassionate without repudiating fiscal discipline.

The phrase “in between” matters: Major casts his premiership as an interregnum between economic crisis and stability, a narrow corridor where big social ambition was structurally impossible. “I made only a beginning” is both confession and preemptive absolution. He wants credit for intent, not just outcomes, and he’s implicitly asking the audience to imagine an alternate Major government: less trapped by recession, party warfare, and the looming gravitational pull of Europe, and more able to invest in schools and social policy. It’s legacy management dressed up as modesty.