Sir John Major has said he is looking forward to the release of a sequel to ‘The Iron Lady’, the biopic of Margaret Thatcher that hits cinemas next month.
Major, who claims to have been prime minister between 1990 and an unspecified date in 1997, admitted to ‘disappointment’ that his character had been completely cut from the first film. ‘I had been waiting for what in my judgement was a considerable period of time to see who had been cast to play me,’ Major said. ‘My wife Norma and I had heard rumours that it would be somebody of the calibre of the person who plays one of the valets in Downton Abbey, which would have been somewhat exciting. But unfortunately when the end credits rolled I realised that I had been completely omitted, which in my estimation was a pity.’
The film’s producers denied that the decision to cut Major had been historically inaccurate. ‘We asked Mrs T to tell us very carefully what happened,’ said a spokesman. ‘She never mentioned this Major guy succeeding her – who was he, some kind of aide to Prime Minister Tebbit?’
Major said that he had ‘high hopes’ that he would appear in the next film in the series. ‘My diary very clearly shows that I was in charge from the very moment that Margaret finally drove away from Downing Street,’ he insisted. ‘The fact that she just drove round the back and tried to run the show for the next five years doesn’t mean the film should be about her instead of me. Oh no.’
Filming is due to begin in the spring for the sequel, which picks up the story of Thatcher’s legacy from 1990 onwards and has been provisionally titled “Blair”.
