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Effects of a Labour Representation Committee Collapse?

Hmm, yeah, a strike that threatens to bring together everyone union influenced would be really scary in a world where that isn't the default. It would have to be over something pretty big though.
Hmm, if per say you still have a First World War and after the Liberals get ousted maybe one of the more extreme Tories like Geddes gets in and advocates austerity measures to help boost the economy (and also to reduce the power of the unions who would probably be quite strong). I could see the Unions banding together over that, showcase the power of Unions and to push the Tories to realise that the situation has changed.
 
I could see that being a bridge that heals some of the rifts over entering the war, which are likely to emerge between the liberal and ILP leaning political & union spheres, at least enough to make them working together an option.
 
I could see that being a bridge that heals some of the rifts over entering the war, which are likely to emerge between the liberal and ILP leaning political & union spheres, at least enough to make them working together an option.
Yeah, I can see the Liberals and ILP distancing over the War, for obvious reasons. But a general strike (which I guess the Lib-Lab and Liberals would support as a way to oust the Tories whilst the ILP are doing it for principal reasons). It would probably allow them to consider coalitions as time goes on.

Meanwhile it would force the Tories to reconsider being Anti-Union. I could see the Red Tories takeover and try and win over the more Conservative Unions to there side afterwards as both a way to gain more votes and also to reduce the likelihood of a General Strike.
 
Hmm, if per say you still have a First World War and after the Liberals get ousted maybe one of the more extreme Tories like Geddes gets in and advocates austerity measures to help boost the economy (and also to reduce the power of the unions who would probably be quite strong). I could see the Unions banding together over that, showcase the power of Unions and to push the Tories to realise that the situation has changed.
Trouble is, to see Geddes as an extreme Tory is to look at the situation through 21st century post-Thatcher eyes. In the context of his own time, Geddes was a rather radical, managerialist, slightly leftist by pre 1917 standards Tory who was talent spotted by Lloyd George. Like Philip Snowden, he doesn't get a lot of love nowadays but I actually have a great deal of sympathy for both men. Both saw an unbalanced budget as a source of political instability and potential economic disaster ( as every economic authority bar a young whippersnapper of a Bloomsberry called Keynes was telling them) and both sacrificed political popularity and even some personal friendships to do what they believed to be the right (not Right) thing for the nation.
That they didn't get it right doesn't take away from their integrity and even self- sacrifice. Determined to do the right thing come hell or high water, I would suggest that in Geddes and Snowden you have the two best Home
Secretaries that the UK never had.
 
Trouble is, to see Geddes as an extreme Tory is to look at the situation through 21st century post-Thatcher eyes. In the context of his own time, Geddes was a rather radical, managerialist, slightly leftist by pre 1917 standards Tory who was talent spotted by Lloyd George. Like Philip Snowden, he doesn't get a lot of love nowadays but I actually have a great deal of sympathy for both men. Both saw an unbalanced budget as a source of political instability and potential economic disaster ( as every economic authority bar a young whippersnapper of a Bloomsberry called Keynes was telling them) and both sacrificed political popularity and even some personal friendships to do what they believed to be the right (not Right) thing for the nation.
That they didn't get it right doesn't take away from their integrity and even self- sacrifice. Determined to do the right thing come hell or high water, I would suggest that in Geddes and Snowden you have the two best Home
Secretaries that the UK never had.

If everyone tell you a balanced budget is necessary, the right answer is still to tax more, not austerity.

Also, I really don't get why people should get respect for making principled stands on terrible principles.
 
That they didn't get it right doesn't take away from their integrity and even self- sacrifice. Determined to do the right thing come hell or high water, I would suggest that in Geddes and Snowden you have the two best Home
Secretaries that the UK never had.
Alright, wrong example maybe (though Geddes suffers from real case of Nationalism). Maybe he could be someone who takes over the Tories when some like William Joynson-Hicks or Douglas Hogg manages to anger the Trade Unions somehow. That’s not the point.

Essentially the idea is that after the First World War, someone in the Conservative Party decides to deal with ‘them uppity Trade Unions’ and gets slapped down by a General Strike. Probably get a leadership election where someone like Geddes or a Red Tory gets in or something. Who knows.

Also Snowden is fine but way past his prime by 1931, same with MacDonald. Kind of a good lesson that the Labour Party should have stopped relying on old leaders.
If everyone tell you a balanced budget is necessary, the right answer is still to tax more, not austerity.

Also, I really don't get why people should get respect for making principled stands on terrible principles.
True, I get the feeling that in an other world he actually had a spine and decided to quit instead. Also Pre-1980 Tories have a habit of being very fluid politics wise so it’s not surprising.
 
If everyone tell you a balanced budget is necessary, the right answer is still to tax more, not austerity.

Also, I really don't get why people should get respect for making principled stands on terrible principles.
Well getting out and staying out of debt and putting something aside for a rainy day aren't really that terrible principles and they were perfectly right that high levels of debt constrain future policy options (you may have noticed that we do not have a global Empire or the world's largest navy any longer for instance). And every so often there comes a WW2 or a Covid-19 which demonstrates the wisdom of a country not being borrowed right up to the limits.
We aren't really talking Amritsar or eugenics here, just the consensus of economic opinion back then having a lower risk appetite than nowadays. You can only do the best you can with the knowledge you have.
I don't know if you ever read the Kipling poem about medieval doctors "Excellent herbs had our fathers of old"? The point being that for all their superstitions and remedies that did nearly as much harm as good, the old time doctors were displaying the same level of heroism as modern day NHS workers. And the doctors of Kipling's time are barbaric by modern standards and our modern healthcare will be regarded as barbaric by our grandchildren.
Which has nothing to do with economics, but I trust that you see the analogy.
 
Well getting out and staying out of debt and putting something aside for a rainy day aren't really that terrible principles and they were perfectly right that high levels of debt constrain future policy options (you may have noticed that we do not have a global Empire or the world's largest navy any longer for instance). And every so often there comes a WW2 or a Covid-19 which demonstrates the wisdom of a country not being borrowed right up to the limits.
We aren't really talking Amritsar or eugenics here, just the consensus of economic opinion back then having a lower risk appetite than nowadays. You can only do the best you can with the knowledge you have.
I don't know if you ever read the Kipling poem about medieval doctors "Excellent herbs had our fathers of old"? The point being that for all their superstitions and remedies that did nearly as much harm as good, the old time doctors were displaying the same level of heroism as modern day NHS workers. And the doctors of Kipling's time are barbaric by modern standards and our modern healthcare will be regarded as barbaric by our grandchildren.
Which has nothing to do with economics, but I trust that you see the analogy.

Austerity kills people. It's not as obvious or dramatic as other more direct and bloody government policies, but it does. Reducing spending while the rich keep getting richer will never get my sympathy.

Comparing people who make decisions harming others to doctors who risk their life is incredibly callous and distasteful. Short of revolution, politicians who fuck up with policy rarely face much of a reckoning beyond having to settle for a less public career.
 
Austerity kills people. It's not as obvious or dramatic as other more direct and bloody government policies, but it does. Reducing spending while the rich keep getting richer will never get my sympathy.
It does remind me of what my tutor said about how Famine is always political. Austerity is similar in that manner.

But to get back to the subject at hand, I could see the idea of Austerity being discredited as a way to balance the books in time in a universe like this. You'd probably have a number of folks in Liberal and Tories who become fond of Kenyesian economics as a way to balance the books and in a world where Sindey Webb isn't the only person at the wheel where it comes to commanding a parties ideology I could even see some parties recommending Social Credit as a way to get themselves out of recession, depression etc.
 
Austerity kills people. It's not as obvious or dramatic as other more direct and bloody government policies, but it does. Reducing spending while the rich keep getting richer will never get my sympathy.

Comparing people who make decisions harming others to doctors who risk their life is incredibly callous and distasteful. Short of revolution, politicians who fuck up with policy rarely face much of a reckoning beyond having to settle for a less public career.
Unfortunately doctors kill people too and I don't just mean sick aberrations like Cream, Mengele or Shipman. My cousin's wife is a doctor and she was told that she would be responsible for at least four deaths before she had fully qualified. And that was sort of my point, the doctor of 1320 or 1620 or 1920 didn't have the medical knowledge of the doctor of 2020 but he did his best and was, by and large,a force for good in his community. But sometimes an operation doesn't come off or there is a misdiagnosis. When my cousin's wife was learning her trade the Aussie doctor who discovered that stomach ulcers were caused by a bacterial infection rather than stress was widely regarded in the medical community as a weird fruitcake. Not because doctors wanted to prolong suffering but because like the rest of us they are conditioned by their training and experience.
Geddes or Snowden didn't risk their lives, but they knowingly sacrificed any chances at higher political office, in Geddes case a Cabinet Post, in Snowden's any chance at the top job (and don't forget this was at a time when Ramsay Mac was starting to go off a bit) and, as I say, were prepared to sacrifice political alliances and personal friendships to do what they conceived to be their duty. Kingsley Wood literally worked himself to death shoring up the public finances during WW2. That they didn't have the knowledge of economics that we have today is to be deplored but that's not a reason to disrespect them. They did the best they could with the knowledge that they had.
 
I never figured out what Social Credit is... (a look later) Oh, the analysis has some interesting elements, even if the conclusions can be bonkers.

What if instead of becoming a single ideological plank, it just diffuses through all the parties and economic theory in different ways? With the result being that the consensus is demand side rather than the supply side of OTL (and its austerity)? But they'd have different conclusions on it.

The post realignment Tories embracing welfare programs as a necessary tool of social cohesion.

The liberals mostly concerned about the consumer's ability to express their demands and the freedom to meet them, especially once they move out of Fabian solutions and absorb the cooperative party, maybe go as far as advocating for public and democratic control of finance as a way to grease those wheels? Potentially a stronger cooperative wing could want its own pro cooperative finance and that could mesh with older Fabian goals into a public finance sector aiming at sponsoring economic ventures meeting lacking demand and ensuring investment keeps up with society's goals.

While the ILP would consider that you have to move past capitalism for the economy to ever be about producing to meet needs rather than profit, though probably with critical support given to local public banking, as it would help the main place where they'd have power, local government.

So in a way, it remains more of an academic background than purely policy focused, and often competes while adding its forces with Keynesianism to defeat the OTL trend towards the monetary and economic policy we know and suffer under.

I wonder if you could also throw in a dash of Georgism somewhere?

I'm thinking the liberals would be the party where there's the most opening for a lot of different proposals to come forth, with each of their government looking quite different and leaving the UK with a broad set of solutions to pick from to replace a more single minded Tory government when a crisis happens.

The ILP, meanwhile, would focus on the places where they're influential (unions and some local governments) rather than water themselves down to reach a national majority, because that space is already taken anyway. A big question is how they negotiate the turn away from the old industries and towards the new, but that could be much less brutal and much more gradual if the rest of the political board also listens to unions.

Unfortunately doctors kill people too and I don't just mean sick aberrations like Cream, Mengele or Shipman. My cousin's wife is a doctor and she was told that she would be responsible for at least four deaths before she had fully qualified. And that was sort of my point, the doctor of 1320 or 1620 or 1920 didn't have the medical knowledge of the doctor of 2020 but he did his best and was, by and large,a force for good in his community. But sometimes an operation doesn't come off or there is a misdiagnosis. When my cousin's wife was learning her trade the Aussie doctor who discovered that stomach ulcers were caused by a bacterial infection rather than stress was widely regarded in the medical community as a weird fruitcake. Not because doctors wanted to prolong suffering but because like the rest of us they are conditioned by their training and experience.
Geddes or Snowden didn't risk their lives, but they knowingly sacrificed any chances at higher political office, in Geddes case a Cabinet Post, in Snowden's any chance at the top job (and don't forget this was at a time when Ramsay Mac was starting to go off a bit) and, as I say, were prepared to sacrifice political alliances and personal friendships to do what they conceived to be their duty. Kingsley Wood literally worked himself to death shoring up the public finances during WW2. That they didn't have the knowledge of economics that we have today is to be deplored but that's not a reason to disrespect them. They did the best they could with the knowledge that they had.

If anything, modern conventional economics are worse. What may have been a sacrifice for them at the time is now common place.
 
Essentially the idea is that after the First World War, someone in the Conservative Party decides to deal with ‘them uppity Trade Unions’ and gets slapped down by a General Strike.

This is rather tangential but I wanted to ask: is it possible for a Conservative government to come out of an ATL General strike in a better position than in OTL? Could it be turned into an event that weakens rather than strengthens the growing Labour movement?
 
This is rather tangential but I wanted to ask: is it possible for a Conservative government to come out of an ATL General strike in a better position than in OTL? Could it be turned into an event that weakens rather than strengthens the growing Labour movement?
Possibly, depends on the reasons for the strike and how the Government reacts. If it ends in a damp squib similar to OTL’s version it’d probably strengthen the Government. But if per say someone like Hicks is like “Send the troops in to blast them” I see it going south quickly.
 
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