Cricket fan John Major was a long-serving member of
Margaret Thatcher's cabinet before stepping in to take over her role as
Prime Minister as she was given the heave-ho in
1990.
Kenneth Clarke and
Michael Heseltine had both been in the running to take over once the Iron Loony, er, Lady got her comeupance, but strangely this unassuming son of a
trapeze artist managed to win out over them*.
Major was Prime Minister for just under eight years before the massive landslide victory of the Labour Party in the 1997 general election. During that time his government managed to raise taxes on 22 seperate occasions and fucked up the railways. After his long-overdue defeat, Major retired from politics and wrote his memoirs. John Major was generally depicted in the media as being incredibly dull (Spitting Image gave him grey skin), and sometimes likening him to Major Major from Catch-22, a model of mediocrity. He is married to Norma Major and his son James Major is married to glamour model Emma Noble.
In 2002 it came to light that Major had had an affair with Edwina Currie (who just so happened to have once written a novel telling a remarkably similar story). So, maybe not so boring after all.
*Albert Herring conjectures that he was picked as someone who would get beaten in the 1992 election so that the followers of Thatcher could reimpose their control on the party. It's a mystery how he managed to win, although the Labour party were in a mess at the time.