Once regarded as a Thatcher puppet, Major is stepping out of her shadow at home, too. Last week Major moved to do away with two of the holiest, but most controversial, tenets of Thatcherism: nationalistic resistance to European integration, and a poll tax instituted just under a year ago in England and Wales. The poll tax, a per capita system of local taxation that replaced property taxes, obliges poor people to pay the same rate as the rich. Thatcher pushed the measure through over the opposition of her key ministers - not so much to simplify taxation as to curb the powers of local government councils controlled by the Labor Party. The measure touched off riots when it was passed, sharply eroded Thatcher’s popularity and, more than anything else, convinced her fellow Tories that the time had come to dump her.

Major’s apparent decision to do away with the tax was prompted by a parliamentary by-election in which a previously safe Tory seat went to an opposition Liberal Democrat who ran an antitax campaign. Asked recently if he would describe himself as a Thatcherite, Major replied: “I never describe myself as anything. People must make up their own minds.” “What Major is really about is paradoxical,” says David Marquand, professor of politics at England’s Salford University. “It’s late Thatcherism, minus the flagrantly unpopular things.” Mrs. Thatcher herself is reportedly uneasy about her protege’s independence. She has carefully refrained from publicly criticizing him - but she did say two weeks ago that it would be “a jolly good thing” if she could be “the matriarch” of the Conservative Party, a prospect that can hardly seem jolly to Major.

Many Britons find Major’s cheerful, friendly style a refreshing change from 13 years of the combative, hectoring Thatcher. His detached calm in the face of an IRA mortar attack on 10 Downing Street in January showed him to be cool under fire. During the gulf war he deftly held together a consensus that cut across party lines whenever the conduct of the war came up in the House of Commons. Cabinet meetings now last an average of 15 minutes longer than they did under Thatcher; Major’s allies say that, unlike his predecessor, he actually takes the time to ask the ministers what they think about the issues of the day. Polls show that while 63 percent of Britons believed Thatcher to be out of touch with ordinary people, only 13 percent of them feel that way about Major, who comes from a working-class background. And while 56 percent thought that Thatcher talked down to people, only 6 percent consider Major to be guilty of that particular sin.

Major has made good use of his common touch. In Kuwait City two weeks ago he sat atop a dusty British tank and mingled with infantrymen. He casually examined an AK-47 assault rifle captured from the Iraqis and, to the guffaws of British soldiers gathered around him, joked that he might find the weapon useful during cabinet meetings back in London. “Major is playing a role which is very English,” says Marquand. “He’s a master of laconic understatement. That’s not the same as being gray. He also can laugh at himself a little bit, and yet he has a certain dignity.”

Major also gets along better than Thatcher did with European leaders. Even in her warmest moments, the Iron Lady was cool toward Germany and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl - whom she saw as the chief instigator of European unity. But Major’s summit with Kohl two weeks ago in Bonn ended with Major crediting European economic unity for holding down British inflation, and declaring Britain’s desire to remain “at the very heart of Europe.” Major and Kohl reportedly already enjoy good personal chemistry. “He’s ‘Helmut’ to him,” says one Downing Street source, “and the prime minister is John.” Among ordinary Britons, Major’s softer stance toward Europe also appears to be playing well. Says political columnist Peter Jenkins: “Europe became damaging in the public eye when Mrs. Thatcher seemed to be picking quarrels all the time. The substance on Europe hasn’t changed all that much, but the tone has. Major’s rapprochement with Kohl is a sign of this.” Major must run for prime minister in his own right no later than June 1992. If the Tories do well in local elections set for early May, the odds seem good that he might call a ballot a year early - while the memory of his wartime leadership is still fresh. Asked recently when the election might be held, Major quipped: “When I think I’ll win it.” For Britain’s increasingly popular new P.M., that could be any time he pleases.