Lists of Heads of Government and Heads of State

[Yossarian]

...the true legacy of the Democratic Labour Party was surely to be felt in the Labour Party itself: in 1996, Labour finally returned to office after two decades under the socially conservative and economically neoliberal Phil Goff. He governed essentially as the DLP would have done, and Labour has only dared return to the liberal, environmentalist and intersectionalist ideas of the early 80s in recent years, with the election of their ludicrous new leader, Helen Clark.

Quigley as Thatcher Down Under? Goff as a grey reflection of Blair? Clark as Corbyn? Spicy.

(As a side note, the Liberals in the UK gradually died after a very successful time in the 70s, and the main third parties in the 90s were an Alliance consisting of surviving Liberals, lefties and Greens on the one hand, and the populist Anti-Federalists on the other. Also they use MMP now, fuck you.)

The Labour-Green-Anti-Federalist coalition government of Rebecca Long-Bailey being opposed, no doubt, by the Tory plurality and the sole member for Renew.

 

[Uhura's Mazda]

Quigley as Thatcher Down Under? Goff as a grey reflection of Blair? Clark as Corbyn? Spicy.


The Labour-Green-Anti-Federalist coalition government of Rebecca Long-Bailey being opposed, no doubt, by the Tory plurality and the sole member for Renew.

Also Jim Anderton is Tony Benn, but this is in his original guise as Socially Liberal String-Puller Jim, rather than Socialist Rebel MP Jim. I am extremely clever.

 

[AndrewH]

People Recognised as Head of State by the City of San Francisco

2017-2021: Donald Trump (Republican), as President of the United States
2016 (with Mike Pence) def. Hillary Clinton (Democratic)
2021-2021: Mike Pence (Republican), as Acting President of the United States
2020 (disputed); Pete Buttigieg / Rashida Tlaib (Democratic) v Donald Trump / Mike Pence (Republican)
2021-2021: Pete Buttigieg (Democratic), as President of the United States
2020 (with Rashida Tlaib) def. Donald Trump (Republican)
2021-2022: Rashida Tlaib (Democratic), as President of the United States
2022-2022: Nancy Pelosi (Democratic), as President of the United States
2022-2023: Disputed between the City and County of San Francisco and the San Francisco Autonomous Zone
2023-0000: Brace Belden (Democratic Socialists of America), as Nominated Convenor of the San Francisco Autonomous Zone

Buttigieg narrowly wins the Democratic nomination but as a relative unknown nationally, he doesn't really get the momentum up and 2020 is a dead heat in the electoral college. The wildly disproportional Senate easily renominates Mike Pence for President, but its more complicated in the House. The requirement for state delegations to settle on a nomination leads to a deadlock, meaning that by January 2021, Pence is inaugurated as Acting President of the United States. While technically the House continues to grimly slog it out, most have reconciled themselves to at least two years of President Pence until a Second Blue Wave gives the Democrats the numbers to put Buttigieg in the White House. The national mood remains unpleasant thanks in part to Trump's Mock Oval Office in Trump Tower and is continued close relationship with Pence.

Then the economic goes haywire in February 2021. Unemployment soars, and protests flood American cities. A Second Occupy Movement emerges to organise this outburst in anger, forming tent cities in parks and public squares, and most notably picketing Trump Tower. These protests in turn attract counter-protestors from the alt-right. And in Portland, Oregon a clash between protestors lead to deaths on both sides. The police intervene, but too late. No-one for sure knows what started the fighting, but battle lines have been drawn. Militias in the depressed heartland rise up, overwhelming the under-resourced constabulary. The 'Free State of Jefferson' cuts off water to the rest of California, while food shipments are raided by militias.

The San Francisco City Government formally recognises Buttigieg as President, but he is nowhere to be found. It is assumed that he was detained by the Pence government as violence spread across the country. In his absence, they turn to Rashida Tlaib but she too has been arrested - for sedition. Nancy Pelosi, a California Congresswoman has managed to flee to her home state, and as Speaker is acknowledged as President. The country teeters on the brink of open civil war.

Except all are not happy in San Francisco. Pelosi opens up talks with Pence, a figure of hate for the Occupy movement. They declare a San Francisco Autonomous Zone, joining similar moves by the Occupiers in Portland, Seattle, New York, Los Angeles and others. The police are sent in to try and bring an end to the Occupy Movement but they are divided against themselves as certain officers object to heavy handed tactics. Over the course of the following year, an overstretched and half-starved California State Government withdraw from San Francisco. The Autonomous Zone does not see fit to acknowledge a President of the United States, settling with broadcasting the legitimacy of their Nominated Convenor to the world.

[I'M CRYING TEARS OF BLOOD AS MARIN BURNS IN THE BACKGROUND]

 

[Bolt451]

People Recognised as Head of State by the City of San Francisco

*Raises a Fist from a tower made entirely from Tweets and Laurie Penny books*

And you didn't call the list "Mike Check?"

 

[Mumby]

*Raises a Fist from a tower made entirely from Tweets and Laurie Penny books*

And you didn't call the list "Mike Check?"

I couldn't think of a title I liked so I just didn't do a title.

 

[Yossarian]

It's NZ as Russia idk

1940 - 1943: John A. Lee (Labour)
1943 - 1953: John A. Lee (Democratic Labour)
1953 - 1956: Walter Nash (Democratic Labour)
1956 - 1964: Arnold Nordmeyer (National Democratic Labour)
1964 - 1982: Robert Muldoon (National Democratic Labour)
1982 - 1984: Norman Douglas (National Democratic Labour)
1984 - 1985: Basil Arthur, Bt. (National Democratic Labour)
1985 - 1991: Robert Jones (National Democratic Labour)
1991 (August): Bruce Beetham (Social Credit/Special Committee on the State of Emergency)
1991 (Aug-Dec): Robert Jones (National Democratic Labour)
1991 - 1999: David Lange (Independent)
1999 - 2008: Timothy Shadbolt (United NZ)
2008 - 2012: Peter Dunne (United NZ)
2012 - 0000: Timothy Shadbolt (People's Voice)

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Lange as Yeltsin works disturbingly well.

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

Timothy Shadbolt

I have never heard of this weird mayor before, but he's absolutely brilliant.

 

[Charles EP M.]

2017 - 2023: Hilary Clinton (Democratic)
2016 def. John Kasich (Republican)
2020 def. Brett Kavanaugh (America Great), Susan Collins (Republican)


The Republican primary in 2016 narrowed fast when Trump seemed to be doing a bit too well and a lot of horse-trading was done to get people to drop out. Even then, it came extremely close and Trump's nascent 'America Great' supporters threw an utter fit when he lost to Kasich: accusations of conspiracy and establishment abounded, depressing Republican turnout enough to allow the Democrats to retake the House and deadlock the Senate.

That deadlock would cause Clinton problems in her first term, as any big social or environmental policy would require unanimity among the Senate Democrats and for the Republicans not to filibuster to hell - a very rare occurrence, forcing the use of executive actions once more. Slow progress increased disgruntlement across the country but salvation came thanks, ironically, to Trump and his base forming the official America Great Party. When the 2018 midterms came along, the right-wing vote was split and the Democrats gained a majority.

While the Republicans and AGs fought for dominance, the Democrats made great use of several years of de facto supremacy to go more progressive with the eventual introduction of universal healthcare on Australia's mixed private-public method, greater minority rights and voting reform, and a nationwide push for climate change policy. The downside, if you were a left-winger or liberal, was this was helping the AGs win the factional war - the Republicans increasingly looked like the failed old 'elite', and a generation of potential young members went, if they found the Greats repugnant, to the Libertarians. The 2022 midterms would see a "Great Surge", not enough to take either house of Congress but enough to end the Democrat's majority, forcing them to talk to the Republicans.

Doing this did not make the left-wing of the party - which was a lot of the party - very happy, nor many of the politicians, nor Clinton, and the stress of this mixed with the stress of an increasingly multipolar world, the stress of the sheer MESS of climate change, and the fact Clinton was getting old. Health reasons forced her to step down in late 2023.


2023 - 2025: Tim Kaine (Democratic)

Tim Kaine served out the remainder of Clinton's time and appointed Amy Klobuchar as his Vice-President - something that would turn out to be a bad idea when a million stories of workplace bullying came out, and it didn't look good when Kaine kept her. He expected a hard fight in 2024 from the emboldened Greats but did not expect the so-called 'Socialist Democrats' wing of the party to primary him & mean it. America, they claimed, needed to go further still and not work with the right wing, not when the challenges of climate change and chaos abroad were bearing down.

Kaine's attempt to stay in the game failed, and he went on to serve out his 'lame duck' period as best he could.


2025 - 2029: Rashida Tlaib (Democratic)
2024 def. Ivanka Trump (America Great), Mark Brnovich (Republican)

There had been speculation a Muslim running could lead to an AG Presidency but, in the end, it didn't happen. They did, however, manage to retain part of Congress and so did the Republicans - that meant Tlaib was forced to, just as her predecessors had, cut deals with Republicans. Cries of "BETRAYED!" started early.

Domestically, Tlaib continued to push the country leftward as much as she could, while various states held by conservatives or the Greats dragged their heels; on the world stage, Tlaib ended America's 'special relationship' with Israel and also served notice to the Gulf states, who were already in a precarious situation as the world moved to renewables and the heat kept creeping up. China, America's great game rival, didn't really care to prop up the Gulf if they stumbled, and stumbled they did near the end of her first term. The semi-downscaled US armed forces would intervene to evacuate foreign citizens.

Also in her first term, America Great would start to collapse in midterm and state elections: they were just not doing a good enough job to retain all their voters. That was good! Not so good if you're a Democrat, the Greens were starting to make proper gains for the first time and the Republicans....

...the Republicans were doing better, drawing in a more diverse crowd, becoming 'classically liberal' but really, moderated to "should we go so far?" With the far-right bled off and the Democrats having been in power for twenty four years, the Republicans were now the fresh-faced party, the moderates against those whacky Dems, attracting the sort of people who might have before sighed & voted Democrat because of the Republicans' old race, gender, and sexuality baggage.


Tlaib gave it her all but the 'Red Sea' came in with TV-famous former judge and the first African-American winner for his party:

2029 - 20xx: Daniel Francisco (Republican)
2028 def. Rashida Tlaib (Democratic), Robert Linus Booth (America Great), Patricia Mills (Green)

Stability, he promised, over chaos.

 

[Yokai Man]

2017 - 2023: Hilary Clinton (Democratic)
2016 def. John Kasich (Republican)
2020 def. Brett Kavanaugh (America Great), Susan Collins (Republican)


The Republican primary in 2016 narrowed fast when Trump seemed to be doing a bit too well and a lot of horse-trading was done to get people to drop out. Even then, it came extremely close and Trump's nascent 'America Great' supporters threw an utter fit when he lost to Kasich: accusations of conspiracy and establishment abounded, depressing Republican turnout enough to allow the Democrats to retake the House and deadlock the Senate.

That deadlock would cause Clinton problems in her first term, as any big social or environmental policy would require unanimity among the Senate Democrats and for the Republicans not to filibuster to hell - a very rare occurrence, forcing the use of executive actions once more. Slow progress increased disgruntlement across the country but salvation came thanks, ironically, to Trump and his base forming the official America Great Party. When the 2018 midterms came along, the right-wing vote was split and the Democrats gained a majority.

While the Republicans and AGs fought for dominance, the Democrats made great use of several years of de facto supremacy to go more progressive with the eventual introduction of universal healthcare on Australia's mixed private-public method, greater minority rights and voting reform, and a nationwide push for climate change policy. The downside, if you were a left-winger or liberal, was this was helping the AGs win the factional war - the Republicans increasingly looked like the failed old 'elite', and a generation of potential young members went, if they found the Greats repugnant, to the Libertarians. The 2022 midterms would see a "Great Surge", not enough to take either house of Congress but enough to end the Democrat's majority, forcing them to talk to the Republicans.

Doing this did not make the left-wing of the party - which was a lot of the party - very happy, nor many of the politicians, nor Clinton, and the stress of this mixed with the stress of an increasingly multipolar world, the stress of the sheer MESS of climate change, and the fact Clinton was getting old. Health reasons forced her to step down in late 2023.


2023 - 2025: Tim Kaine (Democratic)

Tim Kaine served out the remainder of Clinton's time and appointed Amy Klobuchar as his Vice-President - something that would turn out to be a bad idea when a million stories of workplace bullying came out, and it didn't look good when Kaine kept her. He expected a hard fight in 2024 from the emboldened Greats but did not expect the so-called 'Socialist Democrats' wing of the party to primary him & mean it. America, they claimed, needed to go further still and not work with the right wing, not when the challenges of climate change and chaos abroad were bearing down.

Kaine's attempt to stay in the game failed, and he went on to serve out his 'lame duck' period as best he could.


2025 - 2029: Rashida Tlaib (Democratic)
2024 def. Ivanka Trump (America Great), Mark Brnovich (Republican)

There had been speculation a Muslim running could lead to an AG Presidency but, in the end, it didn't happen. They did, however, manage to retain part of Congress and so did the Republicans - that meant Tlaib was forced to, just as her predecessors had, cut deals with Republicans. Cries of "BETRAYED!" started early.

Domestically, Tlaib continued to push the country leftward as much as she could, while various states held by conservatives or the Greats dragged their heels; on the world stage, Tlaib ended America's 'special relationship' with Israel and also served notice to the Gulf states, who were already in a precarious situation as the world moved to renewables and the heat kept creeping up. China, America's great game rival, didn't really care to prop up the Gulf if they stumbled, and stumbled they did near the end of her first term. The semi-downscaled US armed forces would intervene to evacuate foreign citizens.

Also in her first term, America Great would start to collapse in midterm and state elections: they were just not doing a good enough job to retain all their voters. That was good! Not so good if you're a Democrat, the Greens were starting to make proper gains for the first time and the Republicans....

...the Republicans were doing better, drawing in a more diverse crowd, becoming 'classically liberal' but really, moderated to "should we go so far?" With the far-right bled off and the Democrats having been in power for twenty four years, the Republicans were now the fresh-faced party, the moderates against those whacky Dems, attracting the sort of people who might have before sighed & voted Democrat because of the Republicans' old race, gender, and sexuality baggage.


Tlaib gave it her all but the 'Red Sea' came in with TV-famous former judge and the first African-American winner for his party:

2029 - 20xx: Daniel Francisco (Republican)
2028 def. Rashida Tlaib (Democratic), Robert Linus Booth (America Great), Patricia Mills (Green)

Stability, he promised, over chaos.

This

This is how Judge Creed became reality?

......Ok.

 

[Charles EP M.]

It's hard coming up with fake names so sorry, 2000AD, I'm nicking some of yours.

 

[Yossarian]

I have never heard of this weird mayor before, but he's absolutely brilliant.

He (or his public persona is [1]) a delightful loon who spent the 70s on a commune and became known for writing a book on concrete, and has spent 29 of the past 36 years as a mayor.

I think his entire personality can be summarised with an anecdote from when he went on our rough equivalent of Mock the Week, where one panel member asked him "Bill Clinton said he smoked marijuana, but never inhaled. Tim, is it true that you never exhaled?"

[1] Shadbolt's first wife has accused him of beating her throughout the 1970s and 80s, and while she has forgiven him and believes he is remorseful, it casts a very dark pall over a jovial buffoon.

Lange as Yeltsin works disturbingly well.

He really made the most sense. Bolger was too dry, Moore didn't have a colourful enough personal life, and Anderton was likelier to be TTL Zyuganov (in hindsight, should've made him the coup leader, but at this stage I've a standing order to crowbar Bruce Beetham into these lists where possible as shameless fanservice for @Uhura's Mazda).

Naturally, I briefly considered Winston as Putin, but he's too old and I can guarantee none of us want to imagine, much less see, him without a shirt on.

 

[theev]

Too Much Sandbrook
Unfortunately, of the exposure that British print media has gotten to alternate history, a significant portion has come from the likes of Dominic Sandbrook. Sandbrook, a British political and cultural historian who is largely known for his contrary opinion that 60s were an age of conservatism and conformity and for allegations of plagiarism a few years ago. Sandbrook wrote a counter-factual collumn in the New Statesman before moving to the Daily Mail, where he occasionally wrote speculative fiction like 'Buck House sold to Qatar. The King lives in a small flat. The only people who marry are gay. DOMINIC SANDBROOK mischievously asks... What kind of Britain will George reign over?' amid recent articles variously titled 'MPs are plotting to derail Brexit, but as the rebellion in Venezuela shows, leaders who ignore the will of the people risk putting us on the road to anarchy' or 'Britain deserves so much better than these posturing narcissist MPs who despise democracy' or 'Will Labour MPs really let Corbyn reduce UK to ashes?' et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum. Anyway, taking a look at several of his Daily Mail alternate histories I wanted to try to make a Britain that would fit right into Sandbrook's narrative.

All in quotes are taken from his articles directly.

1976-1979: James Callaghan (Labour)
1978 (Majority): Margaret Thatcher (Conservative) , David Steel (Liberal)
1979-1982: Michael Foot (Labour)
1982-1988: Tony Benn (Labour)
1983 (Majority): William Whitelaw (Conservative) , Dennis Healey (Social Democratic) , David Steel (Liberal)
1988-1997: Michael Heseltine (Conservative)
1988 (Coalition with Social Democratic): Tony Benn (Labour) , David Owen (Social Democratic) , David Steel (Liberal)
1992 (Minority): Tony Benn (Labour) , Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrat) , David Owen (Continuity Social Democratic)
1997-2007: Tony Blair (Labour)
1997 (Majority): Michael Heseltine (Conservative) , Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrat)
2001 (Majority): Ken Clarke (Conservative) , Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrat)
2005 (Majority): Ken Clarke (Conservative) , Lembit Opik (Liberal Democrat)
2007-2010: John McDonnell (Labour)
2010-2012: David Cameron (Conservative)
2010 (Coalition with Liberal Democrat): John McDonnell (Labour) , Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat)
2012-2017: Ed Miliband (Labour)
2015 (Majority): David Cameron (Conservative) , Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) , Paul Nutall (Faragist)
2017-2018: Ed Balls (Labour)

Spoiler

For many historians, the Eighties really began in September 1978, when Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan announced there would be a General Election on Thursday, October 5.
Though Callaghan had been forced to seek a humiliating bailout from the IMF only two years earlier, he remained remarkably popular. Polls showed Labour neck-and-neck with Margaret Thatcher’s Tory Party. The PM didn’t have to call an election until the autumn of 1979, but he figured it was better to go to the polls now than risk any deterioration in his party’s fortunes.
As the campaign wore on, Callaghan began to pull ahead. And when the first results were announced in the early hours of Friday morning, it was clear that his great election gamble had paid off.
Labour had secured only a 12-seat majority, but it was enough. And on the Tory benches, disappointed expectations soon turned into bitter recriminations.

On the Monday after polling day, the famous men in grey suits — the party grandees, who had never really liked her — paid a call on Margaret Thatcher. She resigned as party leader that evening, brushing away tears in a moving farewell Press conference.

In her place, the Tories turned to the bumbling figure of Willie Whitelaw, an old-fashioned patrician Wet whom they decided would connect better with the British electorate.
In the meantime, the country was reeling from crisis to crisis. Scarcely had Callaghan returned to No 10 than his premiership was consumed in the notorious Winter of Discontent. As one group of workers after another — lorry drivers, railwaymen, bus drivers, ambulance drivers, caretakers, cleaners, even grave-diggers — walked out on strike for higher wages, the country ground to a halt.
Buoyed by his election victory, Callaghan was in no mood to compromise. Rather than break his declared 5 per cent national pay limit and risk higher inflation, he declared a State of Emergency and summoned the Army to drive Britain’s petrol tankers.
It was a catastrophic mistake. On February 12, 1979, a date that has gone down in history as Black Monday, fighting broke out between pickets and soldiers at one depot outside Hull.
In the chaos, one soldier — carrying live rounds, in contravention of orders — opened fire and killed five people. It was one of the most shocking moments in modern British history.
Callaghan resigned the next day, the last honourable act of a decent man overwhelmed by events. But contrary to his expectations, the Labour Party did not turn to his Chancellor, the bushy-browed Denis Healey.
Instead, they lurched to the Left and elected as their new Prime Minister Michael Foot, with his flowing white locks, walking stick and impassioned socialist rhetoric. The real power in the land, however, was Foot’s colleague Tony Benn, who replaced the disgruntled Healey as Chancellor. And in the next few years, it was Benn who presided over the most sweeping socialist measures any Western country had seen in living memory.
To the horror of many in industry, Benn insisted that Britain’s declining economy needed a dose of shock therapy. The top rate of income tax went up to 98 per cent, and the government announced a one-off 5 per cent ‘equality levy’ on households with income over £50,000 a year.
As frightened investors began to withdraw their money from the City of London, Benn introduced sweeping exchange controls. He also, in an attempt to shore up Britain’s crumbling manufacturing base, introduced the most stringent import tariffs in the Western world.
The reaction was pandemonium. As inflation shot over 25 per cent and unemployment went above two million, horrified European leaders insisted that Britain’s new policies were incompatible with membership of the Common Market.

For six weeks during the winter of 1980-81, lawyers, journalists and political junkies descended on California to study the disputed ballots, while the rival campaigns of Ronald Reagan and Edward Kennedy flooded the airwaves with claims and counterclaims. It made an appropriately bizarre conclusion to the most turbulent one-term presidency in American history.
The story began four years earlier when Reagan - just retired as governor of California - beat Gerald Ford by a tiny margin to become the Republicans’ 1976 presidential candidate. Against all the odds, he then whittled away Jimmy Carter’s lead and prevailed in the general election, becoming the third Republican president in a row. Shell-shocked, Carter gave up politics to become a Baptist preacher. Nowadays Americans often call him “the best president we never had”.
Reagan ran into trouble from the start. Coming at a time of recession and austerity, his glitzy inauguration - with John Wayne ubiquitous - was condemned as tasteless gloating, and his sweeping tax cuts were rewarded with surging inflation. As millions lost their jobs, the administration’s conspicuous hedonism seemed grotesque. When Nancy Reagan was photographed dancing at Studio 54, the beleaguered president had to go on TV to apologise.
But it was foreign affairs for which Reagan will always be remembered. Within months of taking office, he had torn up détente with the Soviet Union and sent thousands of so-called military advisers into El Salvador. When he refused to sign the Panama Canal Treaty, central America exploded. Even his laudable attempts to strike an unprecedented peace deal between Israel and Egypt came to nothing when he fell asleep during the Camp David negotiations.
By the time revolution erupted in Iran in late 1978, sending petrol prices and inflation soaring, Reagan was already floundering. A US-backed coup to reinstal the shah went badly wrong, and when Iranian students stormed the US embassy and took its staff hostage, the president gambled. Operation Eagle Talon, as it was known, was a disaster: as missiles rained down on Tehran, hundreds of schoolchildren were killed. Across the Middle East, US embassies burned; a few weeks later, Soviet troops crossed the border into Iran.
Although nuclear war was averted, Reagan was finished. Only a relentlessly negative campaign, complete with slow-mo reconstructions of the Chappaquiddick incident, kept him in the race against the Democrats’ Ted Kennedy. Not until 2008, when memories were beginning to fade, did the American people elect another Republican president.

The following year, as the economic picture continued to worsen, the Government introduced controls to stop people taking sterling out of the country. As a result, the foreign package holiday market collapsed — although landladies in Blackpool said they had never seen more business.
There were rumours that Foot was planning to move his turbulent Chancellor, but they were blown away when, in April 1982, Argentine forces landed in the Falklands.
As a veteran crusader against fascism, Foot was desperate to confront the invaders, even though most of his own party opposed him. But the operation to recapture the islands was a disaster from start to finish.
The sinking of HMS Sheffield marked the beginning of the end, and after the disastrous failure of the San Carlos landings, the game was up.

Foot clung onto office for a few more months, but in the autumn of 1982, after a handful of Labour right-wingers led by Healey had broken away to form the Social Democratic Party, Foot announced his resignation — becoming the second Labour Leader to quit in just three years. And so it was that Benn took his place as Labour leader for the Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph in November 1982.
A year earlier, Foot had been derided for wearing a green coat described by some as a donkey jacket. Now Benn turned up in a genuine black woollen donkey jacket, complete with numerous badges: CND, ‘Right to Work’, ‘Ireland for the Irish’ and a tiny Red flag.
When Benn called an election six months later, his manifesto called for the abolition of the monarchy and the Lords, withdrawal from Nato and the EEC, the scrapping of our nuclear weapons and the nationalisation of Britain’s 25 biggest companies.
His critics called it the ‘longest suicide note in history’.
But thanks to some enthusiastic pump priming by his new Chancellor, Neil Kinnock, there was an illusory sense of economic recovery.
And as the ineffective Whitelaw and the belligerent Healey spent most of the election campaign attacking one another, it was Benn, defying all the pundits, who was triumphantly re-elected in June 1983.

Benn’s attempts to abolish the monarchy came to nothing. But he did manage to get rid of the House of Lords, overcoming the old order’s opposition by creating a record 500 new peers, including such luminaries as Viscount Barnsley (Arthur Scargill), the Earl of Nottingham (football manager Brian Clough) and the Marchioness of Stirling (the comedian Wee Jimmy Krankie).
In its place, the trade unions were invited to nominate a new People’s Convention, who would sit in judgment on all legislation passed by the Commons.
In the next few weeks, the Convention approved the most sweeping measures Britain had ever known. The Armed Forces were slashed to the bone, and Britain’s nuclear weapons were decommissioned.

In Dublin, Benn signed a historic Anglo-Irish agreement, turning Northern Ireland into an international protectorate with... Edward Kennedy as the state’s first proconsul.
And with Britain’s car industry in desperate trouble, and foreign imports now forbidden by law, Benn made a ground-breaking trip across the Berlin Wall, where he struck a deal to buy 250,000 East German Trabants.
There was no disguising the fact, though, that Britain’s economy was now in a wretched condition. Kinnock’s pre-election boom had turned inexorably to dust, leaving the country with an inflation rate of almost 40 per cent and official unemployment figures of four million plus.
Undeterred by mounting criticism from France’s President Mitterrand and West Germany’s Chancellor Kohl, Benn ploughed the profits from North Sea oil into what he called the ‘Big Bang’ — a massive programme to provide new jobs for the unemployed in Britain’s coal mines.

However, by now it was too late. As a result of the recession and the inefficiencies of the dominant printing unions, most newspapers had closed. The Times had ceased publication in 1981, when the Government vetoed Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to rescue it from bankruptcy.
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.
Meanwhile, the BBC was put under government control, with one of Benn’s disciples, the Postmaster General Michael Meacher, assuming the role of chairman.
To the few foreign tourists who came to Britain, cities such as London seemed strangely shabby and backward. Few restaurants stayed open after 9 pm. Telephone connections were slow and erratic.

A few pioneering souls invested in mobile phones, which were — and indeed still are — provided by the General Post Office, though you have to be prepared to wait nine months.
And since the Prime Minister had always been keen on gadgets, it was not surprising that he ploughed billions into Britain’s nationalised British Computer Corporation, even though the results were widely condemned as slow and unreliable.
Home computers, for instance, never took off in popularity, since most people simply could not afford the necessary £250 licence. Little wonder, then, that all these years later, less than 10 per cent of Britain’s population is connected to the internet.
For all Mr Benn’s efforts, however, his socialist paradise did not last for ever. Despite the torrent of pro-Government propaganda poured out by the state-controlled BBC, the British people had had enough.

In 1988, they kicked out the government and replaced it with a Tory-SDP Coalition, led by Michael Heseltine.

Some historians claim that if Callaghan had put off the election until 1979, as some of his ministers were urging, then Margaret Thatcher might have won and become prime minister. And then 21st century Britain would be completely different.
But I’m not so sure. As our school curriculum — written by Tony Blair, Mr Benn’s hand-picked successor — is so keen on reminding us, individuals never matter in history.

The Cold War continues, but we remain officially neutral — not least because our military weakness means that no potential ally would really want us.

Though victory in the Second Falklands War was secured only a few weeks ago, the islands' conquerors have already been busy.
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.

But for Britain, battered by months of economic austerity, it was a tempest that swept away the Coalition government and destroyed any lingering illusions that the United Kingdom was still a serious power.
As the Argentine troops parade triumphantly down Avenida Leopoldo Galtieri, a few miserable islanders stand and watch. Many have already booked their flights back to Britain, sick of the Spanish road signs and posters of Diego Maradona.

Heartened by the freezing of relations between Britain and its Continental partners, Mrs Kirchner calculated that the rest of the European Union would never back Britain's claims to the disputed islands.
Indeed, discreet signals from Paris indicated that President Nicolas Sarkozy would look kindly on an Argentine invasion, since it would bring David Cameron to heel.

In London, the reaction was bedlam. In a packed House of Commons, David Cameron promised he would stop at nothing 'to get our islands back'.
But already cracks were forming. On the streets of London, anarchist protesters chanted 'Give Them Back!'
And on the floor of the Commons, Labour's Ed Miliband told MPs that Britain should not fire a single shot without the approval of the United Nations.
By the middle of April, Mr Cameron had given his approval to the formation of a task force to retake the Falklands.

Without Harrier jump jets or aircraft carriers, the Prime Minister's naval chiefs explained, the mission would be hazardous to say the least.
What was more, the national mood had never been more divided, and even the battle for public opinion would be a close-run thing.
When Mr Cameron told the Royal Navy to go ahead anyway, the Lib Dem Environment Secretary, Chris Huhne, walked out of the Cabinet. But that was now the least of the Coalition's worries.
Their spin doctors ensured that the departure of the flotilla was a good show, though even sympathetic observers found the spectacle of Sir Steve Redgrave, who had been roped in to encourage the troops from his rowing boat, frankly bizarre.
But Britain was losing the struggle for world opinion. In the U.S., Barack Obama, facing a tough re-election battle, promised audiences that he would stay out of the conflict.
'My predecessors allowed themselves to be dragged into foreign conflicts of which we know nothing,' he said to loud cheers. 'I will not make the same mistake. My motto is simple: America first.'
Most South Americans naturally backed Argentina. What was shocking, though, was that the EU failed to voice its support for Britain.

ndeed, even before the Task Force had reached Ascension Island, President Sarkozy had made a dramatic intervention that horrified British observers.
Twenty years before, the French had provided political support for Britain, allowing Harrier pilots to train against the French aircraft used by Argentina — though in a typically cynical Parisian twist, it was the French-made Exocet missiles that did so much damage to British ships. But now the mood was very different.
'Our British friends need to learn that their days of glory are over,' said Mr Sarkozy.
'The Malvinas — for so we should call them — properly belong to Argentina. It is mere arrogance for mon cher David to think otherwise.'

As the temperature mounted, so the European pressure grew.
Just days before the Euro 2012 football tournament was scheduled to start, Uefa President Michel Platini announced that England had been kicked out of the tournament — because, the Frenchman said, half-suppressing a smirk, the team posed an insurmountable 'security risk'.
For the Coalition, the European betrayal was a dagger in the heart. And in a sign of the ugly public mood, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, the Spanish wife of the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, was subjected to a hail of vile abuse on the streets of London.

...
plans to send Britain's nuclear submarines had to be scrapped when it transpired that, thanks to the decision to lift the ban on women serving beneath the waves, they were undergoing a £3 million refit to make them 'female friendly'.
What followed was a disaster. The air war went the Argentines' way; three British ships were sunk; and when, in desperation, commanders mounted a last-ditch landing at San Carlos Bay, the British troops were picked off by their South American adversaries.
Nobody doubted the courage or expertise of our fighting men and women. The tragedy was that they had been stabbed in the back, betrayed by a government that had slashed defence spending to the bone.
By then, the Coalition was in meltdown. Speaking in the Commons on May 12, Ed Miliband insisted that it was time for Britain to 'face reality'.
A few hours later, the Lib Dems announced that they were leaving the Coalition and hoped to form a new government with Labour. The very next afternoon, as Samantha Cameron was carrying her Smythson luggage out of Downing Street, President Obama told a campaign meeting in Yorktown that the 'British Empire is over'.

In London, however, there were only tears. Some 649 British servicemen had been killed, with more than 1,000 wounded and no fewer than 11,313 taken prisoner and shipped to an internment camp outside Buenos Aires.
News that Prince Harry — who had insisted on serving on the front line — had been captured seemed only to pile humiliation on humiliation.

Under the UN resettlement plan, the English-speaking islanders will soon be gone.
Soon enough, too, there will be no more reminders of a British presence that lasted for hundreds of years.
The air is cold; the bars are empty. And in the night air there is just the lingering sound of the tango, like some mournful lament for what might have been.

Even the nation's new Prime Minister, the blinking, stammering Ed Miliband, cuts a remarkably limp figure, a melancholy leader for a nation sunk in misery.

Powerless: Britain's Prime Minister is the stammering Labour Party leader Ed Miliband

Hoping to secure German support for a massive one trillion euro rescue package, Chancellor Angela Merkel gave her parliamentarians a chillingly prescient warning.
‘No one should believe that another half century of peace in Europe is a given — it’s not,’ she said.
‘So I say again: if the euro collapses, Europe collapses. That can’t happen.’

What Mrs Merkel had grasped — and what many European leaders refused to recognise — was that the Continent was threatened by a toxic combination of spiralling debt, economic recession, surging anarchism and a pervasive collapse of confidence in capitalism itself.

That week, even St Paul’s Cathedral in London — whose survival had been a memorable symbol of British defiance during the last European war — was shut down by anti-capitalist protesters.
At the time it seemed a tiny, even trivial incident. But it was merely a taste of what was coming.
For by February 2012, it was terrifyingly obvious that the latest eurozone package had failed. In Greece, protests against the government’s austerity measures had turned into daily running battles, while much of Western Europe had now sunk back into recession.
A month later, after an angry mob had invaded the Greek parliament itself, Greece announced it was withdrawing from the euro. Almost overnight, the European markets were hit by the biggest losses in financial history.
As law and order collapsed on the streets of Athens, France and Germany sent in 5,000 ‘peacekeepers’ to restore calm. But when they came under attack from petrol-bomb throwing demonstrators, it was clear that more drastic action might be needed.

With the markets turning their attention to Italy, and Silvio Berlusconi’s beleaguered government struggling to maintain order, Europe’s fifth largest economy was suddenly at risk.
In the summer of 2012, massive anti-capitalist demonstrations in major Italian cities turned into outright rebellion. And when Berlusconi sent in the army to maintain order, the first bombs began exploding in the banks of Rome, Milan and Turin.
Anti-capitalism had caught the imagination of a generation. And the bomb alert at the Bank of England —when the entire City had to be evacuated after warnings from the so-called ‘Guy Fawkes Anti-Cuts Collective’ — was merely the first of many.

In July 2012, three people were killed by a bank bomb in Frankfurt. A month later, 15 people were killed in Dublin. And in September, in tragic events that will never be forgotten, 36 people were killed by explosions across the City of London.
By now demonstrations and riots were fixtures on the evening news. And as Germany and France struggled to keep the eurozone alive, there were the first signs of a disturbing new authoritarianism.
In Italy, where the Berlusconi government had declared a permanent state of emergency, some cities had degenerated into virtual civil war.
And when Berlusconi formally requested assistance from his European partners, the French president Nicolas Sarkozy — who had narrowly won re-election earlier that year — was only too keen to flex his muscles.
By the end of 2012, there were an estimated 15,000 French troops on the streets of northern Italy — as well as a further 14,000 ‘European peacekeepers’ in Athens and Thessaloniki. Slowly but surely, the continent was sliding towards armed confrontation.

When President Obama called Britain ‘Cuba without the sunshine — and with older cars’, we pretended to laugh. But for most of us, Britain’s condition is long past a joke.

By the following year, a peaceful settlement to the implosion of the European Union seemed increasingly unlikely.
The last major Brussels summit, in March 2013, broke up acrimoniously when many smaller European nations refused to accept Germany’s demands for greater fiscal austerity and economic integration.
With alarming speed, the threads of peaceful unity were unravelling.
With the European economy heading into depression, nationalist movements were gaining support across the Continent. Skinheads were on the march; in cities from Madrid to Budapest, foreigners and immigrants were the victims of violent abuse.

After the early collapse of the coalition government and the ensuing Labour landslide, Britain is holding the first presidential election in its history. The government’s preferred candidate is the rather uninspiring figure of Margaret Beckett, although some left-wing backbenchers support the trenchant John McDonnell, who is running as an independent. The Tories have nominated the veteran Kenneth Clarke, the early front-runner, while the Lib Dems have ended up with Paddy Ashdown. There is also a handful of independents, adding to the gaiety of the proceedings. Lembit Öpik’s campaign has been an exercise in self-mortification, and, if the polls are right, very few voters are likely to tell Lord Sugar “You’re hired”.
But as the campaign has gone on, the winner’s identity has become steadily more obvious. In an age of widespread political alienation, it is perhaps not surprising that so many people should want to vote for an independent. More surprising, perhaps, is that so many should vote for an elderly, upper-class woman in her late eighties who has defiantly eschewed many of the conventions of campaigning. Refusing to take part in the televised debates, to record broadcasts or even to give interviews, she has spent much of the campaign walking around shopping centres and visiting hospital wards, occasionally breaking off to watch the horse racing. She promises nothing and has no policies, and yet, wherever she goes, members of the public present her with flowers. Some of them have tears in their eyes. “She’s the only one for the job,” a local taxi driver told me after she had visited Wolverhampton. “After all, she’s been doing it long enough. She’s the only one of them with the right experience.”
Yes, it is time to face facts. Britain is about to get its first republican president. Her name is Elizabeth Windsor.

At another time, the terrible Spanish riots in the spring of 2014, when 63 people were killed in a shocking outbreak of arson and looting, would have dominated the headlines.
But most people’s attention was focused further east. No country had been hit harder by the financial crisis than little Latvia, which by 2014 had an unemployment rate of more than 35  per cent. And with almost one in three of its citizens being ethnic Russians, economic frustration soon turned into nationalist confrontation.
On August 12, 2015, after days of fighting on the streets of Riga, the Russian army rumbled across the border. The Russians had come to ‘restore order’, Vladimir Putin assured the world.
But his statement to the Russian people told a different story.
‘Europe’s crisis is Russia’s opportunity,’ Putin announced. ‘The days of humiliation are over; our empire will be restored.’
Once, the West would have come to Latvia’s aid. It was, after all, a member of both the European Union and of Nato — though the new American isolationism meant that Nato membership was effectively worthless.
But since French troops were already committed to Greece and Italy, Paris refused to intervene.

And in London, the new Prime Minister, Ed Miliband, assured the nation that he would never commit British troops to help ‘a faraway country of which we know nothing’.
In Moscow, the message was clear. Six months later, Russian ‘peacekeepers’ crossed the border into Estonia, and in March 2016, Putin’s army occupied Lithuania, Belarus and Moldova.
When Brussels complained, the Kremlin pointed out that European peacekeepers were already on the streets of Athens, Rome and Madrid. Why, Putin asked, should the rules be any different in the east?
And, indeed, he had a point. Even in Paris, there was chilling evidence of a slide towards ruthless suppression of civil dissent — justified as a short-term measure to check the rise of anti-capitalist terrorism.

That summer, Sarkozy amended the French constitution so that he could seek a third term, claiming that stability mattered more than legal niceties. Now more than ever he seemed to see himself as the reincarnation of Napoleon Bonaparte, ostentatiously tucking his hand into his military-style greatcoat.
Back in October 2011, he had told David Cameron to ‘shut up’, claiming that Europe had ‘had enough’ of British advice. Now he seemed to have tipped over into outright Anglophobia.
The crisis had been ‘made in London’, Sarkozy told French television in August 2016.
‘But Britain’s day is done. The future lies in a Russian east and a European — that is to say, French — west.’
For some British newspapers, his words were proof of an unspoken alliance between Moscow and Paris, sweetened with Russian oil and gas money. And, by now, Napoleonic ambitions seemed to have gone to the French president’s head.
Five days before Christmas 2016, Sarkozy told a cheering crowd in Vichy that ‘all European Union members must fully embrace our project and join the euro, or they will pay the price’.
In Britain, his remarks provoked a storm of outrage. Many insiders suggested that left to his own devices, Ed Miliband would have been more than happy to join the euro.
But, by now, the weak Prime Minister was almost completely ruled by his overweening Chancellor, Ed Balls, who insisted that Britain simply could not afford to join a patently unfair Franco-German currency.
As France tightened the pressure, with French farmers ritually burning British imports outside the Channel ports, Miliband cracked, handing in his resignation and scuttling off to take up a teaching post at Harvard.

For years, Belgium had been crippled by antagonism between Dutch-speaking Flemings and French-speaking Walloons.
The country had not even had a proper government since the summer of 2010, being run first by a caretaker coalition and then, from 2014, by the European Union itself. But in the summer of 2017 inter-community rioting in the centre of Brussels became terrifyingly brutal.
From Wallonia, there came reports of Dutch speakers being beaten and intimidated out of their homes. On August 1, Sarkozy sent in French paratroopers.
‘Brussels is the very heart of Europe,’ he said. ‘Which is to say, it is properly part of France.’

For Britain, this was the final provocation. All parties agreed that, thanks to Britain’s long-standing pledge to defend Belgian independence, we had no choice but to dispatch peacekeepers of our own.
The events of the next few months make sorry reading. Even in 2011, Britain had only 101,000 regular soldiers to France’s 123,000, but years of swingeing spending cuts had taken their toll.
By 2017, Britain’s land forces were down to just 75,000. And when fighting broke out between French and British peacekeepers in the outskirts of Ghent, no one seriously doubted that the French would win.
So it is that, a year later, we find ourselves at our lowest ebb. Aided by Spanish and Italian auxiliaries, backed by German money and quietly supported by neo-imperialist Russia, the French army has encircled our expeditionary force on the other side of the Channel and cut it to shreds.
The Americans have deserted us, while every week brings fresh anti-war and anti-capitalist riots in our cities. The shelves are increasingly empty; national morale has hit rock bottom.
In Scotland, polls show that more than 70  per cent want independence; in Northern Ireland, the bombs of the Real IRA explode almost daily.
Last week, addressing a vast crowd in French-occupied Brussels, Nicolas Sarkozy declared that it was ‘time to extinguish the stain of Waterloo’.
‘Britain has always been part of Europe — even if they have refused to recognise it,’ he said.
‘It is time to welcome them into our family — by force, if necessary.’
A few diehards talk of fighting in the last ditch. But no one seriously believes that Britain can hold out for long.
The Union flag hangs tattered and forlorn; our days of glory are long gone. And, in Brussels, our new masters are preparing for victory.
Even now, the transformation in our fortunes seems almost incredible.

Thanks to their control of the People’s Convention, public life is still dominated by the trade unions, marshalled by the 75-year-old TUC president Arthur Scargill.
Meanwhile, most of the country’s supermarkets, pubs and even removal firms are still owned by the State.

Yesterday, after a run of military defeats unequalled in our history, the Prime Minister offered his resignation. There is talk of a National Government, but no one has any illusions of another Churchill waiting in the wings.

The date is October 29, 2018, and Britain faces its darkest hour. On the battlefields of Europe, our Armed Forces have been humiliated.
In makeshift prison camps on the continent, thousands of our young men and women sit forlornly, testament to the collapse of our ambitions.
From the killing grounds of Belgium to the scarred streets of Athens, a continent continues to bleed. And, in the east, the Russian bear inexorably tightens its grip, an old empire rising from the wreckage of the European dream.

Spoiler: Bonus Lists

1952-2015: Elizabeth Windsor (as Elizabeth II)
2015-0000: Elizabeth Windsor (Independent)
2015: Ken Clarke (Conservative) , Margaret Beckett (Labour) , John McDonnell (Independent) , Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrat) , Lembit Opik (Independent)

1984-0000: Arthur Scargill

Spoiler: Sources

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2308332/Cuba-sunshine.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...diers-killed--imagined-Dominic-Sandbrook.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...a-Merkel-says-euro-meltdown-spark-battle.html
https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2010/12/reagan-president-iran-1980
https://www.newstatesman.com/society/2011/05/queen-life-monarchy-public

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

'Buck House sold to Qatar. The King lives in a small flat. The only people who marry are gay. DOMINIC SANDBROOK mischievously asks... What kind of Britain will George reign over?'

This list is great, good work at capturing the weird balance between 'outrageous extrapolation' and 'ridiculous convergence' that defines Sandbrook.

Also, Sarkozy as Literally Napoleon has aged nearly as badly as 'PR would lead to an eternal Lib-Lab coalition'

 

[KingCrawa]

This list is great, good work at capturing the weird balance between 'outrageous extrapolation' and 'ridiculous convergence' that defines Sandbrook.

Also, Sarkozy as Literally Napoleon has aged nearly as badly as 'PR would lead to an eternal Lib-Lab coalition'

I mean we all know that's Jupiter's aim

 

[Charles EP M.]

taking a look at several of his Daily Mail alternate histories I wanted to try to make a Britain that would fit right into Sandbrook's narrative.

YES!! SOMEONE FINALLY DID IT

 

[Sideways]

A bit of now punk in my head since the locals based on WI post-referendum levels of disillusionment plus Lib Dem and UKIP parties that weren't all fucked up by events

1997-2006: Tony Blair (Labour)

1997: Tony Blair (Labour) [370] John Major (Conservative) [221] Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrat) [38] David Trimble (UUP) [10] Alex Salmond (SNP) [6] Dafydd Wigley (Plaid Cymru) [4] John Hume (SDLP) [3] Ian Paisley (DUP) [2] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [2] Betty Boothroyd (Speaker) [1] Bob McCartney (UK Unionist) [1]​

​

2001: Tony Blair (Labour) [338] William Hague (Conservative) [245] Charles Kennedy (Liberal Democrat) [48] David Trimble (UUP) [6] John Swinney (SNP) [5] Ian Paisley (DUP) [5] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [4] Iuan Wynn Jones (Plaid Cymru) [4] John Hume (SDLP) [3] ​

Elected with a strong majority in his first term and a far weaker one in the second, Tony Blair is even so remembered as a transformative leader for introducing the minimum wage and devolution in Scotland, London and Wales. His reputation was later soured by the Iraq War.

2006-2008: Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative)

2006: Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative) [313] Tony Blair (Labour) [237] Charles Kennedy (Liberal Democrat) [69] Ian Paisley (DUP) [9] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [5] Alex Salmond (SNP) [4] Iuan Wynn Jones (Plaid Cymru) [3] Mark Durkan (SDLP) [3] David Trimble (UUP) [1]​

Iain Duncan Smith only managed to build a majority by working with the DUP, a decision that caused a large backlash in Northern Ireland and was unpopular in the rest of the UK. He achieved exactly one thing in power - a referendum on the EU that went the way he had hoped. That achieved, however, he was unable to capitalise on the decision, lacking the majority to push through any implementation - he was forced to call an election when the DUP pulled their support over the issue of the Northern Ireland backstop.

2007 EU Referendum: Leave 52.3% Remain 47.7%

2008-2010: Gordon Brown (Labour)

2008: Gordon Brown (Labour) [321] Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative) [203] Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) [91] Ian Paisley (DUP) [10] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [8] Alex Salmond (SNP) [6] Iuan Wynn Jones (Plaid Cymru) [4]​

​

2010 EU Referendum: Remain: 51.2% Leave: 48.8%

Gordon Brown was elected on a cautious strategy of bringing about a soft Leave, something that was always difficult with his majority and in the end could only pass with a confirmatory referendum, which Gordon Brown lost. Nonetheless he hung onto power long enough for his government to lose a no confidence vote and for him to be forced into another election.

2010-2012: David Miliband (Labour) coalition with Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat)

2010: Theresa May (Conservative) [242] Gordon Brown (Labour) [204] Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) [145] Ian Paisley (DUP) [10] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [8] Alex Salmond (SNP) [21] Iuan Wynn Jones (Plaid Cymru) [6] Nigel Farage (UKIP) [5] Caroline Lucas (Green Party England and Wales) [2]​

The 2010 election saw a surge in Remain and Leave parties at the expense of the two big parties. But as UKIP was still somewhat in its infancy the main beneficiary of this was the Lib Dems. Chris Huhne approached both the parties but found Theresa May unwilling to negotiate on her many red lines. Gordon Brown, however, was quite willing by this stage to stand down and be replaced with someone the Lib Dems could do business with.

Miliband's government saw at attempt to return to domestic policies other than Brexit, with funding for the NHS increased, equal marriage brought in and a gender recognition act. However the largest issue was the implementation of STV, something Labour had agreed to but could not create a majority for. This lead to a successful vote of no confidence in David Miliband and the calling of another election.

2012: David Cameron (Conservative) [201] Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) [172] David Miliband (Labour) [148] Alex Salmond (SNP) [50] Nigel Farage (UKIP) [37] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [11] Ian Paisley (DUP) [9] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [9] Caroline Lucas (Green Party England and Wales) [6]​

​

With absolutely no hope of anyone forming a new government, David Miliband was forced to call another new election

2012-2013: David Cameron (Conservative) leading Olympics national coalition with Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) and David Miliband (Labour)

​

2012: David Cameron (Conservative) [196] Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) [194] David Miliband (Labour) [119] Nigel Farage (UKIP) [56] Alex Salmond (SNP) [50] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [13] Ian Paisley (DUP) [9] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [9] Caroline Lucas (Green Party England and Wales) [7]​

Cameron's government had one simple task to get the country through the Jubilympics without the major embarrassment of impossible political deadlock. This was a fortunate task. Little was asked of Cameron, and criticism of what he did do was treated as unpatriotic. The fact that the opposition was made up of Nigel "the NHS shouldn't be celebrated" Farage and Alex "The UK should be abolished" Salmond helped a lot with this.

2013-????: David Cameron (Conservatives)

​

2013: David Cameron (Conservative) [334] Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) [161] David Miliband (Labour) [91] Alex Salmond (SNP) [22] Nigel Farage (UKIP) [10] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [9] Ian Paisley (DUP) [10] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [8] Caroline Lucas (Green Party England and Wales) [6]​

​

2018: David Cameron (Conservative) [348] Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat) [137] Jeremy Corbyn (Labour) [123] Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) [18] Arlene Foster (DUP) [10] Michelle O'Neill (Sinn Fein) [8] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [4] Bill Etheridge (UKIP) [2] Caroline Lucas (Green Party England and Wales) [1]​

​

David Cameron has held majority power since the Jubilympics, with a divided opposition. While UKIP and the Greens have fafded somewhat from their referendum era high, Jeremy Corbyn has done surprisingly well at rallying a resurgent leftwing anti-establishment Labour Party, despite a split in the party in 2017 and a widespread believe that his leadership would lead to electoral wipe-out in 2018.

Cameron has been pushing ahead with massive and far-reaching reforms to the NHS, education, the postal service, and all elements of British society. While some centrists feel he has moved away from the united vision of Britain that he represented in the Jubilympics most feel that his attempts to deal with the deficit are necessary and pragmatic, and nobody can question that he is the most transformative leader in British hostory since Thatcher.

 

[Turquoise Blue]

2012-2013: David Cameron (Conservative) leading Olympics national coalition with Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) and David Miliband (Labour)
2012: David Cameron (Conservative) [196] Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) [194] David Miliband (Labour) [119] Nigel Farage (UKIP) [56] Alex Salmond (SNP) [50] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [13] Ian Paisley (DUP) [9] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [9] Caroline Lucas (Green Party England and Wales) [7]
Cameron's government had one simple task to get the country through the Jubilympics without the major embarrassment of impossible political deadlock. This was a fortunate task. Little was asked of Cameron, and criticism of what he did do was treated as unpatriotic. The fact that the opposition was made up of Nigel "the NHS shouldn't be celebrated" Farage and Alex "The UK should be abolished" Salmond helped a lot with this.

*Centrist Dads smile and nod at this*

 

[Makemakean]

A bit of now punk in my head since the locals based on WI post-referendum levels of disillusionment plus Lib Dem and UKIP parties that weren't all fucked up by events

1997-2006: Tony Blair (Labour)

1997: Tony Blair (Labour) [370] John Major (Conservative) [221] Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrat) [38] David Trimble (UUP) [10] Alex Salmond (SNP) [6] Dafydd Wigley (Plaid Cymru) [4] John Hume (SDLP) [3] Ian Paisley (DUP) [2] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [2] Betty Boothroyd (Speaker) [1] Bob McCartney (UK Unionist) [1]​

​

2001: Tony Blair (Labour) [338] William Hague (Conservative) [245] Charles Kennedy (Liberal Democrat) [48] David Trimble (UUP) [6] John Swinney (SNP) [5] Ian Paisley (DUP) [5] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [4] Iuan Wynn Jones (Plaid Cymru) [4] John Hume (SDLP) [3] ​

Elected with a strong majority in his first term and a far weaker one in the second, Tony Blair is even so remembered as a transformative leader for introducing the minimum wage and devolution in Scotland, London and Wales. His reputation was later soured by the Iraq War.

2006-2008: Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative)

2006: Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative) [313] Tony Blair (Labour) [237] Charles Kennedy (Liberal Democrat) [69] Ian Paisley (DUP) [9] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [5] Alex Salmond (SNP) [4] Iuan Wynn Jones (Plaid Cymru) [3] Mark Durkan (SDLP) [3] David Trimble (UUP) [1]​

Iain Duncan Smith only managed to build a majority by working with the DUP, a decision that caused a large backlash in Northern Ireland and was unpopular in the rest of the UK. He achieved exactly one thing in power - a referendum on the EU that went the way he had hoped. That achieved, however, he was unable to capitalise on the decision, lacking the majority to push through any implementation - he was forced to call an election when the DUP pulled their support over the issue of the Northern Ireland backstop.

2007 EU Referendum: Leave 52.3% Remain 47.7%

2008-2010: Gordon Brown (Labour)

2008: Gordon Brown (Labour) [321] Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative) [203] Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) [91] Ian Paisley (DUP) [10] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [8] Alex Salmond (SNP) [6] Iuan Wynn Jones (Plaid Cymru) [4]​

​

2010 EU Referendum: Remain: 51.2% Leave: 48.8%

Gordon Brown was elected on a cautious strategy of bringing about a soft Leave, something that was always difficult with his majority and in the end could only pass with a confirmatory referendum, which Gordon Brown lost. Nonetheless he hung onto power long enough for his government to lose a no confidence vote and for him to be forced into another election.

2010-2012: David Miliband (Labour) coalition with Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat)

2010: Theresa May (Conservative) [242] Gordon Brown (Labour) [204] Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) [145] Ian Paisley (DUP) [10] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [8] Alex Salmond (SNP) [21] Iuan Wynn Jones (Plaid Cymru) [6] Nigel Farage (UKIP) [5] Caroline Lucas (Green Party England and Wales) [2]​

The 2010 election saw a surge in Remain and Leave parties at the expense of the two big parties. But as UKIP was still somewhat in its infancy the main beneficiary of this was the Lib Dems. Chris Huhne approached both the parties but found Theresa May unwilling to negotiate on her many red lines. Gordon Brown, however, was quite willing by this stage to stand down and be replaced with someone the Lib Dems could do business with.

Miliband's government saw at attempt to return to domestic policies other than Brexit, with funding for the NHS increased, equal marriage brought in and a gender recognition act. However the largest issue was the implementation of STV, something Labour had agreed to but could not create a majority for. This lead to a successful vote of no confidence in David Miliband and the calling of another election.

2012: David Cameron (Conservative) [201] Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) [172] David Miliband (Labour) [148] Alex Salmond (SNP) [50] Nigel Farage (UKIP) [37] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [11] Ian Paisley (DUP) [9] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [9] Caroline Lucas (Green Party England and Wales) [6]​

​

With absolutely no hope of anyone forming a new government, David Miliband was forced to call another new election

2012-2013: David Cameron (Conservative) leading Olympics national coalition with Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) and David Miliband (Labour)

​

2012: David Cameron (Conservative) [196] Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) [194] David Miliband (Labour) [119] Nigel Farage (UKIP) [56] Alex Salmond (SNP) [50] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [13] Ian Paisley (DUP) [9] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [9] Caroline Lucas (Green Party England and Wales) [7]​

Cameron's government had one simple task to get the country through the Jubilympics without the major embarrassment of impossible political deadlock. This was a fortunate task. Little was asked of Cameron, and criticism of what he did do was treated as unpatriotic. The fact that the opposition was made up of Nigel "the NHS shouldn't be celebrated" Farage and Alex "The UK should be abolished" Salmond helped a lot with this.

2013-????: David Cameron (Conservatives)

​

2013: David Cameron (Conservative) [334] Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) [161] David Miliband (Labour) [91] Alex Salmond (SNP) [22] Nigel Farage (UKIP) [10] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [9] Ian Paisley (DUP) [10] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [8] Caroline Lucas (Green Party England and Wales) [6]​

​

2018: David Cameron (Conservative) [348] Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat) [137] Jeremy Corbyn (Labour) [123] Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) [18] Arlene Foster (DUP) [10] Michelle O'Neill (Sinn Fein) [8] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [4] Bill Etheridge (UKIP) [2] Caroline Lucas (Green Party England and Wales) [1]​

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David Cameron has held majority power since the Jubilympics, with a divided opposition. While UKIP and the Greens have fafded somewhat from their referendum era high, Jeremy Corbyn has done surprisingly well at rallying a resurgent leftwing anti-establishment Labour Party, despite a split in the party in 2017 and a widespread believe that his leadership would lead to electoral wipe-out in 2018.

Cameron has been pushing ahead with massive and far-reaching reforms to the NHS, education, the postal service, and all elements of British society. While some centrists feel he has moved away from the united vision of Britain that he represented in the Jubilympics most feel that his attempts to deal with the deficit are necessary and pragmatic, and nobody can question that he is the most transformative leader in British hostory since Thatcher.

Kind of want to do a Finnish Britain now. Featuring the recently resigned government of David Laws as Prime Minister, George Osborne as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and David Coburn as Foreign Secretary.

 

[The Red]

Thucydides Redeemed



It's kinda easy to have the Winter War end up as a more comprehensive Soviet victory as despite the heroism and tenacity of the Finns almost all of the reasons for the Soviet humiliation can be pinned on the errors of Stalin and the Red Army. ITTL the dreadful Soviet plan of invading across a broad front with only two weeks ammunition is put in the bin as it should have been IOTL, instead this world has a Soviet armoured spearhead with a singular line of advance down the Baltic Coast and plentiful ammunition and fuel hitting the Mannerheim Line as a speed bump. Despite the Finns best efforts there's not much you can do when your army only has four weeks ammunition and your enemy is fighting the sort of war it's prepared for. Swedish aid is inadequate and Anglo-French reassurances turn out to be diplomatic niceties and nothing more.

The Red Army breaks through the Mannerheim Line on Christmas Day and by New Year the Finnish bourgeois state has largely unravelled; the country is on the move and the remnants of the Finnish army have largely ceased resistance in favour of returning to their families or assisting refugees on the arduous trek west. With nothing left to hold off the Red Army and the President showing up in Stockholm it's left to Sissi Wein, the Finnish Vera Lynn, to defiantly sing Vapaussoturin Valloituslaulu over the Yle radio waves the same day the Red Army marches into Helsinki.

Finland emerges from the conflict, whether one calls it the Winter War, Second Finnish Civil War, or even The State Capitalists Imperialist Aggression Against The Finnish People, locked in the vice that is Moscow's loving embrace.


Prime Ministers of Finland

1937-1939: Aimo Cajander (National Progressive)
1939: Risto Ryti (National Progressive) [1]

Chairmen of the People's Government of the Finnish Democratic Republic

1939-1940: Otto Wille Kuusinen (Communist Party of Finland) [2]


Chairpersons of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic

1940-1953: Otto Wille Kuusinen (Communist Party of the Soviet Union)
1953-1967: August Wesley (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) [3]
1967-1974: Hertta Kuusinen (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) [4]
1974-1987: Noora Latavia (Communist Party of the Soviet Union, then Communist Party of Finland) [5]
1987-????: Kimmo Rentola (Communist Party of Finland)

[1] The respected economist and politician was called to lead his fatherland through the greatest crisis in its short history yet when it became clear the odds where genuinely insurmountable he fled with his cabinet to join the President in Stockholm, waiting for an Anglo-French declaration of war on the Soviet Union to save his country. It never comes and worse still the Swedish annexation of the Aland Islands with tacit Soviet agreement causes the government-in-exile to leave Stockholm in protest. The move to Paris and then to London takes its toll on Ryti as he becomes convinced of what only a few people actually believe, that he was a coward who fled his country in the time of need on a deluded quest for foreign help. Resigning as Prime Minister in 1940 he avoids the sidelining the Government-in-exile faces after Barbarossa and their following descent into irrelevance as the Cold War begins, remaining prominent in the Finnish exile community until his death in 1956.

[2] Already a controversial figure before the Soviet invasion, Kuusinen has the distinction of being the father of the FDR and its executioner. Reassured the Finnish people that the Red Army had arrived to help assert true Finnish independence from the White traitors then signed off on Finland's incorporation into the Soviet Union a few months later. Introduced aggressive land reform and housing campaigns that worked out quite well economically but led to devastating deforestation, sanctioned the harsh NKVD counter-insurgency campaign against the IKL during the Great Patriotic War but managed to convince Stalin to ease off on mass conscription of Finns in favour of a Finnish Solidarity Front. Made up of old civil war leaders with a mix hand picked fanatical Stalinists and genuine volunteers, they play a key role in throwing the Germans back from Leningrad in September 1941. Benefits from being responsible for the one area of the western Soviet Union that wasn't destroyed, facilitating reconstruction whilst also the K-FSSR's own economic development. Doesn't survive De-Stalinisation.

[3] The Civil War and Great Patriotic War veteran is reluctant to take on the responsibility of leading the K-FSSR, citing his age but realistically because he never supported Finland's annexation into the Soviet Union in the first place. Tries to do his best with what power he has, embracing Khruschev's establishment of individual economic plans for each SSR. Introduces some voluntarism and gift economics into the Finnish economy as a sign of recognition that the country still isn't the urban paradise of Kuusinen's dreams. Repeatedly applies to become ambassador to Havana until he is old enough to retire even by Soviet leadership standards.

[4] Not as controversial as her father and suddenly much better connected in the wake of Khruschev's fall from grace, Hertta Kuusinen moves out of Otto's shadow fairly quickly to drag the K-FSSR out of its sedentary cosiness and into the modern world, this involves Soviet nuclear technology finally being introduced and East German childcare to abolish the joint evils of the cold and the patriarchy. Her personal role in assiting Suslov's coup against Andropov gives Finns a certain amount of national pride back, their country is punching above its weight and its increasingly metropolitan. Some haggling allows Finland to keep its own economic plan even after the initiative is largely wrapped up for much of the rest of the USSR and the knock on effects begin to be shown as internal migration towards Finland brings new engineers and scientists whilst exiles from Sweden begin to return in not-unremarkable numbers. Finland has a genuinely popular Chairperson at long last, at least with the Finnish people, but Kuusinen's role in broader Soviet politics has made her ignore the rise of the "Baader-Maoism" that has already begun to affect much of the Eastern Bloc. This is politically fatal as the Soviet Union becomes the last domino to fall.

[5] A prodigy of Kuusinen's who eventually ended up stabbing her in the front at a meeting of the K-FSSR Supreme Soviet, this orphan of the Winter War was raised in the Stalinist worldview which, taken to heart, made much of the socialist world as it was rather incongruous. The success of the RAF in West Germany becomes infectious in the east and it isn't long after that young people in Finland are using the confines of the CPSU to debate "actual" Marxism-Leninism for a change.