Major Reportedly Enraged by Criticism in Thatcher Book

Prime Minister John Major was reported Sunday to be furious with his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, for strongly criticizing his government’s policies.

In leaks through associates, Major made little attempt to hide his anger at the revelations in the second volume of Thatcher’s autobiography--extracts of which were published in the London Sunday Times.

“He’s distinctly displeased. . . . The timing could never be good, but it’s pretty bad timing,” a colleague said.

In the book, Thatcher, who was forced out of office in 1990 and is now in the House of Lords, is severely critical of Major’s administration of both foreign and domestic policy.

The former prime minister also suggests that Major’s policies are responsible for Britain’s deep recession. In the book, she finds little to praise about Major.

Thatcher’s friends insist that she has no personal antagonism toward her handpicked successor, but political observers said her book is certain to widen the already gaping breach in the Conservative Party ranks.

And her charge that “a sense of purpose” is missing in the post-Thatcher years is sure to cause more party infighting.

Her views are expected to strengthen the position of the so-called Euro-skeptics in Parliament who have complained that Major’s policies have brought Britain under the control of the European Union, to the nation’s detriment.

Tory lawmaker Bill Cash, a bitter opponent of closer links with Europe, said that Thatcher’s remarks vindicate his position and that of other anti-Major members of Parliament in the Conservative Party.

But Tristan Garel-Jones, former minister for European affairs, said that many of the problems Thatcher now sees in the EU--including moves toward monetary and economic union--were included in the Single Europe Act that she herself pushed through Parliament.

John Biffen, secretary of state for trade in Thatcher’s Cabinet, called the former prime minister’s intervention “unhelpful,” adding, “Those in retirement can have a dignified contribution to the political debate without undermining their successors either willingly or accidentally.”

Thatcher’s book, “The Path to Power,” to be published next month, describes Britain’s European policy as one of “compromise, sweep it under the carpet, leave it for another day, in the hope that the people of Britain will not notice what is happening to them, how the powers have been gradually slipping away.”

The book deplores the fact that the special relationship with the United States--at its height when Thatcher occupied Downing Street and Ronald Reagan was in the White House--has been “allowed to cool to the near-freezing point.”