report put the figure at around £28,000 per speech and a 2007 report men-
tioned fees ‘in excess of £25,000’ as an after-dinner speaker. Major also
made unremunerated speeches to political, educational, charitable and
voluntary sector audiences in the UK, and from time to time similar ones
overseas. While he was still an MP, the Register of Members’ Interests listed
12 US trips in 1999 and 2000 with other visits to speak in Hong Kong,
Singapore, Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, Bermuda, Spain, Switzerland, France
and Saudi Arabia, speaking to organisations as diverse as Chase Manhattan,
American Express, Business Week, the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and
the National Bank of Kuwait.
23
In 2002 the Majors were said to own three properties: their family
home in Huntingdon, a £3 million penthouse apartment in London and a
£400,000 holiday home in Norfolk. By that time Major was a busy inter-
national business figure, reported as making one million pounds a year. A
press story in 1998 claimed he was in talks about a £500,000 p.a. part-time
job as an adviser with a US financial firm. He was a member of the Euro-
pean board of the Carlyle Group, a powerful but discreet American invest-
ment firm with international business interests, including the defence
sector, 1998–2005, serving as chairman of Carlyle Europe 2001–04. He was
chairman of the European advisory board of the US-based Emerson Electric
Company since 1999, a senior adviser to Credit Suisse since 2001, a mem-
ber of the European board of Siebel Systems Inc. 2001–03, and served on
the International Advisory board of the National Bank of Kuwait. From
2000 to 2003 he was a non-executive director of the UK firm the Mayflower
Corporation, a car component and bus company, and he was reported as
losing over £200,000 of his personal investment in the company when it
went bust in 2004. Mayflower’s chief executive said in 1999 that what
Major ‘brings is the ability to open doors around the world at the highest
level’. Many senior US former political insiders and leaders have been on
the Carlyle Group’s payroll, to help with strategic global networking.
‘I advised them on what was going on around the world’, is how Major
described his role. ‘I would represent them, I would do a whole range
of things – but I would not lobby for them, and I did not introduce them
to people.’
24
Major fitted in much charity work as a president, patron or ambassador
for causes including the Sight Savers Appeal, the National Asthma Appeal,
Macmillan Cancer Relief, Mercy Ships, Deafblind UK, the British and Com-
monwealth Cricket Charitable Trust, and others. He sits on bodies like the
Ditchley Council, the Atlantic Partnership, the InterAction Council (Tokyo),
the Peres Center for Peace (Israel), the Baker Institution (USA), and the Insti-
tute of Sports Sponsorship, among others. Asked whether, money aside,
sitting on business boards did not seem limited, even trifling, for an ex-PM,
Major said in 2007, ‘It’s a complete fallacy to think the only satisfaction
you can have in a job is if you’re running the country.’ He is more relaxed
210 After Number 10