• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

Lists of Heads of Government and Heads of State

A couple of companion lists for this.

1916-1922: David Lloyd George (National Liberal)
1918 (Coalition Coupon with Conservatives and NDLP) def. Eamon de Valera (Sinn Fein), William Adamson (Labour), H.H. Asquith (Liberal), John Dillon (Irish Parliamentary)
1922-1923: Henry Page Croft (Conservative leading War Government with National Liberals and the British Workers' League)
1923-0000: Henry Page Croft (Conservative)
1923 (Coalition Coupon with National Liberals and BWL) def. J.R. Clynes (Labour), Albert Inkpin (Communist), H.H. Asquith (Liberal)
Ah, the NDLP, AKA why Don Valley's wikipedia list isn't quite an uninterrupted column of red.

Was there no Coalition Labour / Unionist Labour in 1918 in TTL or is that an omission?
 
Ah, the NDLP, AKA why Don Valley's wikipedia list isn't quite an uninterrupted column of red.

Was there no Coalition Labour / Unionist Labour in 1918 in TTL or is that an omission?

I usually group Coalition Labour in with the NDLP. And as for Labour Unionists in NI, I have a threshold that a party needs to get 5 or more seats to get on the list.

Another reason I grouped with National Democrats with Coalition Labour is that the fact the war starts before the Conservatives pull out of the Coalition, leads to such parties grouping together in the British Workers' League so a historian looking back wouldn't consider them separate parties.
 
The US presidential list from WIAF:

1913-1921: Woodrow Wilson
1921-1926: Warren G. Harding
1926-1933: Nicholas Murray Butler
1933-1945: Franklin D. Roosevelt
1945-1949: Paul V. McNutt
1949-1957: Leverett Saltonstall
Facinating changes to the previous plan there.
 
I Dont Have A Witty Name For This, But There Will Be a Timeline One Day

Governors of New York
1859-1862: Edwin D. Morgan / Robert Campbell (Republican)
1858: Amasa J. Parker / John J. Taylor (Democratic), Lorenzo Burrows / Nathaniel S. Benton (“Know Nothing” American / Whig)
1860: William Kelly / William C. Crain (National Democratic), James T. Brady / Henry K. Viele (Constitutional Democratic)

1863-1865: Millard Fillmore / David R. Floyd-Jones (Constitutional Unionist / Democratic)
1862: James S. Wadsworth / Lyman Tremain (Republican)
1865-1866 Frederick A. Conkling / Chester A. Arthur (Republican)
1864: Millard Fillmore / David R. Floyd-Jones (Constitutional Unionist / Official Democratic), Daniel E. Sickles / Franklin Townsend (National Unionist / Independent Democratic)

During the American Civil War, the Copperhead faction of the Democratic Party never managed to pull off their dreams of creating a powerful front for a Negotiated Peace. There were people who got into office campaigning for Peace but then decided to not rock the boat for the war (Horatio Seymour, more or less). There were those who had office and wanted peace but whom lacked the weight to avoid the pressure of the government being used to stop them (Jesse Bright's expulsion from the Senate, Vallandigham and his deportation to the Confederacy) or if they were willing to push for peace regardless of the results, and had the political weight as to be able to stand up to Lincoln lacked political power to actually do anything about it.

At the same time, New York was the most important state for the Union War effort. More then half of the Union Army's horseshoes were made in Troy, NY. Of course as is often noted New York outproduced the entire Confederacy in nearly every economic category, and of course the immigrant communities in New York and new arrivals provided more troops then any other state for the war effort. It is worth noting tough that in an example of the old system of duel Federalism, that nearly all of these examples of the state providing to the Federal Government were done with the cooperation or directly by the state authorities. This was not a problem at all when the Republicans held the state, and Seymour, for all of his support for the draft rioters and calls for peace didn't interrupt the system. But, well, what happens if there's a state Governor who does try to use New York's economic and manpower issues and for whatever reason (Being a Former President who initially supported the war but had violently turned against it by 1862) can't be swatted down by Lincoln. The answer is, unsurprisingly chaos. And easily done chaos because Seymour did not want to run in 1862, the Constitutional Unionist convention was a farce created to try and get him extra support, and excluding the Pro-Lincoln/Republican nominees that scored behind the IOTL nominee the next man in line was Fillmore who also had a good deal of support at the Democratic convention just down the river. It could have easily happened, had Seymour simply kept refusing to run.

Fun detail, in the aftermath of Seymour the Democrats maintained a good deal of unity because he was so wishy-washy he continued to work for everyone. The Republicans wound up nominating a Liberal ticket in 1864, here, in the chaos its easy enough to see various Democratic factions break apart, and for a more Radical and Stalwart ticket being put up by the Republicans. So you know, fun on that front too.
 
Last edited:
Blink And You'll Miss It

1919-1921: Friedrich Ebert (Social Democratic)
1919 def. Arthur von Posadowsky-Wehner (German National Peoples')
1921-1923: Erich Ludendorff (Independent/Military - Government of Peoples' Defiance)
1923-0000: Oliver Russell, 2nd Baron Ampthill / Ferdinand Foch (Entente Military Administration)

The idea here is that the Soviets actually defeat the Poles in 1920, and believing that Germany is ripe for revolution just carry on. The Freikorps, technically disbanded since the Kapp Putsch but simply underground and remodelled as such groups as Organisation Consul, see their chance and are able to halt the Soviets in the 'Miracle on the Oder'. The Freikorps, joined by the regular Army successfully push the Soviets out of much of Poland (though not all of it, and the Baltic states are annexed to the newborn USSR). The pre-war German border is restored and a compliant Polish puppet state established. The Freikorps, newly popular with the German masses for halting a foreign invasion and seemingly proving all the stab in the back myths correct, carry out another attempted coup. This time with the explicit assistance of the Army and with much greater popular support. Ludendorff is installed as Reichsprasident, and immediately sweeps away the Weimar Constitution. Talk of restoring the Kaiser or some other Hohenzollern is put on the backburner as Ludendorff pursues his higher goal of relaunching the Great War, in a 'Battle of Defiance'. Britain and France do not take kindly to this and swiftly react to Ludendorff's remilitarisation of the Rhineland and breakneck rebuilding of the military. Germany now languishes under a different kind of military dictatorship while Paris and London talk about what to do with such a troublesome country. Prime Ministers Henry Page Croft and Raymond Poincare have much to discuss.

aaaaaaa

Mumby you've done me a funny, how do you keep coming up with such phresh material?
 
A couple of companion lists for this.

1916-1922: David Lloyd George (National Liberal)
1918 (Coalition Coupon with Conservatives and NDLP) def. Eamon de Valera (Sinn Fein), William Adamson (Labour), H.H. Asquith (Liberal), John Dillon (Irish Parliamentary)
1922-1923: Henry Page Croft (Conservative leading War Government with National Liberals and the British Workers' League)
1923-0000: Henry Page Croft (Conservative)
1923 (Coalition Coupon with National Liberals and BWL) def. J.R. Clynes (Labour), Albert Inkpin (Communist), H.H. Asquith (Liberal)

1917-1920: Georges Clemenceau (Independent - National Bloc)
1919 (Majority) def. Edouard Herriot (Radical - Centre Left), Ludovic-Oscar Frossard (Socialist)
1920-1920: Alexandre Millerand (Independent - National Bloc majority)
1920-1922: Georges Leygues (Democratic Alliance - National Bloc majority)
1922-0000: Raymond Poincare (Democratic Alliance - National Bloc majority)
 
The Hammer of Thor

1957-1961: Harold Macmillan (Conservative)
1959 (Majority) def. Hugh Gaitskell (Labour), Jo Grimond (Liberal)
1961-1964: Rab Butler (Conservative majority)
1964-1972: Tony Greenwood (Labour)
1964 (Majority) def. Jo Grimond (Liberal), Rab Butler (Conservative)
1969 (Majority) def. Jo Grimond (Liberal), Ted Heath ('Federalist' Conservative), Julian Amery ('Imperialist' Conservative)

1972-1979: Peter Shore (Labour)
1974 (Majority) def. Jeremy Thorpe (New Democratic - Liberals, Federalists), Robin Chichester-Clarke (Unionist), Tony Whittaker (PEOPLE)
 
"Social Credit offers you the remedy. If you have not suffered enough, it is your God-given right to suffer more. But if you wish to elect your own representatives to implement the remedy, this is your only way out." - William Aberhart

George Drew, after nearly resigning following his suffering from meningitis, was in a bad position in 1957. The Tories hadn't controlled Canada since the Depression and had contradictory policies. The weak Tory campaign managed not only to lose to the Liberals (who ran a just as weak campaign) but fall in the West and even Ontario to the radical SoCreds. Solon Earl Low, now Leader of the Opposition, had a legitimate position. With that was a legitimate chance to become Prime Minister. With St. Laurent out and his protege Harris in, 1961 would present a three-way race. Despite Donald Fleming replace Drew as party leader, the Tories still had a large image problem and were unable to gain their legitimacy. Solon Earl Low's narrow minority (with the support of some floor-crossing Conservatives) worried many Canadians given his previous history of anti-Semitism. Low's final act in office was his high-profile anti-Soviet positions and public statements during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which gained him a rally around the flag moment along with photos with President Kennedy. Of course, Low was an old man, and he died in December of 1962. His successor would be a little-known MP named John Etter Clark, who had previously been an Albertan MLA before entering federal politics.

Clark's charisma and personal magnetism proved to be popular with Canadians, and he quickly called for an election. The election was won in a landslide majority over the opposition. Clark's majority allowed him to fully implement the SoCred agenda, with Parliament voting for the prohibition of alcohol, implementing large circulation of prosperity certificates, a ramped up implementation of the "fruit machine," and recalling of MPs. While these policies were popular with the SoCred base, upon dramatically increased inflation, the Clark ministery fell down dramatically in terms of popularity. Near the end of the administration, several policies took the administration's policy down significantly. First, the government cracked down on newspapers, with frequent (unsuccessful) libel lawsuits over negative coverage. Next, Clark attempted a referendum on the monarchy. His campaign attacked the "foreign" and "elitist" monarchy but was defeated in a massive landslide. Upon the recession, the UN Premier of Quebec Daniel Johnson announced that Quebec would be holding a referendum on independence. With Johnson, former Liberal cabinet minister Rene Levesque, Social Credit MP Real Caouette, and orator Pierre Bourgault leading the campaign, it seemed that Quebec would be likely to leave Canada. The unionist campaign was very poorly run, with federal Liberal Party leader Alexis Caron having to avoid campaigning due to poor health and being contradicted by the Prime Ministers. By the time Quebecers went to the polls, they had voted in a dramatic result to leave Canada. Prime Minister Clark would go missing the next day, and it wasn't until a month later that it was discovered he had committed the worst mass murder in Canadian history. As the still-popular Ernest Manning encouraged SoCreds to join the new Democratic Party, and most MPs were more concerned with winning in their own riding, a far-right backbencher named Stockwell Day took residence in 24 Sussex. His policies were to the right of even Clark, and his associations with extremist groups were too much for Canadians to handle.

With a recession, Quebec leaving Canada, and the Prime Minister being a serial killer, the radical CCF was able to win their first election in a three-way race. The tale of Canada's Social Credit government was one that impacted the province's future for many years to come.

1948-1959: Louis St. Laurent (Liberal)
1949 (Majority) def. George Drew (PC), Major James Coldwell (CCF), Solon Earl Low (Social Credit)
1953 (Majority) def. George Drew (PC), Major James Coldwell (CCF), Solon Earl Low (Social Credit)
1957 (Majority) def. Solon Earl Low (Social Credit), George Drew (PC), Major James Coldwell (CCF)

1959-1961: Walter Edward Harris (Liberal majority)
1961-1962: Solon Earl Low (Social Credit)
1961 (Minority) def. Walter Edward Harris (Liberal), Donald Fleming (PC), Hazen Argue (CCF)
1962-1966: John Etter Clark (Social Credit)
1962 (Majority) def. Walter Edward Harris (Liberal), Donald Fleming (PC), Hazen Argue (CCF)
1965 Monarchy Referendum: Keep
1966 Québec Independence Referendum: Oui

1966-1967: Stockwell Day (Social Credit majority, later minority)
1967-1969: Hazen Argue (Co-Operative Commonwealth)

1967 (Minority) def. Paul Martin (interim) (Liberal), Donald Fleming/Bud Olson (PC-Democratic Alliance)
1969-1974: Hazen Argue (Liberal)
1969 (Majority) def. Donald Fleming/Anders Aalborg (PC-Democratic Alliance), Stanley Knowles (CCF)
1973 (Minority) def. Donald Fleming/Anders Aalborg (PC-Democratic Alliance), Michael Kelway Oliver (CCF)

1974-1976: Donald Fleming (National Conservative minority)
1976-1985: Hazen Argue (Liberal)

1976 (Minority) def. Donald Fleming (NC), Michael Kelway Oliver (CCF)
1978 (Majority) def. Sinclair Stevens (NC), Michael Kelway Oliver (CCF)
1982 (Majority) def. John Wise (NC), Shelia Copps (CCF)

1985-1986: Ralph Klein (Liberal minority)
1986-1990: John Wise (National Conservative)

1986 (Majority) def. Ralph Klein (Liberal), Shelia Copps (CCF), Hazen Argue (Technical Group of Independents)
1990-2002: Ralph Klein (Liberal)
1990 (Majority) def. John Wise (National Conservative), Shelia Copps (CCF)
1994 (Majority) def. David Crombie (Centre), Shelia Copps (CCF)
1998 (Majority) def. Rick Borotsik (Centre), Tony Penikett (CCF)

2002-2006: Rick Borotsik (Centre)
2002 (Minority) def. Ralph Klein (Liberal), Tony Penikett (CCF)
2004 (Minority) def. Tony Penikett (CCF), Bill Vander Zalm (Liberal)
2006 (Minority) def. Tony Penikett (CCF), Bill Vander Zalm (Liberal)

2006-2013: Gary Filmon (Centre)
2009 (Majority) def. Tony Penikett (CCF), Russell MacLellan (Liberal)
2013-2015: Tony Penikett (Co-Operative Commonwealth)
2013 (Minority) def. Gary Filmon (Centre), Russell MacLellan (Liberal)
2015-Present: Yvon Godin (Co-Operative Commonwealth)
2016 (Majority) def. Gary Filmon (Centre), Russell MacLellan (Liberal)
 
So I did some that I'm sure people have done before, which is yearly elections based on closest polling OTL numbers.

PM

1997-2006: Tony Blair (Labour Majority)
2006-2008: David Cameron (Conservative Minority)
2008-2010: David Cameron (Conservative Majority)
2010-2011: David Cameron (Conservative Coalition with Liberal Democrats)
2011-2012: Ed Miliband (Labour Minority)
2012-2015: Ed Miliband (Labour Majority)
2015-2016: David Cameron (Conservative Majority)
2016-2017: Theresa May (Conservative Majority)
2017-2019: Theresa May (Conservative Minority)

While letting Miliband be PM and Brown not the results in terms of ''years in Government'' are the same as OTL, 13 for Labour and 9 for the Tories.


1997 30.7 43.2 16.8
418 165 46
1998 29 50 16
123 461 45
1999 30 50 14
138 458 34
2000 31% 47% 14%
159 438 33
2001 31.7% 40.7% 18.3%
413 166 52
2002 42% 34% 19%
410 172 50
2003 42% 29% 21%
418 151 61
2004 32% 36% 22% 10%
386 183 60
2005 36.2% 33.2% 22.7%
355 198 62
2006 L30% 38% 20% 11% 8%
261 317 44
2007 34% 38% 15% 14%
296 303 24
2008 29% 40% 19% 11%
266 352 15
2009 27% 43% 18% 12%
210 370 35
2010 29.7% 36.9% 23.6%
306 258 57
2011 37% 39% 10%
312 303 10
2012 30% 43% 10%
389 214 22
2013 29% 39% 9% 16%
379 222 23
2014 34% 35% 9% 14%
327 279 17
2015 37.8% 31.2% 8.1% 12.9%
330 232 8
2016 36% 30% U17% 8%
207 357 6 3
2017 43.5% 41.0% 1.9% 7.6%
317 262 12
2018 39 38 11
306 265 18


More interesting I think I did yearly elections, but only 20% of Parliament being elected at a time.

1997-2007: Tony Blair (Labour Majority)
2007-2009: Gordon Brown (Labour Majority)
2009-2010: Gordon Brown (Labour Minority)
2010-2012: David Cameron (Conservative Coalition with Liberal Democrats)
2012-2013: Ed Miliband (Labour Minority)
2012-2015: Ed Miliband (Labour Majority)
2016-2016: David Cameron (Conservative Minority)
2016-2019: Theresa May (Conservative Minority)

This led to near total Labour domination, as they had a much higher polling average over 1997-2018 than the Tories.

1997 30.7 43.2 16.8
418 165 46
1998 29 50 16
132 427 45
1999 30 50 14
133 433 43
2000 31% 47% 14%
138 434 41
2001 31.7% 40.7% 18.3%
430 142 43
2002 42% 34% 19%
426 148 44
2003 42% 29% 21%
424 148 46
2004 32% 36% 22% 10%
416 145 59
2005 36.2% 33.2% 22.7%
404 155 59
2006 L30% 38% 20% 11% 8%
375 187 56
2007 34% 38% 15% 14%
359 209 50
2008 29% 40% 19% 11%
340 237 41
2009 27% 43% 18% 12%
316 265 39
2010 29.7% 36.9% 23.6%
304 274 42
2011 37% 39% 10%
305 281 34
2012 30% 43% 10%
322 266 32
2013 29% 39% 9% 16%
333 258 30
2014 34% 35% 9% 14%
332 262 27
2015 37.8% 31.2% 8.1% 12.9%
317 281 23
2016 36% 30% U17% 8%
295 306 20
2017 43.5% 41.0% 1.9% 7.6%
289 314 18
2018 39 38 11
284 312 18
 
The Second Coming of Nigel Farage

Based on something I saw in Twitter that suggested Farage was considering pulling an Enoch and standing for the DUP.

2016-2018: Theresa May (Conservative)
2017 (Minority, with DUP confidence and supply) def. Jeremy Corbyn (Labour), Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National), Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat), Arlene Foster (Democratic Unionist), Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein)
2018-2021: Jeremy Corbyn (Labour)
2018 (Coalition with Liberal Democrats) def. Theresa May (Conservative), Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National), Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat), Arlene Foster (Democratic Unionist), Mary Lou MacDonald (Sinn Fein)
2019 (Majority) def. Tom Tugendhat (Conservative), Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National), Mary Lou MacDonald (Sinn Fein), Nigel Farage (Democratic Unionist)

2021-2029: Lisa Nandy (Labour)
2024 (Majority) def. Ruth Davidson (Conservative), Douglas Carswell (Democratic Alternative), Humza Yousaf (Scottish National)

Basically what happens is that the DUP leaves the government later this year when Brexit negotiations stall and it looks like the Tories will take a softer tack on the border. At the ensuing general election, Labour very narrowly emerges the largest party with the DUP standing candidates across the UK having been AaronBanksrolled to do so. This doesn't actually net them very many seats but its enough to reduce the Tories staying power and a relative Lib Dem resurgence ends up them going into coalition with Labour.

Labour and the Lib Dems together push through Brexit, and after that the coalition crumbles. While the Lib Dems never quite emerged as The Party of Remain, they are nonetheless tarred by the association with Brexit and I reduced to four seats. Meanwhile, the Tory vs DUP bout continues with neither side backing down and with Farage now at the helm of the DUP, there are predictions that the alliance of Orange and Gammon could become the new party of the Right. This comes to nothing as the NI Conservative perform surprisingly well, and the DUP loses a few seats to Sinn Fein while making little to no headway on the mainland. Labour grasps a majority and begins to push their agenda, bringing about industrial democracy, nationalising utilities, etc etc.

Corbyn stands aside in 2021 as the Brexit hard years begin to look like they are behind us rather than in front. One of the notable achievements of his time in office is the Reunification of Ireland, as a Northern Ireland with a Sinn Fein majority under direct control from a Labour Ministry leads to a referendum on reunification. This passes somewhat comfortably, and the somewhat confused relationship between Britain and her sister island is smoothed over considerably. An angry minority of diehard unionists do try and cause problems but there is little appetite for such things in the new Northern Ireland. The NI Conservatives ultimately affiliate with Fine Gael while the DUP remain truculent.

The election results in 2024 are shocking, the most two party in the country's history since the 1960s. The remnants of the Lib Dems and the mainland DUP form an 'Alliance for a Democratic Alternative' while the SNP, once so dominant in Scotland is squeezed into near-irrelevance. Nevertheless, Nandy's majority is now very narrow and Davidson is increasingly popular not only north of the border but increasingly south of it too...
 
Dublin is just a Sunningdale away...

List of Heads of the Northern Ireland Executive

1973-1979: Brian Faulkner / Gerry Fitt (Ulster Unionist 'Pro-Sunningdale' - Social Democratic & Labour)
1973 (UUP-SDLP-APNI-NILP Powersharing Coalition): Brian Faulkner (UUP - Pro-Sunningdale), Gerry Fitt (SDLP), Ian Paisley (DUP), Harry West (UUP - Anti-Sunningdale), Bill Craig (Vanguard), Oliver Napier (APNI), none (WBLC), Vivian Simpson (NI Labour), Roderick O'Connor (Nationalist)
1977 (UUP-SDLP-APNI-NILP Powersharing Coalition): Brian Faulkner (UUP - Pro-Sunningdale), Gerry Fitt (SDLP), Bill Craig (Vanguard), Harry West (UUP - Anti-Sunningdale), Charlie Poots (DUP), Oliver Napier (APNI), Roderick O'Connor (Nationalist - Unity - Independent Fianna Fail), David Bleakley (NI Labour)

1979-1981: Brian Faulkner / Austin Currie (Ulster Unionist 'Pro-Sunningdale' - Social Democratic & Labour)
1981 (UUP-SDLP-APNI Powersharing Coalition): Brian Faulkner (UUP - Pro-Sunningdale), Austin Currie (SDLP), Bill Craig (Vanguard), Harry West (UUP - Anti-Sunningdale), John Turnley (IIP), Oliver Napier (APNI), Charlie Poots (DUP), Gerry Fitt / David Bleakley (United Labour)
1981-1985: Harry West / Austin Currie (Ulster Unionist - Social Democratic & Labour)
1985-1988: Bill Craig / Austin Currie (Ulster Vanguard 'Pro-Powersharing' - Social Democratic & Labour)

1985 (Vanguard-SDLP-APNI Powersharing Coalition): Bill Craig (Vanguard), Austin Currie (SDLP), Harry West (UUP), John Turnley (IIP), Oliver Napier (APNI), Gerry Fitt (United Labour), Anne Dickson (Progressive Unionist), Charlie Poots (DUP), Bernadette McAliskey (Republican Clubs)
1988-1992: Bill Craig / Austin Currie (United Unionist - Social Democratic & Labour)
1989 (UUC-SDLP-APNI Powersharing Coalition): Bill Craig (UUC), Austin Currie (SDLP), John Turnley (IIP), Robert Bradford ('Real' Vanguard), John Alderdice (APNI), Gerry Fitt (United Labour), Anne Dickson (Progressive Unionist), Bernadette McAliskey (Republican Clubs)
1992-1994: Bill Craig / Austin Currie (United Unionist - Fine Gael)
1993 (UUC-Fine Gael-APNI-PUP Powersharing Coalition): Bill Craig (UUC), Austin Currie (Fine Gael), John Turnley (IIP), John Alderdice (APNI), Brid Rodgers (Credit Union), Erskine Holmes (United Labour), Bob McCartney (Real Unionist), Anne Dickson (Progressive Unionist), Bernadette McAliskey (Republican Clubs)
1994-1999: Edgar Graham / Austin Currie (United Unionist - Fine Gael)
1997 (UUC-Fine Gael-APNI-PUP Powersharing Coalition): Edgar Graham (UUC), Austin Currie (Fine Gael), Gerry McHugh (IIP), Bob McCartney (NI Unionist), John Alderdice (APNI), Brid Rodgers (Credit Union), Erskine Holmes (United Labour), Dermot Nesbitt (Progressive Unionist), Proinsias De Rossa (Sinn Fein - The Workers Party)
1999-????: Edgar Graham / Joe Hendron (United Unionist - Fine Gael)

The failure of Ulster Workers' Council Strike of May-June 1974 is widely seen now as having created a resolve to maintain the 'Sunningdale' powersharing government in Northern Ireland. Formed by the moderate 'Pro-White Paper' wing of the hitherto dominant Ulster Unionist Party, the moderate Nationalist SDLP party, the liberal Unionist APNI party and the small left-of-centre NI Labour Party; the Stormont powersharing government was a coalition which seemed almost as diverse and liable to collapse as the coalition government which had forced de Valera from power in 1948. Yet like the Costello government the Sunningdale powersharing government would prove the naysayers wrong and would survive for the full parliamentary term and would be 're-elected' despite strong opposition from the Unionist and Nationalist right in 1977. Deputy Chief Executive Gerry Fitt would split publically with his party in 1979 owing to his belief that the party had abandoned its socialist roots. Indeed he was replaced by former Nationalist Party MP Austin Currie who would anchor the party towards the small 'c' conservatism of the old Nationalist Party and Fine Gael to the south. Faulkner was forced out as leader when the Pro-Sunningdale forces failed to achieve a majority in the 1981 Assembly elections. He was replaced by the Anti-Sunningdale leader Harry West who would see the party reunify under a more 'sceptical' stance on Sunningdale. This however would lead to the virulently Anti-Sunningdale Vanguard Party, which had gradually displaced the DUP as the main hardline Unionist Party after the killing of Ian Paisley in 1975; to achieve poll position within Unionism at the 1985 elections. This was in part aided by the split off of the liberal wing of the UUP under the leadership of former Minister Anne Dickson. Craig had shifted his anti-powersharing beliefs towards a pro-'Voluntary' powersharing position - which would see Vanguard split in half in late 1985. Craig himself would merge his party with the UUP to form the United Unionist Coalition which would easily emerge victorious at the 1989 Assembly elections. Meanwhile on the Nationalist side of the fence the SDLP continued to lose votes to the conservative hardline Nationalist Irish Independence Party led by former SDLP MLA John Turnley (the party had links to Neil Blaney's renegade Independent Fianna Fail party). Meanwhile there was discomfort within the SDLP at Currie's close relations with Fine Gael. When Currie's proposals at a merger were narrowly approved in 1992 - the anti-merger wing of the party would split of and form the Credit Union Party - they were led by Currie's deputy Brid Rodgers. Still the Neo-Sunningdale Coalition would hold on with decreasing majorities in the next two Assembly elections. Craig's replacement by moderate Unionist MLA Edgar Graham in 1994 would breathe life into the coalition and win it a narrow majority in 1997. Despite Currie's replacement by West Belfast MLA Joe Hendron, it seems highly likely that it will fail to win a majority at the 2001 Assembly elections which some have speculated could lead to the IIP taking 'Fine Gael's' position as the top dog within Nationalism.
 
THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM: JAPHY'S DECENT INTO MADNESS AND STAR WARS LEGENDS AND TIMELINE CHANGES TO THAT

Leading Members Executive Council, Alliance to Restore the Republic:

5 BBY-4 BBY: Mon Mothma (Chandrila), Bail Organa (Alderaan), Garm Bel Iblis (Corellia)
4 BBY-0 BBY: Mon Mothma (Chandrila), Bail Organa (Alderaan), Garm Bel Iblis (Corellia), Raddus (Mon Calamari), Jenssar SoBilles (Doros)
0 BBY: Mon Mothma (Chandrila), Garm Bel Iblis (Corellia), Jenssar SoBilles (Doros)
0 BBY-0 ABY: Mon Mothma (Chandrila), Jenssar SoBilles (Doros), Sian Tevv (Sullust), Dorman Beruss (Corellia - Alliance)


Chief of State of the Alliance to Restore the Republic

0 ABY-4 ABY: Mon Mothma (Popular Front for Galactic Democracy)

Chief of State of the New Republic and Chair of the Provisional Council

4 ABY-10 ABY: Mon Mothma (Popular Front for Galactic Democracy --- Independent)
6 ABY: Scattered
8 ABY: Scattered

10 ABY-11 ABY: Borsk Fey’lya (Popular Front for Galactic Democracy --- Federalist)
10 ABY: Ackbar, Ponc Gavirsom, Dorman Bruss (Popular Front for Galactic Democracy --- Autonomist Factions)
11-12 ABY: Mon Mothma (Popular Front for Galactic Democracy --- Independent)
12 ABY-14 ABY: Borsk Fey’lya (Galactic Federalist Front)

12 ABY: Garm Bel Iblis (Alliance for Free Peoples)
14: ABY: Garm Bel Iblis (Alliance for Free Peoples), Ponc Gavrisom (Independent Federalist)

14 ABY: Verrinnefra B'thog Indriummsegh (Reconsturction Association)
14 ABY-15 ABY: Dorman Beruss (Alliance for Free Peoples)
15 ABY-16 ABY: Borsk Fey’lya (Galactic Federalist Front)

16 ABY: Garm Bel Iblis (Alliance of Free Peoples), Sian Tevv (Reconstruction Association)
16 ABY: Leia Organa-Solo (Independent)
16 ABY: Borsk Fey’lya (Galactic Federalist Front)
16 ABY-17 ABY: Pwoe (Galactic Federalist Front)
17 ABY-19 ABY: Ponc Gavrisom (Independent Federalist)

18 ABY: Borsk Fey’lya (Galactic Federalist Front), Kerrithrarr (Alliance for Free Peoples), Sian Tevv (Reconstruction Association)

Clone Wars is a plural term, meaning more than one war. Combine that with the fact one generally names wars after opponents rather then one’s own army, and you’ve hit on the most basic of problems with the singular shadow puppet conflict shown in Episodes II and III. What is far more interesting is the implications of the old Expanded Universe. Plural conflicts, against Clones and the actors pointed to in the films and related sources being old men rather than the middle aged sort that one would expect with a conflict that had ended less then two decades before A New Hope.


What I suspect is that Clone soldiers were on the rise for a few centuries, thrown around as cheap fodder by groups like the Hutts, the Corporate Sector and various cartels, criminal enterprizes and petty statelets in the Outer Rim, growing in power as they went like space faring Condottieri from conflict to conflict. Around ~150 BBY the Clone masters decided they might as well start working for themselves rather then these bidders and started to carve out their own states and their own alliances. A decade or two later ~140-130 BBY they, possibly tapping into something akin to Separatist sentiment, went to war against the Republic. This war proved to be the closest they ever got to winning the whole thing. Pushing coreward from the Rim they used their mass legions to break open system after system. The Republic in chaos, reorganized forces, and called on the Jedi, and with the blood of millions turned back the tide, pushing the Clone Masters back.


Over the next century there would be three or four more wars, each time the armies of the clones doing less and less well, until the last war around ~50-35 BBY. The trend in these wars, besides smaller and smaller gains on the part of the Clones was the decay of their forces and their leadership. The first armies of the First Clone War were crack troops, but the pressures of war meant that new creches of troops were poured out on a faster and faster rate. Not only did training suffer but sanity did as well. In addition many of the Clone Masters were killed in the first war, replaced by well trained and developed clones at first, but by the last war there were legions of mad clones on the march, led by mad clone generals. The Last Great Clone War was a bloodbath of fights to the death out on the rim and suicide raids by clones across the Mid Rim, the Expansion region and all the way into the Core Worlds.


That war ending around ~40-30 BBY saw Palpatine, the great warlord of the Republic install himself as Emperor, and an effort launched on his part to destroy the last of the Jedi, after their orders had been decimated by a century of splits, warfare and the overall darkening of the force by the endless horror of the Clone Wars. Some remained, like Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda who fled into hiding, while others like Anakin Skywalker became heroes for turning on the “Pacifistic and Narcissistic Orders” who were leading the Republic to die. Around 20 or 19 BBY a confrontation between Obi-Wan and Skywalker would publically lead to both of their deaths, while Skywalker, now long established as Palpatine’s Sith apprentice Darth Vader became the monster in the suit in reality that he had been acting to be for a while.


Resistance to the Empire was slow to develop. The farce of the Senate kept things going mostly as normal for some time even as the Sith-Fascist dictatorship took hold. But eventually the violence of the system, the enslavement and extermination of whole Non-Human races, the military build up and the closing noose around individual, political and system/sector freedoms was becoming too much. By the time Anakin Skywalker ‘died’ political opposition was already turning to non-violent resistance, which in the face of extreme violence turned towards revolt and military undergrounds.


Five years before the Battle of Yavin many of these resistance organizations had become centralized for whole planets or sectors, and that year a secret meeting in Corellia would see three of the largest groups established the Alliance to Restore the Republic, popularly known as the Rebel Alliance, and with that the Galactic Civil War could be said to have finally begun. Several major defeats, the crackdown that followed galaxy-wide and the a few dramatic moments saw this initially Core World centered alliance to catch fire, and drastically spread. While Mon Mothma became the Orator and face of the revolt, Garm Bel Iblis became the organizer of forces, helping establish the doctrine of Fleets in Being, were rebel spaceships would stay on the move, strike fast, and create a threat to the Empire by merely existing, and lastly the third great leader Bail Organa used Alderaan’s peaceful reputation to cloak himself in legitimacy and become a Gerry Adams like figure in the Senate, using the weight of the revolt to back up his arguments for reform. Bel Iblis’ efforts would helps see Sullest and Mon Calamari freed from Imperial Slavery, expanding the leadership and providing the alliance with two major bases on opposite ends of the Outer Rim to turn into fleet building holdfasts.


Over the next several years the drama would go back and forth until the events of Rogue One. Admiral Raddus, the commander of the Rebel Main Battle Fleet would die at Scarif and a matter of days later the Senate would be abolished, the Tarkin Doctrine put in place and in a demonstration of power, Alderaan would be destroyed by the Death Star. But as darkness fell across the galaxy, hope returned as Luke Skywalker would with a ‘lucky’ shot destroy the space station, killing Tarkin and transforming the war.


Over the next four years there would be chaos, the Rebellion would grow, it would be defeated, the Campaign at Hoth would be a bloodbath, in other regions the Empire was completely pushed out of the Rim. In the Rebel leadership Garm Bel Iblis would break away and vanish for nearly a decade fearing that Mon Mothma, as she assumed more and more power to keep the rebellion going. With his departure, and with the losses of many members of the executive council Mothma was forced to assume a role she didn’t want, becoming not a first among equals but the Chief of Staff of the Alliance.


The victory at Endor needs no explanation here, The Emperor and Vader dead. The complete destruction of the primary mobile force of the Imperial Navy and its leading ship, the Executor and the loss of the Second Death Star. The New Republic would be declared only weeks later, with Mon Mothma becoming its first Chief of State. But Endor was not alone the cause of the collapse of the Empire. The system had been rotting from the inside out.


The immense program of military buildup, the intense efforts to increase colonization in the Outer Rim and to though the use of artificially constructed hyperspace routes, the Deep Core and the Unknown Regions, the efforts to install a sexist and xenophobic in High Culture in a Galaxy were humanity as a whole was only ever a plurality, the growing violence, the cripplingly high tariffs on trade, and waton corruption were already causing the system to break apart. At the same time the Emperor, once a man of agile physicality as well as mind became less and less active in the day to day or even grand scheme running of his galactic spanning regime. Instead it was an ever shifting series of cabals in the court who managed everything from the shipment of food to the planet-wide cities of several core worlds to the various superweapon pet projects to keeping the Moffs in line. The Emperor, wanting to be free to experiment on Byss and in his private quarters in the Palace, left a system that was built entirely around himself in pure chaos. And while competing intelligence-security-terror agencies, his personal agents and his own for dark-side force meditations could keep things going to a bit, the rebellion threw this into chaos and off target. But none of that, even had the boot been able to be kept firmly on the throat of the sentient galaxy wasn’t enough to withstand the collapse of the galactic economy. The break down in law and order saw systems and sectors turn inward, saw piracy and privateering on the rise, and saw the simple economic troubles that had always been caused when the industrialized and urbanized galactic center was cut off or disrupted from trade with the resource rich rim. The bloody attritional year between Hoth and Endor, where the Galaxy really was on fire saw Moff’s defect or rise in revolt and a Grand Admiral attempt to launch a coup which came very close to success. The Empire could not survive for long on any account.


But the victory of the Rebel Alliance did matter, the Birth of the New Republic that followed the Emperor’s death was decisive. There was a force for democracy and equality on the galactic stage at this collapse, something essential as the courtiers in the Imperial Palace and the Grand Admirals, and the Sector commanders, and the senior leadership of the Armed forces all sought to seize the dictatorship and throne for themselves or to carve out Post-Imperial states. Without Mon Mothma the leadership of the Galactic Civil War from that point on would have merely been a collection of blood soaked, xenophobic “Might Makes Right” types. In between all factions were thousands of sectors and planets that sought neutrality and isolation, which while saving trillions from bloodshed also meant that the war would be fought by shoestring forces for years to come and that the galactic economy would continue to stagnate.


In these years Mon Mothma would not face much in the way of organized political opposition as the Republic sought to organize itself, figure out its systems and to defeat the Imperial remnants and win over neutrals. The revolving door of Imperial leadership and the constant shifting of Warlords to either support a new strongman or to break out on their own was not a force which could any longer defeat the Republic as it grew by leaps and bounds but they were a deadly opponent. Short on fleets that would answer it but strong in Stormtroopers the central government of the Empire would turn the push, two years after the Battle of Endor into the Core into the bloodiest days of the Civil War, as troops fought in the perpetual dark of the Coruscanti surface, turned the 5 core worlds and countless moons and minor planets of the Corellian system into a swamp of planet hopping, and forced the fight on a dozen other worlds to be fought to the vibroblade hilt. But in the end, they were defeated. Zsinj, one of the more powerful warlords was the first to break with Coruscant and took the war for a year or more into the outer rim, causing chaos and building internal institutions for his private empire before the shifting sands of Warlord power saw him isolated, and eventually defeated by forces under the command of General Han Solo and Admiral Ackbar.


Five years after the declaration of the New Republic, Thrawn returned from the unknown regions, and nearly turned the whole game around with little more than his own genius, but in the end was assassinated before his strategy to turn turn Republic tactics and the Outer Rim resources against the Republic. Besides a decade of rumor and myth that would follow around the blue-skinned Non Human Grand Admiral the larger legacies of the campaign was the birth of the Smuggler’s Alliance which democratized the semi-legal shipping industry under Tallon Karde, the discovery and destruction of Mount Tantis which would lead to the Caamas Document Crisis a decade later, and the return of Garm Bel Iblis to galactic politics. Additionally divisions in the Popular Front government would take hold as Borsk Fey’lya made his first attempt to increase his political position by trying but failing to unseat Ackbar as commander of the New Republic Defense Force.


By this time Republican politics has coalesced. Hundreds of thousands of political movements were represented in the Republic Senate, but they had turned into two vague camps, those who supported the Popular Front for Galactic Democracy, a catch all that basically boiled down to “Victory over the Empire, Completion of the New Constitution, and support for Mon Mothma” on the other hand were Independents who generally agreed with all of that anyway but didn’t take the government whip --- as it was --- on votes. Neither camp was particularly organized, but inside both there was an actual question developing, about the degree of the limited role of the new Galactic Republic on its various members. Borsk Fey’lya would rise as the most prominent of the centralizing Federalists, while the returned Bel Iblis, with decades of political experience maintained his old position from the old rubber stamp Imperial senate of small government, non-interference


The Galaxy was interested in Fey'lya’s ideas and chose to subscribe to hew newsletter and ten years after the Battle of Yavin, Mon Mothma stepped down as Chief of Staff seeking a position as General Secretary of the Senate only and Fey’lya and his Federalists defeated Bel Iblis and other decentralizers by a decent margin after a complex series of Senate elections and horse trading. It was his poor luck that just as he assumed office though that the Imperial pressures out on the Rim suddenly became a secondary issue as a series of increasingly demented clones of the late Emperor (Known as the Emperor Reborn, though there is little evidence to suggest that they in fact carried within them his original spirit as they would claim) struck out with massive forces from the center of the galaxy in the Deep Core. For all the rumors the Emperor Reborn set out about super weapons and ‘galaxy guns’ what he did have was a powerful, slaved-up fleet led by an insanely large star dreadnaught the Eclipse. And he had secret routes throughout the Deep Core that allowed him to strike anywhere in the Core Worlds out to the Mid Rim. This powerful fleet did push the Republic off Coruscant, and most of the core worlds and pushed them into a vice between himself and the Imperial remnants on the outer rim who smelled blood and pushed back. But in the end, clone madness, terrible logistics, and meglomania on the Imperial side and grit, determination and the force saw the Reborn Emperor’s forces defeated and himself killed by Leia Organa Solo and his sometimes pupil Mara Jade as they sought to rescue her Brother after his capture (Rumors of Luke Skywalker turning to the Dark Side due to truly terrible internal logic being as true as a snubfighter that can blow up Stars or a gun in the deep core that could fire a hyperspace cannon shot anywhere to blow up anything, or the Hutts building a discount Death Star), in little over a year not only was the Republic back on Coruscant but were in a stronger position they they had been with the Emperor Reborn had launched his campaign.


The fall of the core worlds had seen Fey’lya recognize the score and handed control of the Government back to Mon Mothma who ran things for the duration of the crisis, being above the petty political divides that he himself had ridden in on. He would spend that war year as Minister for Economics, trying to keep the war machine going as resources evaporated and stockpiles were lost, a role which he was well suited for. But when it was over he returned to his elected office, and having served very little of the two year term was elected again in 12 ABY at the head of a now organized and independent movement, the Galactic Federalist Front. As pushes into the rim continued this government would continue for two and a half years, securing another majority in 14 ABY before issues of corruption and vote buying came to the fore. The Bothan was ousted after a vote of no confidence that saw the Elomin Verrinnefra B'thog Indriummsegh assume the role. Verrinnefra, a member of a third party, the Reconstruction Alliance which had become a major advocate for decentralized government but was rapidly determined to push for increased galactic trade. Verrinnefra, and the Reconstruction Alliance as a whole would be haunted for years that they were merely puppets to the Smuggler’s Alliance and Karde but never the less remained in power for more then half a year before the failure to pass a Budget saw him resign the office, to be replaced by Dorman Beruss for the Alliance of Free People’s. Beruss’ selection in large part being secured less on her autonomist credentials then on the fact that she had broken with Bel Iblis when he’d left the alliance years before and was thus seen to be more independent of her party leader then most. Half a year later Fey’lya resumed control of the government when an Imperial coalition under an Admiral Daala was able to break though the forward picket lines and launch a grand raid into the Mid Rim along the Corellian trade spine.


Fey’lya’s return to office saw another Federalist victor in the elections of 16 ABY and the defeat of Daala, at the time and for several years after thought to be the last great effort by Imperial Forces. The years after the Reborn Emperor would not be dominated by the Republic perpetually teetering on collapse, the problems were economic by and large, and in trying to convince neutrals to reenter the galactic system. As ever less potent Imperials played God-King in private fiefs and on the Council of Moffs things moved forward. Luke Skywalker over the course of years established around himself a cadre of apprentices as he traveled the galaxy working as a healer and a diplomat. His sister would spend years as the Minister for Diplomacy under every government of the Republic, Han Solo was generally at her side, or serving as a military attache when needed, or working with Lando Calrissian who’s grandiose economic projects were designed to make headlines, gain investors, and inspire just as much as they were meant to secure resources and earn profits. There were no ghosts, and the galactic press, as well as everyone who knew the two didn’t ponder about Luke Skywalker’s love life because everyone except himself knew that there was only going to be one woman in his life, his occasional apprentice Mara Jade.


Little under a year after his most recent victory though Fey’lya was caught in a complicated financial scheme where he had not been the ringleader but was close enough to things and made enough money that he was ousted from power in disgrace. As factions within his own Federalist Front were gaining power and organizing to permanently remove him in the name of their own ambitions he instead used his influence, reached out to Bel Iblis his long term rival and assured that temporary government control would pass to his Diplomatic Minister. Leia Organa-Solo thus found herself unhappily assuming the office of Chief of State. In her brief period of leadership she would oversee a Republic effort to defeat Duskhan League as they sought, using their own vast fleet to commit genocide in their own corner of of the Core Worlds. Not sending her Husband to command the fleet there and be captured and with her brother not on some useless quest to find their mother, she oversaw a swift if costly victory and then promptly, was glad to see Fey’lya at least mostly freed from the crowd of suspicion he was under and turn back the government to him.


The cunning Bothan would not be in the Chief of Staff’s office for five months before he was ousted, this time in a vote of no confidence organized from within his own Federalist movement. Pwoe, the Quarran representative from Mon Calamari had long served as Fey’lya’s Chief of Staff and Minister for Economics was the leader of the thing and was able to assume office for himself for even less time then his chief. Fey’lya was able to manage his ouster but, recognizing that his time in the Chief’s seat was done engineered the ascension a long term rival in the form of Ponc Gavrisom, an Independent Federalist. Though none knew it at the time this would prove to be an immensely important move as Gavrisom would have to weather the Caamas Document Crisis, where a Bothan head of state would have ensured a second Galactic Civil War. It did mean that Fey’lya was not the man to sign the final peace with the Imperial Remnant and end the first Galactic Civil War, but as he assumed a position as a Grand Old Man of the Senate he could at least congratulate himself on having more or less sailed the ship of state though to victory. Admittedly this was after a final attempt at a comeback ended in his first electoral defeat.


Luke Skywalker would in the peace that followed go on to establish a small number of scattered Jedi Academies and marry Mara Jade after the two of them escaped the Hand of Thrawn. Leia Organa-Solo would step down from her nearly two decades as the Alliance and Republic’s chief diplomat to be an Ambassador at Large and train in the force and raise her children. Han Solo would to entertain himself become an active member of various small scale shipper’s unions and spend time with his family as well. And no stupid Aliens with an entirely biological form of technology would ever invade the galaxy. The end.
 
Last edited:
List of Prime Ministers of New Zealand
1935-1940:
Michael Joseph Savage (Labour)
1935 def: Gordon Coates and George Forbes (United-Reform Coalition), Harold Rushworth (Country Party), Eruera Tirikatene (Ratana)
1938 def: Adam Hamilton (National)

1940-1943: Peter Fraser (Labour)
1943-1946: Clyde Carr (Labour-Real Democracy Coalition)

1943 def: Sidney Holland (National), John A. Lee and John Hogan (Democratic Labour Party-Real Democracy Movement)
1946-present: Sidney Holland (National)
1946 def: Peter Fraser (Labour)

The incessant disputes between Michael Joseph Savage, the leader of the first, very moderate, Labour Government on the one hand and radical backbencher John A. Lee on the other were some of the most destructive examples of bitter factionalism that had ever been visited upon the Labour movement. Not only was the nation drowning in ideological vitriol, but the personal relationship between the two men was splashed all over the newspapers. On one day, Lee would be criticising Savage's authoritarian ways of dealing with the PLP and telling him openly to resign on the basis that his ill health was worsening an already bad situation. The next, Savage would be encouraging Conference to "put a muzzle" on Lee. In 1940, things came to a head when Savage guilt-tripped his followers into expelling Lee from the party and, satisfied that his life's work had been accomplished, passed away. Savage's supporters said that Lee had hounded the man to his death.

Lee repudiated this charge, and quickly did the rounds of his core base of support in the left wing of the Labour Party - these men were committed to socialism and antipathetic towards conscription, and were also open to the Social Credit ideas of Major C. H. Douglas. These were the bases, therefore, of Lee's new movement, the Democratic Labour Party. Bill Barnard, the Speaker, a Christian Socialist and Creditist by calling, followed Lee from the outset, and their joint lobbying procured the resignation and defection of Native and External Affairs Minister Frank Langstone. Others were harder to convince: Arnold Nordmeyer and Gervan McMillan would only defect on the condition that the DLP contest the by-election caused by the death of Savage, and did so only upon confirmation that the young Lee acolyte Norman Douglas had submitted his nomination. Douglas came third, but almost caused the safe Labour seat to be lost to National. Rex Mason, the Justice Minister, followed what he thought was a growing flood of defectors, but as it happened, he was the last. The other left-wingers judged that the three new vacancies in Cabinet could probably be filled by themselves if they played their cards right, and so it proved: Clyde Carr, until then a loyal follower of Lee, became Foreign Minister.

The DLP, now a strong third force in Parliament, now sought to entrench itself outside the House. About 2,000 grassroots Labour members joined up, encouraged by nationwide speaking tours by the key characters of the DLP, and were given baptisms of fire in the frequent by-elections during the Second World War. Some good second places were won in Hauraki and Temuka (in which a returned soldier and a monetary reformist, respectively, were defeated by National Party candidates in straight fights) and former Labour MP Horace Herring won Christchurch East from his former party in early 1943.

By this stage, the DLP had gained the support of the Social Credit front, the Real Democracy Movement, which had many of the same policies as the DLP, although they were much keener on monetary reform and much less keen on Lee's foreign policy aims. The RDM was an experimental attempt by the Social Creditors to set up an electoral organisation outside of the Labour Party, who had abandoned the group's core objectives. They hired the Australian John Hogan to serve as National Organiser, on the basis that he had done rather well for the Australian Douglas Credit Party previously. The RDM, however, was set up for a 1941 election, and by 1943 they were running short of funds, necessitating an alliance with the DLP, which was kept afloat by Parliamentary expenses and donations from some of the more militant unions.

The results of the 1943 election were a mixed bag: Langstone, Nordmeyer, McMillan, Herring and Mason were defeated, never to return to Parliament. Lee and Barnard, however, survived, joined by Les Frame in Wellington Suburbs and three Real Democracy Movement members (Hogan taking out Walter Nash in Hutt, John Piuraki Tikau-Barrett defeating Eruera Tirikatene in Southern Maori in a major challenge to the Ratana movement, and Roly Marks winning Wanganui). The new RDM MPs were celebrated by Lee - especially Hogan, for unseating one of the mortal enemies he had made during his fracas with the Savage clique. He was perhaps less pleased to have gained Roly Marks, though. Marks was a languages teacher at a prestigious boys' school, and had the reputation among his colleagues as "never knowing when to shut up about Social Credit". He was also a disciple of the maverick medicine-man Dr Ulric Williams, who had cured him of appendicitis with a rigorous course of fruit juices, as well as prescribing 21-day fasts willy-nilly and ordering the wife of former PM Gordon Coates to dance outside at dawn to cure her arthritis.

The most important result, of course, was that Labour, and Peter Fraser, could no longer command a majority in the House of Representatives. As neither Democratic Party could be detached from the other and as Lee was unwilling to deal with National, the only option was for them to work with Labour. But Lee was not happy to serve under a man who had attacked him so regularly over the last half-decade - one of his conditions for coalition was that Fraser would stand aside as Prime Minister in favour of someone who was tolerable to both. Clyde Carr thereby rose to the rank of PM after just three years in Cabinet. His was an awkward tenure, as Fraser remained Labour Leader and he clashed with Lee, now Minister of Finance, in Cabinet on a regular basis. Lee was unlucky to have only one MP with parliamentary experience, as Barnard, being Speaker, could hardly join Cabinet, and the others were not fit to be promoted from the backbenches.

From 1943 to 1946, the First Labour Government endured, and entered its most radical phase. The health service was nationalised, the commercial banks placed under severe restrictions and a Citizen's Dividend paid to all New Zealanders. But wartime austerity prevented Lee from making truly grand changes, and his coalition demand that the NZ Expeditionary Force withdraw from Italy immediately in favour of joining the Pacific War led to widespread Allied condemnation and, it is hypothesised, tens of thousands of unnecessary casualties at the Battle of Monte Cassino as New Zealand troops were withdrawn from the front lines against their own will and those of the British troops who suddenly found their flanks open in the disorganised mess.

It was Monte Cassino that killed Lee's popularity, just as it (and the leadership confusion between Fraser and Carr) killed the Labour government. Real Democracy vote-splitting allowed Sid Holland to take office, and yet produced no DLP-RDM members of Parliament for their trouble, and Social Credit then foreswore electoral participation for a decade. It wasn't all bad news for the left, though - despite Holland's reputation and his anti-union moves (incidentally, contrary to assumptions, the DLP was critical of trade unionism, having been rebuffed by most radical unions and attacked by the moderates), he contributed to the post-war economic consensus and only took gradualist moves against the welfare state. The Social Credit system survived, albeit much amended, until the wheels fell off the Birch government in the 1980s.
 
A Very Mumby List

this started as just what if the tories managed to stay in power in 1929 intending to be a bit of an fdr analogue and it just went mad and eventually turned into Britain In Wolfenstein but im not interested in listing jorian jenks national socialist movement of british soily bois

1924-1932: Stanley Baldwin (Conservative)
1924 (Majority) def. Ramsay MacDonald (Labour), H.H. Asquith (Liberal), vacant (Constitutionalist)
1929 (Coalition with Liberals) def. Ramsay MacDonald (Labour), David Lloyd George (Liberal)

1932-1934: Winston Churchill (Conservative-National Liberal coalition)
1934-1937: Ellen Wilkinson (Labour)
1934 (Majority) def. Winston Churchill (Constitutional Coalition - Conservative), David Lloyd George (Liberal), John Hargrave (Social Credit)
1937-1940: George Lansbury (Labour)
1937 (Majority) def. Austen Chamberlain (Conservative), David Lloyd George (Liberal), Winston Churchill (Constitutionalist)
1940-1942: Ellen Wilkinson (Labour leading War Government with Conservatives, Liberals and Constitutionalists)
1942-1942: Winston Churchill (Constitutionalist leading War Government with Labour, Conservatives and Liberals)
1942-1942: Oswald Mosley (Labour leading Armistice Government with Conservatives, Liberals and 'Peace' Constitutionalists)
1942-1944: Winston Churchill (National Defence - 'War' Constitutionalist)
1942 (Majority) def. Oswald Mosley (Peace Pact - 'Peace' Labour), Rolf Gardiner (Social Credit)
1944-1944: Anthony Eden (National Defence majority - 'War' Conservative)
1944-1949: Robert Menzies / Jan Smuts / Anthony Eden (Committee for Imperial Defence)
1949-1951: Tom Wintringham / P.C. Joshi / Dudley Thompson (Committee for Commonwealth Resistance)
1951: CCR disbanded, Resistance in Britain drawn into the sphere of the Kreisau Circle

So what happens is that the Great Depression hits and while Lloyd George has all sorts of interesting ideas about Keynesian spending, the Conservatives are more skeptical and after a few fluffy bits to assuage DLG's ideas, they decide if they're going to do this, they need the income from tariffs. Imperial free trade is established, with the increased government income from import tariffs to be used for infrastructure spending. Lloyd George gets all cross and leaves the government. Baldwin is ruined by the debacle and hands over to Churchill who leads a very narrow majority. Labour wins in a landslide in 1934.

Red Ellen is initially going big guns, introducing numerous measures to alleviate unemployment that are inspired by the Americans. However, she spends a lot of political capital keeping her own party in line and winning favour from the opposition in 1936, in her struggle with the newly crowned King Edward VIII. The eventual agreement on a morganatic marriage is settled upon, but her government is sufficiently weakened that at her next big test she falls down. Her attempt to intervene in the Spanish Civil War leads to a backbench uprising and she is forced out in favour of pacifist George Lansbury. Lansbury accelerates disarmament and wins a second majority for Labour against a continually divided Opposition, and then dies in 1940 having allowed Germany to invade Poland.

Red Ellen was back and she was determined that there was to be not one more step back and this time the country was with her. When Germany started agitating over the border with Yugoslavia, she made it clear that there was no chance the border would be adjusted. When Germany crossed the border with her Italian allies, a declaration of war followed. But Lansbury's pacifism left Britain poorly equipped to fend off the Axis advance. Yugoslavia fell and was carved up into a series of Reichsprotektorat, and when they were finished with the Balkans they smashed down France in '41. The encirclement of most of the British Army at Calais was a disaster and while she led Britain stalwartly in a breakneck programme of industrial modernisation and rearmament, it was too much. Struck down by her bronchial asthma, she was succeeded by the considerably less popular Churchill who tried to rally the disparate War Government, but it was not enough. The atmosphere was despair. He was removed by Labour backbencher Mosley who then sought terms with Hitler.

Mosley's utter belief in his own brilliance led to him going to the country along with a whole host of other figures like Lloyd George and Lord Halifax to campaign for 'Peace Now'. Opposite him was Churchill who gathered around him everyone who saw the necessity to stand up against the Nazi foe as it advanced upon Moscow. It seemed clear cut, that the charismatic and youthful Mosley would triumph over the old and gloomy man associated with the General Strike and the Great Depression. Mosley did not count on two things. The British public's own realisation that peace with the Nazis was a mistake and the sudden re-emergence of Social Credit in considerably browner shirts. Churchill's National Defence Coalition won a majority and relaunched the war, this time alongside America.

Churchill would only last a couple of years, but what years they were. Britain was Germany's bloody ulcer in Europe, a fortified hulk. But the disaster of the invasion of North Africa followed by the failure in Britanny saw what remained of Britain's navy sink to the bottom of the ocean. The German invasion came and while the LDV fought for every inch, their Prime Minister was not there beside them. He fell to pneumonia of all things and was replaced by Anthony Eden.

Eden took a dispassionate eye to the situation. The Africa front held even as India crumbled. Britain was lost. He fled the country along with what he could salvage and found a new home in Cape Town where he established a triumvirate with Smuts and Menzies to hold off the Nazi invaders for as long as possible. While the emergent African Resistance held up the Nazi advance, the Japanese could not be stopped in the Far East. America's own willingness to continue the war was falling apart.

In 1949, Smuts was removed in a coup by Afrikaaner nationalists and Australia was conquered by the Japanese. Britain never formally surrendered but at that point it was no longer clear who would have the authority to deliver the surrender. An incoherent post-conquest Resistance Movement, based upon the skeleton of Imperial Defence, staggered on for a couple of years before fragmenting from necessity. Britain's own Resistance soon fell into the Kreisau Circle, while the African Resistance remained separate and uniquely successful.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top