Daily Mail future prediction now Daily Mail alternate history by default

[Charles EP M.]

Back in 2011, the Mail had Dominic Sandbrook write a fever-dream prediction of what happens if the euro fell. The grim dark future where there is only war in Europe was.... yesterday. So now it's a very strange alternate history by default,and I assumed everyone would get a kick out of it especially bits like:

Nicolas Sarkozy — who had narrowly won re-election earlier that year

 

[Bolt451]

And, by now, Napoleonic ambitions seemed to have gone to the French president’s head.

I mean... not Sarkozy but A French president

Dominic Sandbrook also wrote this account of us losing the Falklands because something something Ed Miliband

 

[Tovarich]

I'm inspired to think of an idea for @Meadow to consider: How about taking especially loopy predictions in Daily Wail editorials over the decades, getting your authors to write short stories based on those edotorials proving flukily accurate, and sticking them in a anthology "WI The 'Mail Was Right?"

If that worked then you could do a series; "WI The Graun Was Right?", "WI The Morning Star Was Right?", "WI The Croydon Citizen Was Right?", etc.

Although this may not even be legal, for all I know, regardless of whether it's a shite idea or not.

 

[Warthog]

I mean... not Sarkozy but A French president
Dominic Sandbrook also wrote this account of us losing the Falklands because something something Ed Miliband

He also appears to have a deep-seated hatred of Sarkozy and fear of anti-capitalist demonstrations

 

[Charles EP M.]

I'm inspired to think of an idea for @Meadow to consider: How about taking especially loopy predictions in Daily Wail editorials over the decades, getting your authors to write short stories based on those edotorials proving flukily accurate, and sticking them in a anthology "WI The 'Mail Was Right?"

Now there';s a suggestion fit for Halloween!

 

[Tovarich]

Now there';s a suggestion fit for Halloween!

Actually the 'Holiest' day on my Wiccan calendar (Samhain) but I'll let you off, I know what you mean

 

[Charles EP M.]

Dominic Sandbrook also wrote this account of us losing the Falklands because something something Ed Miliband

At the time, I was dating someone from Argentina and got to hear about Kirchner's government a lot.

So, er, well, Sandbrook knew Kirchner was a president of Argentina, that's good.

 

[Tovarich]

So, er, well, Sandbrook knew Kirchner was a president of Argentina, that's good.

I must admit, that 'Historian' qualification in the header is really making me regret following my A'Level Sociology to degree rather than my History one; I had no idea the bar was so low!

 

[Resurgam]

Well, his most recent book is about Britain's imagination and its strange history...

How apt.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Sandbrook is the gift that keeps on giving:

What If Thatcher Hadn't Won:

Benn took his place as Labour leader for the Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph in November 1982... in a genuine black woollen donkey jacket, complete with numerous badges: CND, ‘Right to Work’, ‘Ireland for the Irish’ and a tiny Red flag. ...Those papers that survived, including the Daily Mail, were forced to operate under the strict supervision of the new Minister of Communications, former Oscar-winning actress Glenda Jackson.

If THINGS GO ON AS THEY ARE, What Will 2081 Look Like?

we do not even have our own seat at the United Nations, being represented by an EU ambassador who hails from Luxembourg.

Our European masters take great umbrage when British commentators make mordant remarks about the Reich, but the truth is that Germany has called the shots in Europe for the past 80 years. ... Secession from the EU, however, is unthinkable; indeed, it is prohibited under the most recent Constitution.

Economically, it is probably too late. Britain has been in the euro for almost 60 years

 

[The Red]

Sandbrook is the gift that keeps on giving:

What If Thatcher Hadn't Won:

The blurb you posted here is a near exact copy of one of his What If columns in the New Statesman where Benn beat Healey for the Labour Deputy Leadership in 1981. Whether it’s just lazy writing on his part or if he thought it was such a brilliant scene (about a man who served in WW2 obviously using the cenotaph as an opportunity for a great dig at the establishment) that it had to be repeated I’m not sure. Either way, if you read much of Sandbrook’s AH, his bizarre hatred of Tony Benn really becomes grating rather quickly.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Bloody hell, you're right. Only in that version, it's a "tiny Argentine flag". My god, he has to really hate Benn to think the WW2 veteran would, if leading Labour, show at the Cenotaph with the flag of the nation we'd just gone to war with to score points.

And then I look at his "What If we'd lost the Falklands" he did for the NS:

At the city's tiny airport, a gigantic mural commemorates the soldiers from the mainland who lost their lives. Beside the old Anglican cathedral, now draped with a massive blue-and-white flag, the statue of General Leopoldo Galtieri gazes impassively out to sea.

and in that same What If Thatcher, he had:

At the tiny airport, a gigantic mural commemorates the soldiers from the mainland who lost their lives in the battle for the Malvinas, or the Falklands, as they used to be called.

Next to the old Anglican cathedral (now Catholic), a gigantic blue and white flag flutters. In the square nearby, a statue of General Leopoldo Galtieri gazes impassively out to sea.

His Falklands War II for the Mail had:

At the tiny airport that serves Puerto Argentino — formerly Port Stanley — a gigantic mural commemorates the soldiers from the mainland who lost their lives.

Beside the old Anglican cathedral, draped with a massive blue-and-white flag, the statue of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner gazes impassively out to sea.

Looking forward to seeing him describe a "wheezing, groaning sound" and that Thatcher was "never cruel nor cowardly".

-

Also here's "What if Enoch Powell hadn't done his speech on immigration due to a cold and then never just did it another time".

 

[napoleon IV]

I'm glad to see that the author of For All Time found work with the Daily Mail.

 

[moth]

Well, his most recent book is about Britain's imagination and its strange history...

How apt.

Kinda not gonna sit still for this swipe, as, for as shit as his alternate histories are aside, his actual history books are quite good (if lengthy), and The Great British Dream Factory is one of the most passionate defences I've read for the kind of 'middlebrow' middle-England culture that regularly gets shat on by the self-appointed gatekeepers of quality, but holds an important function in the day-to-day of British social life.