INTRODUCTION John Major as Margaret Thatcher's successor was always going to find life difficult. He himself claims to have rejected any talk of his creating 'Majoritarianism' just as Margaret created 'Thatcherism', arguing instead that "The Conservative Party does not belong to any individual". His priorities (at least initially) as he saw them were clear; inflation, inflation, inflation. Furthermore, it aimed to reduce unemployment, though not through artificial job creation, but by preserving a climate of low inflation in which growth would be encouraged. His goal was to privatize what was feasible and had not yet been done. But the climate in which John Major became Prime Minister was markedly different to that of 1979 and so, by necessity, the leadership and policy-making styles of Thatcher and Major were different. Significant in his priorities were consolidation and continuity; it was above all for this reason that he was elected by the conservatives; and for this reason it is difficult to see a Major agenda distinct from Thatcher's. Nonetheless there were some interesting differences between the two leaders which I will try to highlight here, highlighting the areas in which Major departs from Thatcherism; particular in its attitude towards EMU and industrial policy. In the course of this essay I will first look generally at monetary and fiscal policy and then examine the position within and attitudes towards Europe, an issue which, by its very nature, must have a profound effect on Europe. direction of a nation's macroeconomic policy. Their leadership styles obviously diverge greatly, which is a significant factor in the different culture of the times. Finally, I will examine how the two prime ministers' attitudes towards industrial policy differed. I will attempt to demonstrate that macroeconomic policy remained broadly consistent throughout the period the Conservatives were in office, however Major showed a much greater interest in microeconomic policy which had been largely ignored under Thatcher. Politically, the general feeling when Major took office in 1990 was that, while voters had taken all they perhaps could in terms of downsizing the state, there was no strong demand for a radical new agenda. To this end, the leader of the Major... in the center of the sheet... lowers his former leader. Rather, it may be that, as stated by Dennis Kavanagh, Major saw the Conservative Party as a party of continuity and not revolution (this would explain both his broad adoption of its policies and his less strident pursuit of them). Where the objectives of the 1980s were necessarily economic, Major took them and oriented them towards the social; Thatcherism was defined by what it fought against; 'it is less clear what dragons are in the 1990s'. BIBLIOGRAPHY · Chrystal and Price, Controversies in Macroeconomics, chap.11, (1994) · Crafts, NFR, 'Industry', from Kavanagh and Seldon, The Major Effect, ( 1994)· Hutton, W., The State We're In, (1996)· Jay, P., 'The Economy', from Kavanagh and Seldon, The Major Effect, (1994)· Kavanagh, D., 'A Major Agenda?", from Kavanagh and Seldon, The Major Effect, (1994) · Major, J., John Major, The Autobiography, (1999) · Minford, P., "How Good a Chancellor is Kenneth Clarke?", from Economic Review, 12(3), (1995)· Oliver, M., 'The Conservative years: A Revolution in Economic Policy?', from Economic Review, 14(4), (1997)· Wilks, S., 'Economic Policy ', from Dunleavy et al, Developments in British Politics vol. 4, (1993)