Sir John the vengeful doormat has always been an intensely vain man: QUENTIN LETTS on the Grey Man's back-seat driving 

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Sir John Major was introduced by a Chatham House worthy as being ‘neither a Eurosceptic nor a Europhile’

Grey Man gone tonto: Sir John Major, about whom there is so often something of the vengeful doormat, last night wailed and caterwauled about how dreadfully difficult Brexit was going to be.

In a speech that will have had Theresa May grinding her molars to a fine dental dust, former PM Major called the Leave vote ‘an historic mistake’ and described the European Union as ‘a colossus’.

Colossus! A majority of our population seems more inclined to regard it as a bloody disaster.

The man who once complained about Margaret Thatcher’s ‘back-seat driving’ was introduced by a Chatham House worthy as being ‘neither a Eurosceptic nor a Europhile’ and as therefore being the right person to offer a contrast to ‘the backdrop of highly politicised debate’. 

This, I fear, was far from the whole truth. Sir John campaigned hard for Remain in the referendum campaign. He was once hot for the ruinous Exchange Rate Mechanism. His premiership saw undeniable kow-towing to Brussels.

He began yesterday’s early-evening speech to an appreciative audience by noting that he had ‘kept silent since last June’. 

He added: ‘I am no longer in politics. I have absolutely no wish to re-enter it in any capacity. I don’t seek publicity – more often than not, I shy away from it.’

Yet this speech, its timing so neatly matching recent pro-EU eruptions by his fellow has-beens Tony Blair and Michael Heseltine, was luridly political. Much publicised, too!

He began yesterday’s early-evening speech to an appreciative audience by noting that he had ‘kept silent since last June’

Sir John waved those familiar square, hairy hands at the lectern. Sorry, but I can never see them without thinking of Edwina and ‘getting sticky’ in the afternoons at that London love-nest. 

He was dressed in a blue tie which matched the Chatham House corporate design. The voice had its customary metallic, nerdy edge. The text was littered with correct but now possibly rather old-fashioned references to countries in the feminine.

He quoted some Rudyard Kipling. When he considered the complexities of the coming Brexit negotiations with the EU, he was reminded of Kipling’s lines ‘I keep six honest serving men (they taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When, and How and Where and Who.’

If we are to take, say, the ‘When’ and ‘Who’ in that quotation, I could find nowhere in the speech any acknowledgement that in the next year several of the main members of the EU may undergo a change in their political leadership.

This was a pungent, firmly-asserted speech, full of Majorish guile and self-congratulation. He has always been an intensely vain man. You could sense him loving the attention. ‘I don’t seek publicity’ indeed!

When, with husky sarcasm, he noted that ‘we are told our best days are ahead’, he won a little ripple of laughter from some voice near the front of the stage. He liked that.

He added: ‘I am no longer in politics. I have absolutely no wish to re-enter it in any capacity. I don’t seek publicity – more often than not, I shy away from it'

Countless Remain voters had apparently written to him in despair, seeking his help. The pleading masses look up beseechingly to the Grandfather of the Nation! More than once he reminded us of his great experience as a statesman. Maybe not so helpful to his own country, though. Brussels will have loved his line about how we may owe billions of pounds in ‘debts’ to the EU.

He artfully just avoided conflating modern Britain with the sort of European ‘populist’ movements which, he said, were spreading ‘bigotry, prejudice and intolerance’ against minorities, ‘a poison destroying decency and understanding’. 

The juxtaposition of such views with Theresa May’s pro-Brexit, liberal-democratic Tories was not the work of an honest John. It was acidic and sly.

Let us close by observing that Sir John, though critical of Leavers’ trenchant opinions, posed as a defender of the Remainers’ right to speak freely. ‘Freedom of speech is absolute.’

So said the man who once sued, and nearly bankrupted, the New Statesman magazine after it wrote a story about him having a lover. They got the wrong popsy.