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1955-1956:
Anthony Eden (Conservative)
1955 (Majority) def. Clement Attlee (Labour), Clement Davies (Liberal)
1956-1957:
Rab Butler (Conservative majority)
1957-1960:
Anthony Nutting (Conservative majority)
1960-1965:
Herbert Morrison (Labour)
1960 (Majority) def. Anthony Nutting (Conservative), Jo Grimond (Liberal)
1965-1968:
George Brown (Labour)
1965 (Majority) def. Reginald Maudling (Conservative), Jo Grimond (Liberal)
1968-1968:
Harold Wilson (Labour majority), Acting
1968-1970:
Alf Robens (Labour majority)
1970-0000:
Anthony Nutting (Conservative)
1970 (Minority) def. Alf Robens (Labour), Eric Lubbock (Liberal; aligned with The Movement)
Eden dies of a fever in 1956, and Butler is ushered into power. When the Suez Crisis rolls around, he takes a far more bellicose stand against Nasser, which leads to an open confrontation with Eisenhower and a substantial backbench rebellion which elevates the youthful Anthony Nutting to Number 10 to essentially carry out damage control while fending off the old imperialists on his own backbenches.
Meanwhile, Morrison finally pulled off what he'd been trying to do for twenty years and inherited Clem's throne, just in time for all the Suez drama. Overnight he went from an old man in a hurry to an experienced statesman and defender of Empire, opposed to a political neophyte scuttling from Britain's age old responsibilities.
Once in power, Morrison put into practice what became Labour Party orthodoxy for the next ten years, a combination of continuing much of the economic practice of Attlee's government, while cleaving rigidly to 'anti-communism' at home and abroad. This proved a fairly effective combination, especially against a Tory Party at war with itself. Its justness however was much more questionable. The opening up of social liberalism that had been hinted at under Butler and Nutting were firmly in the past and as the Middle East slipped out of the imperial grasp, old plans from 1945 were unearthed for securing Africa for the 20th century.
Morrison died only months away from the inevitable 1965 election, but his deputy had been eagerly waiting in the wings for just such an opportunity. Unable to change horses midstream, Brown was effectively crowned Leader, and led Labour and the country from the mythical golden years of post-war prosperity into the ideological charnel house of the late 1960s. As Brown persuaded Washington to support continued British imperial rule in Africa, at the cost of supporting American escalation against Communism in Southeast Asia, he had to contend with an increasingly militant anti-war movement at home.
Ever since Morrison's victory in 1955, the Left had been pushed ever further to the fringes. Eventually, they had slipped off the edge entirely and the Left was more likely to be found on university campuses or in the streets than on the Commons benches. While the paternalist leadership of Labour had initially been content to ignore such extra-parliamentary activity, the increasingly violent demonstrations during 1967 and 1968 called for action.
Action which was not especially forthcoming from Downing Street. The worsening economic situation, along with the bloodletting across two continents, was breaking the Prime Minister. Brown was increasingly dependent on alcohol, a state that could not be permitted to continue. He was eventually persuaded to step aside in favour of a worthy successor who would take a suitably firm hand to the Bolshevik rabble rousers and hippy intellectuals.
Initially popular in the flames of 1968, as the crackdown made its presence felt beyond the confines of universities, and the economy failed to rouse itself, Robens became increasingly unpopular. Meanwhile, the Liberals had made themselves the parliamentary vanguard of the cause of human rights. So it was that in 1970, Labour narrowly lost its majority to an older, more experienced Anthony Nutting. But that isn't the end to Morrison's legacy. Lacking a majority, the Conservatives can fairly confidently rely on a Labour Party very much in Morrison, Brown and Robens' image to pass their agenda...
