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Lists of Heads of Government and Heads of State

and some heads of state to go with that

Kings of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

1910-1917: George V (Saxe-Coburg and Gotha)
1917-1924: George V (Windsor)

Kings of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

1924-1935: George V (Windsor)
1935-1939: Edward VIII (Windsor)

Kings of the Kingdom of Great Britain

1939-1944: Edward VIII (Saxe-Coburg and Gotha)

Governors of the Allied Military Government of the Occupied Territory of Great Britain

1944-1945: Winston Churchill & Stafford Cripps (United Reform / Labour, appointed by US Army and Red Army respectively)

Lord Protectors of the Commonwealth of Great Britain

1945-1952: Albert York (Independent)
1945 def. unopposed
1950 def. unopposed

1952-19XX: Belphoebe Glorian (Independent)
1952 def. Elizabeth York (Independent), Harry Pollitt (Communist), George Gloucester (Independent)

also, i remembered that in the previous incarnation, i managed to get B_Munro to do a map of Britain during the Occupation - this is still mostly on point, though the Kift would be replaced in the new scenario by a looser organisation of covens and fae beyond the control of conventional political organisations

https://www.deviantart.com/quantumbranching/art/It-was-a-magic-sealion-684232897
 
A list of Labour Party leaders based upon a list game in my test thread back on the old forum.

1945-1946: Arthur Greenwood

Greenwood's reputation is predicated primarily on the sympathy he gained having taken the role of leader of the party following Clement Attlee's untimely death in the spring of 1945. Labour's electoral success was, in part, down to the national pity that fell upon Arthur Greenwood as he made low-key campaign tours around the country. The press rolled their collective eyes and the Conservatives believed they were in for a landslide given the rather meek performance of the Leader of the Opposition. In the end, with just over 370 seats, Labour swept to power on a landslide majority of its own. The work to be done in the coming years would be arduous and time-consuming, as many in the Labour leadership knew, but Arthur was determined to make the best of the premiership that had been suddenly thrust upon him. His first acts to implement the Beveridge Report and begin the process of decolonisation (India being the first to go in 1947) would earn him a small but not insignificant place in the mythology of the Labour Party.

Some thought differently, however, and were determined to steal the red crown from Arthur's head. Herbert Morrison came out in the open and challenged Greenwood, culminating in the 1946 Labour leadership contest from which Arthur Greenwood would promptly bow and thus allow his Foreign Secretary, Hugh Dalton, to run in his stead. Greenwood's reputation has since been eclipsed by the likes of Dalton and Bevan, who were ingrained in the popular consciousness as the true founders of the modern welfare state. His reputation has never undergone major damage but neither does he came quickly to the minds of the public outside of the realm of British political historians.​

1946-1950: Hugh Dalton

If Greenwood had been the architect, then Dalton was the builder. The commanding heights of industry were nationalised, the National Health Service was formed, and the British Empire began to retreat from the wider world. He proved an exceptionally good manager of his cabinet, even quashing a second Morrisonite coup in 1948, and his ability to spot and promote talent from among the younger ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party would go on to inform his enduring popularity in the wider party. A friendly and supportive father figure to many young MPs, one would be hard-pressed to find an ambitious socialist or trade unionist speak an ill word of the man who fundamentally shaped so many careers. On a national level, his uncompromising commitment to the 1945 manifesto fundamentally shifted Britain into the post-war world. Moves were taken toward a progressive taxation system, food subsidies for working-class families rocketed upwards, and action was taken to build 300,000 homes a year (on average) over the four years of his premiership. He also secured huge loans from the United States government to fund many of his social programs, which did lead to some consternation on the part of the Labour left and the Communist Party. But, a committed anti-communist as any, Dalton was undeterred by his embrace of the 'Special Relationship' with President Truman. His reputation did suffer slightly after leaving office as the limits of his Atlanticist feeling were tested and the right wing of the party found it difficult to forgive him for forgoing the chance for Britain to prove itself a true American ally.

Dalton is often held up as one of the top-five Prime Ministers of the post-war period and is rarely out of the top-three Labour leaders in the same era. Intellectually brilliant and a genuine radical, even some on the Labour left have seen fit to claim him as one of theirs (especially, it must be said, during the arguments over German armaments in the mid-1950s and late-1970s). Besides his immediate successor, it is difficult to think of someone who spent more energy and political capital to earn the title "Founder of Modern Britain".
1950-1960: Aneurin Bevan

After Dalton won in 1949 and Labour returned with only a slightly decreased number of seats (361 to be exact), it looked as if his leadership might carry on for at least another half-decade. There was still work to be done and reforms to be implemented, but international events would overtake his premiership. War flared up in the Korean Peninsula, America reached out to Britain for military aid, and the Labour government was split as to how to react. The left of the party outright condemned the notion that Britain ought to join in America's wars so soon after the last world war. The right was split between those who advocated caution and those who wished to prove themselves to the Americans. Dalton found himself in the former camp of the right, expressing his dissatisfaction at America's interventionist attitude (and its expectation that the rest of the world ought to follow in tow). Once again, Morrison tried his luck and the broad contours of alliance around the cabinet table drastically altered as the left came to agree with Dalton and the broad right became split between the ageing Ernie Bevin, scheming Herbert Morrison, and the almost too young Hugh Gaitskell. The only problem was that the left had their own candidate in mind to succeed Dalton and he was promptly advised to vacate his office for the contest to come. Aneurin Bevan was that candidate and he was unequivocal: no aid for American wars just to hollow out the victories of social security that had taken place since 1945.

That Bevan won was barely a shock, especially seeing as the right was divided amongst three flavours of the same Atlanticist position. Nye told Harry Truman where to go, made huge cuts to the defence budget, and radically improved the social services that had been constructed since the '45 election. As the founder of the National Health Service, he already had the reputation as a benevolent and radical reformer, and his time in high office would prove this even more. Sweeping education reforms (including the beginning of a fully comprehensive school system from 1952 onward), housing plans that reached a peak of 400,000 homes a year in 1953, and the abolition of National Service in 1954 all came together to give the workers of Britain a great deal of respite after the long years of war and austerity. Rationing was still in place but would eventually be phased out after Bevan failed to gain a majority in 1954 and began relying on Liberal support. The reasons for this failure have been often characterised from a right-wing position - 'Labour was too radical', 'Labour was uniting Britain and the Soviet Union', 'people were sick of the socialist nanny state', etc. - when the reality is more that the unions (led by Arthur Deakin of the TGWU) were working against the party by winding down its available election funds and making statements at conference that associated Bevan with the 'King Street Mafia' (another term for the CPGB). Scurrilous accusations abounded and the funds available for Labour's second re-election effort were dwindling. Done dirty by the unions, it is a testament to Bevan's personal popularity that he managed to still eke out a minority with the support of the Lloyd George Liberals. For two years, his government carried on (outliving Arthur Deakin by almost exactly one year) and the time seemed right to have another election in order to shore up Labour's position heading into the 1960s. Had Bevan been successful in 1956, the process of decolonisation would have intensified further and new regional planning mechanisms would have been introduced. As it was, the Liberals campaigned hard against a Labour Party that believed in the inevitability of its own victory and took huge chunks out of the Labour vote, which had fallen already due to the feeling in the country that Bevan was on-course for another five years in office.

Bevan's government would fall to Rab Butler's Conservative Party, leaving Bevan, as LotO, to fend off challenges from various bases of power in the party. The unions tried to unseat him by sponsoring Hugh Gaitskell in a bid for the leadership in 1957 and another challenge from the right came in 1959, this time quixotically led by Douglas Jay, Edith Summerskill, and George Brown. The strains upon Bevan's leadership were proving too much for an already unwell man and it was in 1960, amidst a flurry of leadership and deputy leadership challenges, that Bevan would die from complications during surgery to remove a cancerous stomach ulcer.

A titan of the Labour left and a man gone too soon, Aneurin Bevan stands out as the most radical Labour leader of the twentieth century. He fundamentally changed the country's standing on the world stage, pushed Britain forward in terms of social reform, and made huge strides (by giving independence to a series of ex-colonial federations in the Caribbean and Africa) in the realm of decolonisation. The party found it difficult to move beyond his shadow and any attempts at revisionism of the Labour line would be countered with accusations of disturbing Bevan's legacy. Some on the right found this trend disconcerting and obstructive, but it kept Bevan's memory alive for a public that had been genuinely endeared to the old Welsh firebrand. That he regularly comes in the top-two of post-war PMs in publicly ranked lists is no surprise, as his statue on Parliament Square and many namesake public buildings can attest. A strong-willed and well-meaning left-winger, it is sad to say that he would be the last of his kind in the Labour Party for many, many years.
1960-1972: Anthony Crosland

One of the most divisive and yet long-serving Labour leaders of the post-war period, Anthony Crosland was many things to many people. The youngest leader of the party in its history when he took over in 1960, he represented everything that the Bevanite tendency disliked: he was a well-heeled intellectual, firm in his pro-American sentiments and unwavering in his scorn for the supposedly well-meaning 'beatniks' that the Labour Party had done much to attract in the later years of Bevan's leadership. Some considered him arrogant; some considered him brilliant. It was a strange ascent, only made possible by the various splits that erupted on the left of the party in the wake of Bevan's death. More handsome than Callaghan and more youthful than Gaitskell, Crosland won handily against a field of Tribune Group devotees and 'fellow travellers'. Thrust into a general election in October 1960, he managed to take a substantial chunk out of the Conservatives' total seats despite Butler still managing a majority with 338 seats. The party didn't want another round of bloodletting and navel-gazing, which allowed Crosland to coast through the next five years with only minor hiccups along the way. The unions were brought back into the fold, regular trips were made to the US to visit the new Democrat in the White House, Pat Brown, and the Labour Party machine was put into full modernisation mode.

Crosland was assured of victory when he consulted the polls in 1964, which put Labour consistently ahead of the Tories with leads ranging from 7% to 20% throughout the spring and summer months. The youthful and technologically advanced image of the party, looking to build on the foundations of the Daltonite-Bevanite welfare state and increase standards of living across the country, played well against the rather staid image of the Butlerite Conservative Party. Had Butler been the one leading the Conservative Party into the next election, it would have been a landslide for the party; had Butler not shown his weakness when refusing to sack the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Peter Thorneycroft, for his ill-judged remarks to the press about possible funding for a British nuclear deterrent, then Crosland might have been PM for more than a decade. In the end, Butler fell in November 1964 and, taking his place, was a man almost as young as Crosland and definitely more decisive than Butler. Reginald Maudling stormed into the cabinet and forced the resignations of just about anyone who wanted to waste Treasury funds on atomic bomb pipe-dreams. At least, Reggie asked his lieutenants, Edward Heath and Edward du Cann, to do so. Maudling avoided confrontation himself but wasn't averse to getting others to do the heavy lifting of ministerial discipline, which translated in the press to some sort of misjudged 'Man of Steel' image. His steel was not stainless, however, and Anthony Crosland made great hay over the weakening of the pound and the fall of Britain's share of global trade in the 1964-65 period. The election of 1965 wasn't quite the long-awaited victory that Crosland (and many other spectators from the left) had foreseen. A small majority of just 6 separated Labour from the imminent return of Tory government and many of Crosland's ministers were not long in the job.

1965-1968: these were the brief 'Crosland years' of British politics. A flurry of social reforms were narrowly passed in '66 and '67, but the economic state of the country was too difficult to handle without the majority support of his own party. Devaluation to address problems with exports was on the agenda but the cabinet refused to sign off on the policy, prompting many long arguments between Crosland and his Chancellor, George Brown. In 1966, Brown quit and sold his stories of the PM's arrogance to the newspapers, who promptly lapped up the internecine conflicts in cabinet. The image that stuck was that which Brown had painted: Crosland was supposedly a supremely arrogant individual who held his economic advisers in contempt and believed he might do better at running the economy in a one-man show. It was not too far from the truth, all things considered, as he would appoint his ally (and former lover at university) Roy Jenkins to the post of Chancellor. He leapfrogged many other qualified persons, having served as President of the Board of Trade for just over a year when he got his promotion. Backs were put up, knives would be drawn, and then the ultimate series of blows in 1967: a run on the pound, a crisis in the international currency markets, and the gruelling embarrassment of going cap-in-hand to President Brown for a loan to keep the British economy ticking. It was only the application to join the European Economic Community in 1968 that saved Crosland from a coup, but it was't enough to stop the anti-Europeans on the right (among them, Douglas Jay and Frederick Bellenger) voting with the Conservatives to bring down the government before the negotiations with Europe were finalised. A series of whip suspensions and expulsions later, Crosland was out on his backside with seemingly more enemies than friends in the PLP and a record that wasn't easy to defend. He refused to back down, however, and stacked positions in the party with his allies after the 1969 challenges to his leadership from the left both failed. In 1971, to take advantage of the weak and divided leadership of the Labour Party, Reginald Maudling called a snap election in November and saw his majority rise even higher than he could have imagined. Labour dropped to 230 seats and could only look on as the Conservatives won once again. Some commentators were declaring the Conservatives the 'natural party of government' and even some in Labour were crossing their fingers that they need only wait until the late 1980s to get back into government.

Crosland formally resigned before the New Year, prompting a January leadership election that ended in a compromise candidate that just about nobody really wanted but to whom nobody could truly be opposed. When Anthony died in 1977, there was more talk of "missed potential" than praise of his actual record as leader and as Prime Minister. Some saw his leadership as a great farce for the party that had governed for 11 years on increasingly radical platforms to fall back on shiny technocracy. It was unbecoming of the great intellectual that was Anthony Crosland to have to have sold himself more as a product than a politician, only to have failed to truly win over the British public. Of the four elections Labour contested with Crosland as leader, he would win only one - and with a minuscule majority at that. Whilst nobody's favourite leader by any means, Labour supporters in the modern era have had their criticisms tempered by time and the experience of Crosland's successors.
1972-1975: T. Dan Smith

T. Dan Smith is rarely remembered in the modern Labour Party. Once a communist and conscientious objector during the early days of the Second World War, he would slowly come to moderate his views over the course of the proceeding decades. Establishing himself as a firm supporter of Labour after 1945 and as a Newcastle City Councillor, he would eventually gain a seat in the Newcastle-upon-Tyne West by-election of 1953. His rise was less than meteoric, but he managed to earn himself a junior ministerial position in Bevan's last year of government. He got nothing out of his shadow cabinet until Crosland took over, whereupon Smith took the shadow housing portfolio and unveiled huge reforms to the ways in which the arts and design philosophy could affect cityscapes. Crosland was impressed and took him on as Minister for Housing and Local Government for the three years of his governance. What won him the leadership in 1972 was a proven track record that, whilst far from emulating the sheer numbers of house-building in the 1950s, would certainly change the ways people saw council housing: gone were the 'urban cottage' designs under Bevan and in came the modern brutalist housing blocks that littered Smith's own city. Where the other candidates were looking to finally engage in some factional bloodletting, Smith could quite rightly say he'd been loyal to Bevan as much as he'd been loyal to Crosland and that he would gladly serve under any other leader as well. His outward magnanimity shrouded a rather more ruthless streak, but it earned sympathy during a long and gruelling campaign where Anthony Wedgwood Benn and Denis Healey nearly came to blows at a hustings.

What little can be said of his three-year leadership is thus: he was a grifter and a schmoozer. Not a gifted orator or an intellectual brimming with new ideas, Smith preferred to hobnob with business leaders and union officials alike, earning himself credibility and the odd backhander. He famously endorsed a close supporter of his, Robert Maxwell, to take up the position of Treasurer of the Labour Party in 1973. "Creative accounting" was soon to follow, though the extent to which Smith and Maxwell had laundered money from their own businesses through the Labour Party machine's funds would not be revealed until well into the Woodley years of leadership. An unambitious platform, representing continuity with the 'Bevlerism' of the 1950s and early 1960s, was put forward in 1975 to face off against the solid patrician Toryism of Francis Pym, who had succeeded Maudling the previous year. It was a boring election where Labour lurched marginally closer to winning (a 7 seat increase, to be exact) and the Tories managed to pinch a small number of seats from the Liberals, thereby almost nullifying the cautious re-emergence of Labour's popularity. Under pressure from his shadow cabinet to resign and under some tentative scrutiny from left-wing members of the NEC, Smith and Maxwell resigned their positions just weeks apart. In later life, he would appear only a small number of times to bemoan the leadership of the party that followed him (especially, ironically, Kilroy-Silk) and famously sold his Jaguar (with custom number plate) to pay damages in a libel case against a fellow North East MP, Jo Richardson.​

1975-1986: Roy Mason

The 'Barnsley Bruiser', Roy Mason stepped in to fill the role of leader at a time of great disappointment for the Labour Party. With the Conservatives set to govern Britain for another five years, Mason had a job to reinvigorate and revitalise the party faithful for the next bout with the Tory Party. When he finally did manage the feat of returning Labour to government with its first working majority since 1949, he was hailed a hero of the working classes and many predicted that his leadership could prove the beginning of a sea-change in British politics as Labour forged its old coalition of the working classes and the liberal middle classes back together. In the end, after four years of conservative attempts at reform, u-turns at every juncture, and the alienation of vast swathes of Labour supporters and others, Mason would go down as that worst sort of leader: the one who wasted their golden opportunity.

The first sign that Mason might disappoint the Labour Party's supporters was his acquiescence to Pym's negotiations with the EEC for Britain to join. He had been opposed to ideas of Anglo-European unity in the early 1960s, preferring the popular Commonwealth vogue that swept the parties during the period of Bevlerism, but had since shifted with the onset of Crosland's leadership to support Britain in the EEC. Fulfilling the promise of the Crosland years by voting through the European Communities Bill of 1978, Mason had - in effect - given Pym his last great victory before the energy crises of the late '70s really began. In 1980, Mason won a majority of 336 seats with 281 seats going to the Conservative Party (and, for the first time since the CPGB in 1945, two seats to a party outside of the main three: the free market populist outfit of the British Democrats, headed by Oliver Smedley and Norris McWhirter). As the energy crisis deepened in the early 1980s, especially after President Haig's failed attempt to corral the Middle Eastern Petroleum Congress back into the Western fold by cutting off American aid to Kurdish rebels in Syria, the Prime Minister felt under siege by the miners and trade unionists that had once been his base of power. Thus, within two years of his premiership, it was already being put about that a referendum be given to decide the nation's energy policy (with the caveat that the pro-nuclear option would also imply nuclear material that could be used to finally build Britain's independent deterrent). With the assent of Alexander Haig, Mason and his cabinet team drew up plans to have a British nuclear weapons system operational by 1985. The plans that were leaked during the 1983 energy referendum campaign sharply polarised public opinion, which ended up voting against nuclear energy on a margin of 53% to 47%. The coal miners had won, but implicitly against the interests of the man that relied so heavily on their support to be in the position he was in. They would not take it lying down, especially considering that the recession that the energy crisis had brought seemed to be ignored by Mason (who had only eyes for designing outlandish ties, it seemed to many). Days lost to strike action hit a post-war peak in 1984, with more men out of work in the coalfields and in the transport industries servicing them than at any other time in their history.

He also managed to alienate many Irishmen in Britain with his bluff, nonchalant response to the near-assassination of the long-serving Taoiseach of Ireland, Charles Haughey, in October 1981. Militant Ulster unionism had been growing since the supposedly "intrusive" interventions of Pym's Home Secretary, Peter Walker, in making provisions for further Catholic civil rights in the province in 1975 and 1977. Haughey's visit to Belfast in 1981 was an obvious target for the so-called 'Loyal Ulster Regiment' because of the perceived provocation, but the British government had allowed the trip to go ahead regardless and Mason was seemingly nonplussed when he returned from a meeting of Commonwealth leaders in Trinidad the day after the assassination attempt. Northern Ireland had long been seen as the province that had been "sorted" by various attempts to get the Ulster Unionist Party to at least attempt to share power with the Catholics in the country, and so Mason practically forgetting that Haughey was visiting Belfast that week was hardly surprising. Still, his blunt lack of sympathy earned him few supporters. It might have been forgotten about by many in Britain, but working-class Irish families living in Britain were unlikely to give their votes to a Labour Party led by Roy Mason again.

In October 1984, with an election called to hopefully gain the confidence of the country and an even larger majority to deal with the unions, it would be John Nott's Conservatives who stole the day. Rebounding from the loss of 1980, the Tories had fully redirected themselves to the twin pillars of the new conservatism: British nationalism and the free market. Where Mason offered tinkering reforms and pay agreements with the unions, Nott offered to wipe the slate clean and finally end the muddling industrial relations that had plagued the country for more than half a decade. Mason would carry on as leader for two years until his defeat in the snap election of 1986 (just following the shock sweep of the Conservatives in the Greater London Council elections of 1985). In 1987, as if to add insult to injury, Mason took up a job as Chairman of the National Coal Board and would oversee a measly package of 'community compensation' for the closure of the mines until he was sacked and the coal board abolished by the new PM, Michael Hare (in what was, at the time, called the 'ecological turn' of the Tories). Michael Hare's 'greens' (often represented, rather comically, with two stylised detached rabbit ears) had no place for old union men "stealing" from the land and blighting the natural landscape of England, meaning he was without a job come Hare's ascension in 1990. Awarded a peerage and sitting as a crossbencher from 1995 to 2008 (the time of his death), Mason was unapologetic for his time both in and out of office. Unwilling to accommodate himself to the bright new Labour Party of the '90s, he never found a political home after his appointment to the NCB and would slowly recede into the background of Lords debates... only the colour of his neckties marking him out against the sea of grey suits and greyer hair.​

1986-1989: Joan Maynard

The Labour left had long been sidelined, unable to articulate a new vision for their wing of the party since Bevan's death and haemorrhaging youth support to the Liberals (who elected the 37 year old Peter Hain as their leader in 1987). Without youth support, the parliamentary left became a sclerotic group obsessed with Bevanite nostalgia as Crosland, Smith, and Mason progressively tore down the consensus that Dalton and Bevan had built in the immediate post-war years. Their only lifeline the Tribune magazine and the stalwart efforts of the British Anti-Nuclear Society (or BANS) to stave off attempts to tear up the continued consensus on defence policy, the Labour left seemed out-of-touch and out of luck when Mason refused to step down in 1984. But, when the snap election in 1986 pummelled the Labour right as Masonites in Labour's marginals went by the wayside and Bevanites in safe seats suddenly had weight added to their votes, it appeared the perfect time to mount a challenge. The only problem was, from amongst their ranks, the only person under the age of 70 and with some cabinet/shadow cabinet experience was T. Dan Smith's former Shadow Health Minister, Joan Maynard. 'Stalin's Granny' may have shattered the glass ceiling in terms of women's representation in politics, but her popularity among voters of any gender or persuasion could hardly be rated highly. Labour struggled in the polls in 1987 and 1988, as Maynard attempted to build coalitions across the party for her reforms (which included abolishing the union block vote and returning power to the constituency section of the NEC, which had been rather diminished by Mason's tinkering in 1979) whilst appearing to man as "that mad woman" on the television when John Nott relented and allowed cameras into the House of Commons chamber before the summer recess in 1987. It was a cruel joke to pit the rather solid and unassuming Nott against the old firebrand Maynard, with the latter looking like the 'Wicked Witch of Westminster' and being derided as such in the press. Harder times in were yet to come in 1988 when a group of right-wing trade unionist MPs, led by John Prescott, Bob Mellish, Tom Burlison, and Eric Varley, resigned the whip over Maynard's reforms and formed their 'Labour Independent Group'. A flurry of MPs joined them in protest and, for a brief moment in autumn 1988, it looked as if a true new party would be formed and would contest for the name of 'Labour' if it should register with the Electoral Commission.

By New Year 1989, Maynard was on her last legs and it was becoming untenable for her to carry on. When the proposal that Labour should add a European referendum into the next manifesto was summarily shot down in the shadow cabinet, Maynard resigned and left the leadership of the party to whomsoever wanted to hold such a poisoned chalice. There are few good memories of the Maynard leadership and opinions of her since her death in 1998 have been resistant to historical revisionism, though the majority of active resentment to Labour leaders of the 1980s has been reserved for Mason. If she is rated so low, it is because it seems that many have either forgotten she was ever leader or they have tried desperately to block her out of their memories.​

1989-1997: Robert Kilroy-Silk


Robert Kilroy-Silk (popularly known as 'RKS') was a... controversial character in the Labour Party, to say the very least. Elected in 1975, he immediately joined the left-wing Tribune Group and became something of a class warrior on the ranks of the left. By 1980, however, his radicalism had begun to mellow and he was on the hunt for a promotion to a junior ministerial position. He got one at the Department of Transport in 1982 and was eventually given cabinet rank as President of the Board of Trade in the final Mason government reshuffle of 1984. He stayed loyal to Mason through the lean years of 1984-1986, was out with the coming of Joan Maynard (of whom he once said would "make an excellent leader" of the party in an article just after his election in 1975), and became one of the most prominent critics of the left during the tumult of 1986-1989. Finally, on a platform of bringing Labour closer to the "new economic realities" of privatisation, a floating currency, and fiscal conservatism. He also was one of the more photogenic leading lights of the right, who - in quick succession - dropped their own candidacies to rally around RKS.

He was a star on morning television, charming and joking his way through interviews with a certain breezy style that seemed so modern compared to the stodgy old ways of Mason and Maynard. He courted big business (largely off of the business backlash against Michael Hare's 'crusade' for the environment) and promised that the country, which still hadn't fully recovered from the slump of the early '80s, would stop being seen as a doddery old nation hanging off the edge of Europe. A dynamic leader promising a dynamic economy was too good a chance to pass up, and his working-class-lad-made-good image contrasted well against a rather entitled country squire related to the Earls of Listowel. 1991 was a landslide for Labour, seeing the Tories fall back to 228 seats and Hain's Liberals making inroads into the Conservative Party's middle-class urban voter base (indeed, they would come close to leapfrogging the Tories in the GLC elections of 1994). Labour, out on top and with an ambitious manifesto to kick the economy into gear, had to swallow much of its former pride to accept the changes to come. British Telecom was privatised in 1992 and the BBC was put on notice after Kilroy-Silk appointed Lord Dell to head up an inquiry into a 'commercial reform package' (not a surprise given RKS's own burgeoning interest in the broadcasting business, which had been built on the collapse of Robert Maxwell's own media empire in 1986). The National Lottery was founded - with televised draws beginning in the New Year of 1993 - and huge incentives were offered to American and European production companies to set up shop in Britain. Selling Britain as the new 'entertainment capital of the world' gave the economy the uplift it needed, as the overpriced manufacturing exports of the 1970s and '80s gave way to soap operas and game show formats as the biggest-selling exports of the 1990s. It was no wonder that 1989-1997 represented the years of the most drastic fall in Labour membership, haemorrhaging so much support that some regional sections of the party were considering winding up in 1995 and 1996.

A booming Britain was a happy Britain, as Kilroy-Silk kept in mind as he won a thumping second majority in 1995 against the divided Conservatives. Teresa Gorman was a battleaxe of moral fury against the reckless wide-boy in Number 10, but the public were experiencing a huge rise in living standards and were not about to jump ship when the going was good. The space that Gorman opened up for a socially conservative turn did allow RKS to start cracking down on crime in a bid to shore up his image with already-dejected Tory voters. Tougher sentences for sex offenders and a huge prison-building programme were promised in the 1995 election and he would deliver over the course of the next two years of his premiership, with public policy firms at the time estimating that the new prisons would be under capacity when finished in 2000. The brave new world of the 'British Lion' (a phrase used to refer to the British economy in the 1990s and 2000s) promised Kilroy-Silk perhaps even a third term in office, with millennium election plans already drawn up in 1996, but it would not be so. Resistant to calls for a 'border poll' in Northern Ireland, RKS related to Ulster with the same cheerful indifference as Roy Mason and was shocked when an Irish republican demonstration decided to block his way to his first formal meeting with the new PM of Northern Ireland, Brian Mawhinney, in June 1997. The fracas that followed, with eggs being thrown by some in the crowd and insults hurled by both sides, ended when Kilroy-Silk got out of his vehicle and threw a punch at a demonstrator who had decided to 'moon' his wife. The ensuing punch-up made the papers and calls for RKS to resign (which had been consistent on the liberal and democratic socialist wings of the Labour Party) suddenly rose up at once. A man of his temperament couldn't get away with such an act of violence, the likes of which hadn't been seen in Northern Irish politics since before the Second World War. Under media scrutiny and in fear of flaring up tensions between his unionist supporters and the republican community that had long felt abandoned by Labour Prime Ministers, RKS was pushed to resign by his cabinet.

In the years since, RKS has been a controversial character. He vociferously defended nationalised rail in the early 2000s during John Redwood's brief tenure at Transport, had his own morning television show from 2002 to 2010 (which hit a peak of 2.5 million viewers per day in 2005), and became embroiled in a racism scandal that led to him leaving television to buy Liverpool FC on the cheap during its early 2010s lull. He is still the principal owner of the club today.
1997-1999: Alan Sugar

Alan Sugar was, for the latter half of the Kilroy-Silk premiership, the government's face to the business community. Deputy leader from 1991-1997 and serving in a variety of cabinet positions, Sugar had climbed the greasy pole to become RKS's Chancellor of the Exchequer just six months before Kilroy-Silk's 'drubbing incident'. Rather a coronation than a true contest, Sugar waltzed into Number 10 with Labour still up in the polls and unaffected by Kilroy-Silk's right hook. The economy was going from strength to strength, with Sugar looking forward to the "digital economy" of the next millennium and the opportunities his ambitious fibre-optic cable network plans had in store for British businesses.

The new PM ought to have exploited the honeymoon period for all it was worth, not least seeing as Teresa Gorman's successor, John Major, was caught in the midst of a sex scandal with one of his own shadow cabinet ministers. By the January of 1998, though, Sugar wanted to twist the knife into the Tories as much as possible and hopefully score an even larger majority out of their misfortune. It was an opportunistic move, opposed by his cabinet to a large extent and opposed by a country that believed it had another two years before the next polling day, and rumours of a snap election went down poorly with the press. Kilroy-Silk's media ventures held their fire at first, but they soon joined in the chorus of indignant disapproval. The idea that Sugar might gamble what he had been 'gifted' by RKS invoked a sense of betrayal in the former PM, but Sugar was undeterred and - just two weeks before the value of the pound slipped against the Eurodollar and a week after John Major resigned as leader of the Tories - he called an election. The February election of 1998 was a disaster for Labour, who went in not entirely behind their new leader's decision and with many parliamentarians believing that Kilroy-Silk's disapproving words were gospel. The Conservatives and Liberals formed what would be known for the next eight years as the 'Centre Pact' under the leadership of Chris Patten and Magnus Linklater (who had taken over from Peter Hain in 1995), Sugar was down on his luck after spending a week refusing to leave Downing Street and attempting to cobble together a 'rainbow coalition' with the Linklater Liberals, Plaid Cymru, and the Nationalist Party of Northern Ireland. He held on as Labour leader for another year before the public challenges emerged from all wings of the party. In a bid to keep control, he made the preemptive move of resigning in order to force a leadership contest: he practically dared his critics to take a shot at him. The problem was that they did... and they won.​

1999-2000: Lesley Mahmood

She was the 'right woman at the wrong time': the one who came too early to bring socialism to the party that had long since abandoned the notion. Lesley Mahmood, a previously little-known Liverpool MP who made a huge splash at the 1998 Brighton conference when she called Alan Sugar a "traitor to the labour movement" in front of a massive audience. Broadcast across the country, she became something of a sensation on the left and she was courted by various cabals that had been in waiting since the Maynard years. It was taken as self-evident that the country, divided on so much and yet united in turfing out Alan Sugar and his cronies, was crying out for a radical new leader willing to inject some ideological conviction back into the party. More a stop-gap than a socialist revolutionary, Mahmood managed only to challenge the dominance of the right-wing NEC policy committees by transferring more power to the leader's office in her short time as leader. It was supposed to be the first step towards the "re-foundation" of the Labour Party as a true 'party of labour', which would have included a package of reforms regarding the electoral college for leadership votes: out would go the PLP's stranglehold over the election of leaders and in would come the voices of the constituencies and the trade unions. An emergency conference would be called in March 2000 over the party's position with regard to joining the Eurodollar on the terms Patten and Linklater were seeking. With the membership still sparse with regard to Eurosceptic and left-wing representation, delegates were overwhelmingly in favour of the negotiations over the Eurodollar and defeated a motion implicitly backed by the leader's office for the policy to be outright opposition. Unlike Sugar, who dared the party to throw him out by resigning, Mahmood used the conference-time media attention to announce her intention to fight on at the party's autumn conference that same year. Not wanting to drag the fight out longer, she was advised to step down so that a more pro-European leader could take over. She was resistant at first but it became more and more difficult to count on her erstwhile supporters for help, especially as many had been canvassed on supporting a new leader.

Mahmood has a rather poor reputation in Labour now, even though many feel that she was right to resist being talked down from the position she had very rightly won in 1999. Though the topic on which she showed her defiance is now pretty much settled in Labour, she would never be reconciled to the pro-Eurodollar turn of the party and would found her own 'Solidarity Party' in protest in 2001 before she lost her seat in 2002. She ran as a Solidarity candidate in the North West for the 2015 European elections and received just 4.8% of the vote. Since then, she has preferred to stay out of the public gaze and has been working on her memoirs of her time as an MP in Liverpool and as Leader of the Labour Party.​

2000-2010: Tony Woodley

When Tony Woodley stepped on stage at the 2000 Labour Party conference for his first speech as leader, there was a palpable sense of relief. Since the 1980s, Labour’s leaderships had been variously too radical, too arrogant, too conservative, or too out-of-touch. Now, with Woodley in charge, it felt as if the party had returned to its senses with a firmly left-wing (but nowhere near as radical as Lesley Mahmood) ex-trade union leader at the helm. His plan was clear and his points concise: reverse Nott's draconian trade union legislation, bring members both new and old into the party, and win the next election. On two of those points, Woodley would be rather successful. Between 2000 and 2006, a membership drive saw the party swell to 400,000 members and CLPs were said to have experienced a renaissance with Woodley at the helm. In terms of reversing the trade union legislation of the Nott premiership, some reversals were managed after 2002 as Labour and the TUC - estranged after a decade and a half of the party leaderships' betrayals - came together to launch the 'Make Work Work For You' (or 'MWW4U') campaign that saw some private businesses in the retail and dwindling manufacturing sectors conclude agreements for trade union representation on boards. It caused a stir as the natural backers of the Conservatives in big business were giving way to Labour Party demands, with Magnus Linklater even losing his position as leader to Peter Hain's comeback campaign in 2005 on the back of the latter's support for the new period of 'constructive trade unionism'.

2002 might not have been Tony Woodley's year, but 2006 would see his party triumph after Hain broke off the 'Centre Pact' over planned state pension cuts in that year's spring budget. It is also worth noting that Woodley was the first Prime Minister of the Labour left since the 1950s, which earned him raised eyebrows in the press and certainly in Europe (dominated at the time by conservative and Christian democratic governments in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain). But, undeterred by the opinions aligned to oppose him, Woodley set about a total reversal of all Conservative Party trade union legislation since the late 1970s and began pushing for new national plans in social services. Out went the "savings targets" and "economic remodelling" that had been haphazardly imposed on everything from the NHS to policing during the mid-2000s Britnet recession (caused by overvaluation of the then-booming computing and software development industry in Britain). The value of the Eurodollar suffered enormously due to continental investors' expectations that British companies servicing Britnet would turn their sights to the nascent and lagging European Information Network (the EIN would later be renamed 'OneNet' in 2010). Lack of government investment on the continent into fibre-optic cable networks and the possibilities of the in-vogue 'cybereconomy' made Britain into the continental leader, just ahead of the RSFSR, in the digital industries. It was the story of the 2006-2009 aftermath from the Britnet recession, which saw huge government investment in such business ventures to help share prices in said companies recover... with the caveat that trade union membership be mandatory (now legal due to the reversal of the infamous Tebbit Act of 1987) for all salaried staff below management level and that elections be held - on company time with full pay - for workers' representatives to sit on company boards. The new policies were tough to swallow at first and did see a rollback of European investment from British tech companies, but Britain still remains the world leader in the field as no other global economy has come close to the positive tripartite relationship in the industry between trade unions, government, and private business.

The 'Wirral Warrior' scores highly whenever Labour supporters are asked to name the party's greatest leaders, which is in part because he was so recently Prime Minister and made such a difference to working-class living standards. It also helps his claim to being one of Labour's best leaders that he showed his humanity when, a bit choked up, he announced in the summer of 2010 that he wanted to spend more time with his grandchildren during the autumn years of his life and less time going to East-West Summits in Dubrovnik and scolding his own cabinet when they squabbled. A touch of humanity peered through in that moment, which hadn't been so perceptible in previous Labour leaders.
2010-: Derek Wall

What can be said that hasn't already been said about Derek Wall? Here was the man who, steering clear of nuclear energy for all the bad associations it brought to the popular consciousness, managed a total revolution in the pace of environmental reforms during a time of huge climate crises in developing nations. He turned Britain from a country getting only 15% of its energy from renewable sources to getting 75% of its energy from renewable sources between 2010 and 2018. He visited rioting communities in the American Midwest during the economically stagnant and racially tense years of the Brownback presidency (2013-2017). He decentralised the British banking system and has, just in the last year, forced through a number of inquiries to be set up and investigate unscrupulous and unethical practices in the banking sector. Even the new generation of socialist and liberal EEC leaders have sought to incorporate Derek Wall's work on environmental protections and banking regulation into the 'General Framework for a European Constitution' (due to be published in December 2020). He has served as Prime Minister for 9 years, having won a huge mandate in 2011 and following it up by capitalising on Tory splits in 2015 with a majority of over 110 seats.

He has been, in some ways, very lucky. After Patten's experiment with a centrist turn was deemed a failure on the right and power being seized by Edward Leigh, hardline Pattenites walked out to form the Independent Conservative Party in 2008 and they would split the vote in 2011 in a number of marginals. After the failure of Michael Portillo's attempts to curtail both poles of internal Tory opinion, another split emerged with David Davis walking out with 20 MPs to join the British Democrats and effectively force an entryist takeover of the once-prominent populist outfit (which had actually experienced something of a revival at the European level after the 2007 Euro elections). The Liberal-ICP alliance is now under the rather uninspiring leadership of Brian Paddick, who succeeded Hain in 2011 and formed the new electoral pact in 2014 in the run-up to the 2015 election. The British Democrats, meanwhile, are still led by David Davis: the man who immediately couped the old leadership upon joining in the summer of 2012. Derek Wall, by comparison, seems to be the only stabilising force in British politics. A radical ecological socialist, his politics would be seen as far outside the mainstream in large parts of the Anglosphere, but even the British establishment have come around to the only Prime Minister of Charles III's kingship that the ageing monarch can find some friendship in. Strange times have created many a strange bedfellow.

It is expected that Derek Wall, his face plastered across the television every night and his party never seemingly out of electioneering mode with constant offensives against vested interests, will lead Labour into the 2020s and will complete a hat-trick of electoral victories in either 2023 or 2024. The era of 'Green Bevanism' is, it appears, here to stay.​
 
and some heads of state to go with that

Kings of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

1910-1917: George V (Saxe-Coburg and Gotha)
1917-1924: George V (Windsor)

Kings of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

1924-1935: George V (Windsor)
1935-1939: Edward VIII (Windsor)

Kings of the Kingdom of Great Britain

1939-1944: Edward VIII (Saxe-Coburg and Gotha)

Governors of the Allied Military Government of the Occupied Territory of Great Britain

1944-1945: Winston Churchill & Stafford Cripps (United Reform / Labour, appointed by US Army and Red Army respectively)

Lord Protectors of the Commonwealth of Great Britain

1945-1952: Albert York (Independent)
1945 def. unopposed
1950 def. unopposed

1952-19XX: Belphoebe Glorian (Independent)
1952 def. Elizabeth York (Independent), Harry Pollitt (Communist), George Gloucester (Independent)
An immortal fae is Lord Protector?
 
2010-: Derek Wall

What can be said that hasn't already been said about Derek Wall? Here was the man who, steering clear of nuclear energy for all the bad associations it brought to the popular consciousness, managed a total revolution in the pace of environmental reforms during a time of huge climate crises in developing nations. He turned Britain from a country getting only 15% of its energy from renewable sources to getting 75% of its energy from renewable sources between 2010 and 2018. He visited rioting communities in the American Midwest during the economically stagnant and racially tense years of the Brownback presidency (2013-2017). He decentralised the British banking system and has, just in the last year, forced through a number of inquiries to be set up and investigate unscrupulous and unethical practices in the banking sector. Even the new generation of socialist and liberal EEC leaders have sought to incorporate Derek Wall's work on environmental protections and banking regulation into the 'General Framework for a European Constitution' (due to be published in December 2020). He has served as Prime Minister for 9 years, having won a huge mandate in 2011 and following it up by capitalising on Tory splits in 2015 with a majority of over 110 seats.

He has been, in some ways, very lucky. After Patten's experiment with a centrist turn was deemed a failure on the right and power being seized by Edward Leigh, hardline Pattenites walked out to form the Independent Conservative Party in 2008 and they would split the vote in 2011 in a number of marginals. After the failure of Michael Portillo's attempts to curtail both poles of internal Tory opinion, another split emerged with David Davis walking out with 20 MPs to join the British Democrats and effectively force an entryist takeover of the once-prominent populist outfit (which had actually experienced something of a revival at the European level after the 2007 Euro elections). The Liberal-ICP alliance is now under the rather uninspiring leadership of Brian Paddick, who succeeded Hain in 2011 and formed the new electoral pact in 2014 in the run-up to the 2015 election. The British Democrats, meanwhile, are still led by David Davis: the man who immediately couped the old leadership upon joining in the summer of 2012. Derek Wall, by comparison, seems to be the only stabilising force in British politics. A radical ecological socialist, his politics would be seen as far outside the mainstream in large parts of the Anglosphere, but even the British establishment have come around to the only Prime Minister of Charles III's kingship that the ageing monarch can find some friendship in. Strange times have created many a strange bedfellow.

It is expected that Derek Wall, his face plastered across the television every night and his party never seemingly out of electioneering mode with constant offensives against vested interests, will lead Labour into the 2020s and will complete a hat-trick of electoral victories in either 2023 or 2024. The era of 'Green Bevanism' is, it appears, here to stay.

It's difficult to really quantify the level to which I love this successful Wall premiership. And in general this is an interesting bit of writing. Interesting picks, good background. Makes me wonder about the wider world - particularly what television made it big under Kilroy-Silk and what became of that
 
It's difficult to really quantify the level to which I love this successful Wall premiership. And in general this is an interesting bit of writing. Interesting picks, good background. Makes me wonder about the wider world - particularly what television made it big under Kilroy-Silk and what became of that
I got quite lucky in that the people playing the list game picked figures I actually wanted to write about. It made explaining the background so much easier because there was a pre-existing interest.
 
Filling in the blanks for A Greater Britain

1929-31: Ramsey MacDonald (Labour)
1929: Stanley Baldwin (Conservative), David Lloyd George (Liberal)
1931-32: Stanley Baldwin (Conservative-Liberal Coalition)
1931: Oswald Moseley (Labour), Herbert Samuel (Liberal), John Simon (Nat. Lib.)
1932-40: Oswald Mosley (Labour)

1932: Stanley Baldwin (Conservative), Herbert Samuel (Liberal)
1936: Anthony Eden (Conservative), Herbert Samuel (Liberal)
1939: Neville Chamberlain (Conservative), Archibald Sinclair (Liberal)

1940-43: William Graham (Labour)
1943-52: Rab Butler (Conservative)

1943: William Graham (Labour), Archibald Sinclair (Liberal), Richard Acland (Popular Front - Commonwealth/ILP)
1948: Nye Bevan (Labour), Richard Acland (Popular Front), Megan Lloyd George (Liberal)

1952-63: David Maxwell Fyfe (Conservative)
1953: Nye Bevan (Labour), Tom Driberg (Popular Front), Megan Lloyd George (Liberal)

1957:
1959:
1963-64: Reggie Maudling (Conservative)
1964-73: George Brown (Labour)

1964:
1969:

1973-81: Enoch Powell (Conservative)
1973: George Brown (Labour),
1978: Roy Jenkins (Labour),

1981- : Alan Clark (Labour)
1981: Enoch Powell (Conservative),


1933-41: Franklin D. Roosevelt/John N. Garner (Democrat)
1932: Herbert Hoover/Charles Curtis (Republican)
1936: Alf Landon/Frank Knox (Republican)

1941-45: Alben Barkley/Cordell Hull (Democrat)
1940: Wendell Wilkie/Charles McNary (Republican)
1945-53: Harold Stassen/John Bricker (Republican)
1944: Alben Barkley/Cordell Hull (Democrat)
1948: Millard Tydings/Hubert Humphrey (Democrat), B.T. Laney/Strom Thurmond (States Rights)

1953-61: Hubert Humphrey/W. Averill Harriman (Democrat)
1952: Thomas Dewey/ (Republican)
1956:

1961-65: Barry Goldwater/Walter Judd (Republican)
1960:
1965-73: Joseph Kennedy Jr./Happy Chandler (Democrat)
1964:
1968:

1973-81: George Romney/ (Republican)
1972: Joseph Kennedy Jr./George Wallace (Democrat)
1976: John F. Kennedy/ (Democrat)
1981- : Audie Murphy/ (Democrat)

1980:
 
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1977: Jimmy Carter†/Ted Kennedy (Democratic)
1977-1985: Ted Kennedy/Frank Church (Democratic)
1985-1991: Alexander Haig†/Phil Crane† (Republican)
1991-1997: Colin Powell/Mickey Leland (Republican - National Unity)
1997-2001: Mickey Leland/George Pataki (Democratic - National Unity)
2001-2009: Ralph Nader/Stewart Alexander (Independent, nominated by Green, Peace)
2009-2013: Jim Webb/Mitt Romney (Republican - National Unity)
2013-2017: Angus King/Barbara Lee (Independent, nominated by Democratic, Peace)
2017-: Mitt Romney/Liz Cheney (Republican - National Unity)


Carter is assassinated after a slightly different 76 Election. Haig’s brinkmanship during the fall of the Soviet Union leads to a limited nuclear war. Powell, the sole survivor creates a National Unity Alliance. Dissatisfaction with the alliance in 2000 leads to a Nader Coalition forming.

Note: this was a cooperative list, hence the seeming random shifts
 
Neighbours of the North (and Prediction)
1993-2003: Jean Chrétien (Liberal)

1993 (Majority): Lucien Bouchard (Bloc Québécois), Preston Manning (Reform), Audrey McLaughlin (New Democratic), Kim Campbell (Progressive Conservative)
1997 (Majority): Preston Manning (Reform), Gilles Duceppe (Bloc Québécois), Alexa McDonough (New Democratic), Jean Charest (Progressive Conservative)
2000 (Majority): Stockwell Day (Alliance), Gilles Duceppe (Bloc Québécois), Alexa McDonough (New Democratic), Joe Clark (Progressive Conservative)

2003-2005: John A. Malcolm (Liberal)
2004 (Minority): Phil McKay (Alliance), Frédéric Fischer (Bloc Québécois), Margaret Swann (New Democratic), James Boyyan (Progressive Conservative)
2005-2007: Phil McKay (Alliance)
2005 (Minority): John A. Malcolm (Liberal), Frédéric Fischer (Bloc Québécois), Margaret Swann (New Democratic), Lawrence MacDonald (Progressive Conservative)
2007-2017: Penny Beatty (Liberal)
2007 (Minority): Phil McKay (Alliance), Lawrence MacDonald (Progressive Conservative), Margaret Swann (New Democratic), Frédéric Fischer (Bloc Québécois), Morgan Clements (Green)
2009 (Minority): Christine Gallant (Alliance), Lawrence MacDonald (Progressive Conservative), Thomas Johnson (New Democratic), François Fortin (Bloc Québécois), Morgan Clements (Green-Labour)
2013 (Majority): Lawrence MacDonald (Progressive Conservative), Thomas Johnson (New Democratic), Paul Southerland (Alliance), François Fortin (Bloc Québécois), Morgan Clements (Green-Labour)

2017: Jeremiah Corbett (Liberal)
2017-Present: Samuel Lorensen (United Conservative)

2017 (Majority): Jeremiah Corbett (Liberal), Thomas Johnson (New Democratic), Morgan Clements (Green-Labour), François Fortin (Bloc Québécois), Paul Southerland (Alliance)

In the end, the Liberal Decades couldn't last for ever. As the Beatty Boom started to falter, the Progressive Conservatives rebranded as the United Conservatives in an attempt to suck off the moderate Gallantite part of the Alliance, and succeeded. With the NDP further and further committed to anti-immigrant populism, the diverse neighbourhoods of many Canadian cities become deep red. It wasn't enough to stop the blue wave as Canada voted for change. The time of Jean Chrétien and Penny Beatty, the "Liberal Decades", has come to an end as the Tory victory rivals Mulroney's 1984 one.

As the Liberals stagger, they hope that just like Mulroney, Lorensen will stumble and lead the UCP into collapse. But that is still in the future...
 
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Carter Kennedy ticket seems unlikely since Kennedy primaries
List of the greatest Presidents since 1945 (compiled by the American Political Science Association)

1: Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican, 1953-1961)
The general who integrated the schools, brought America together with the Interstate Highway System, and oversaw an era of prosperity.

2: Harry S Truman (Democratic, 1945-1953)
The prairie statesman who rebuilt Europe, oversaw the Korean War, and fought for the American worker.

3: Meg Whitman (Republican, 2001-2005 and 2009-2013)
The businesswoman who brought about healthcare reform, pushed for peace in Kashmir, and became a powerful symbol as the first female president.

4: Lyndon B. Johnson (Democratic, 1963-1969)
The wheeler and dealer who built Medicare and Medicaid, pushed Civil Rights through Congress, and blundered America into the Vietnam War.

5: Jack Kemp (Republican, 1993-2001)
The former football star who oversaw the opening of the Soviet Union and the dot-com boom.

6: Gary Locke (Democratic, 2013-)
The incumbent who inaugurated a new era of international trade, balanced the budget, and fought for GLBT rights. Who knows what he'll do next?

7: Reubin Askew (Democratic, 1986-1993)
The honest Governor who brokered democracy in Eastern Europe and brought the economy onto a firm footing.

8: James E. Carter (Democratic, 1977-1981)
The farmer who saw America through economic crisis and pushed for peace abroad.

9: John F. Kennedy (Democratic, 1961-1963)
The martyr who taught America to reach for the stars and stopped the Cuban Missile Crisis from descending into outright war.

10: Gerald R. Ford (Republican, 1974-1977)
The lifelong legislator who brought a measure of stability to America after Watergate.

11: Henry Cisneros (Democratic, 2005-2009)
The former mayor who fought to expand America's housing programs beyond recognition but saw his Presidency ended by scandal.

12: Ronald W. Reagan (Republican, 1981-1985)
The actor who took America further to the right than it had gone in decades.

13: Richard M. Nixon (Republican, 1969-1974)
The politician who brought about détente and ended the war in Vietnam but destroyed American trust in the Presidency for a generation.

14: Gary Hart (Democratic, 1985-1986)
The liberal whose womanizing ways ended his Presidency before it had really begun.
That's a really refreshing format, Wolfram :)
1977: Jimmy Carter†/Ted Kennedy (Democratic)
1977-1985: Ted Kennedy/Frank Church (Democratic)
1985-1991: Alexander Haig†/Phil Crane† (Republican)
1991-1997: Colin Powell/Mickey Leland (Republican - National Unity)
1997-2001: Mickey Leland/George Pataki (Democratic - National Unity)
2001-2009: Ralph Nader/Stewart Alexander (Independent, nominated by Green, Peace)
2009-2013: Jim Webb/Mitt Romney (Republican - National Unity)
2013-2017: Angus King/Barbara Lee (Independent, nominated by Democratic, Peace)
2017-: Mitt Romney/Liz Cheney (Republican - National Unity)


Carter is assassinated after a slightly different 76 Election. Haig’s brinkmanship during the fall of the Soviet Union leads to a limited nuclear war. Powell, the sole survivor creates a National Unity Alliance. Dissatisfaction with the alliance in 2000 leads to a Nader Coalition forming.

Note: this was a cooperative list, hence the seeming random shifts

carter in 80.
 
a spooky halloween list

A Spooky Halloween List, no that Cottingley one doesn't count that was an unrelated whim.

Chancellors of the First German Republic

1919-1919: Philipp Scheidemann (Social Democratic)
1919 (Weimar Coalition with Centre and DDP) def. Walter Nauhaus (Teutonic), Arthur von Posadowsky-Wehner (German National Peoples'), Hugo Haase (Independent Social Democratic), Rudolf Heinze (German Peoples')
1919-1920: Gustav Bauer (Social Democratic leading Weimar Coalition with Centre and German Democrats)
1920-1920: Wolfgang Kapp (German National Peoples' leading Military Government, backed by Freikorps and the Thule Society)

Volkskaisers of the Third German Reich

1920-1925: Erich Ludendorff (Nonpartisan 'Thulist')
1921 def. William von Preussen (Nonpartisan 'Hohenzollern')
1925-1928: Alfred von Tirpitz (Nonpartisan 'Junker')
1925 def. Rudolf von Sebottendorf (Nonpartisan 'True Thulist'), Erich Ludendorff (Nonpartisan 'Ludendorff Thulist'), William von Preussen (Nonpartisan 'Hohenzollern')
1928-1932: Alfred Hugenberg (Nonpartisan 'Junker')
1928 def. Gregor Strasser (Nonpartisan 'Workers'), Walter Nauhaus (Nonpartisan 'Thulist'), William von Preussen (Nonpartisan 'Hohenzollern')
1932-1933: Hermann Goering (Nonpartisan 'Thulist')
1932 def. William von Preussen (Nonpartisan 'Hohenzollern')

Volkskaisers of the Fourth German Reich

1933-1938: Hermann Goering (Thule Society)
1933 Plebiscite, YES 99%, NO 1%
1938-1951: Heinrich Himmler (Thule Society)
1938 Plebiscite, YES 100%
1951-1951: Rudolf Hess (Thule Society)

Volkskaisers of the Hyperborean Reich / Fifth German Reich

1951-XXXX: Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln (Thule Society)
1951 acclaimed by the Grand Masters of the Germanenorden of Hyperborea

So the POD is the Thule Society successfully couping the People's State of Bavaria (with a minor POD having Goering not have his OTL flight injury, and a slightly more major one in that errr magic works).

The Thulists become the largest right-wing grouping in the new Reichstag, thanks to locking down Bavaria - and together with the DNVP give the Kapp Putsch a few more teeth when the time comes. The Putsch itself ends up abolishing the Republic, and rather than restoring the Kaiserreich simply establishes the kind of totalitarian conservatism the plotters imagined.

The Thulists endure some setbacks thanks to early alignment with and then destruction at the hands of Erich Ludendorff. The Reich's 'elections' are only held when the Reichstag loses confidence in the Volkskaiser - and Ludendorff's controversial divorce and marriage was too much for the legislature's carefully maintained hyper-conservative majority. Tirpitz was a safe pair of hands right up until he retired, and so seemed Hugenberg. The man contended with the Reich's most narrow election since the end of the Great War, as Strasser was able to scrape up the remnants of the broken left and push them into a box smeared with Reichsadlers. Hugenberg's victory was followed by bloody retribution against Strasser's gang.

Only for it to turn out he was a Jew. This was unacceptable, and it broke the back of the Junkers who had taken back control of the Reich. And so the Thule Society returned, and tore the constitution such as it was to shreds. Goering was a smooth, handsome war hero and took the Reich forward at a breakneck pace, to reclaim Germany's proper place in the sun. He would fall to internal plotting on the eve of his planned war, and it would be Himmler who would plunge the world into a decade of bloodshed.

Himmler's Fourth Reich plunged the depths of forbidden knowledge and combined them with the clinical surety of the the modern age to bring about profanities undreamt of. At the height of his success, the best part of three continents knelt to him. But all bad things come to an end, as surely as the good. The remains of the European empires, together with the United States and the now extremely nervous Japanese came together. It took years, and at its end, the world population had been reduced by some unholy percentage. Himmler shot himself as his gods abandoned him, but it would be Hess who finally submitted to the Allies.

But the Thulists are not yet done. At the height of their power, Himmler had his most powerful sorcerors raise the lost continent of Thule from the depths - in the process destroying Iceland in a fountain of magma, and causing horrific flooding throughout much of the Atlantic. The new continent was quickly claimed and guarded with the most powerful binding spells the Reich could muster. Now, the last remnant of Himmler's dream still stands, the seas around it forever wreathed in impenetrable fog. The population of Hyperborea is only a few hundred thousand, but they are the most dedicated that the Thule Society could muster, pure Aryan stock drawn from across Europe and indoctrinated by the Germanenorden's monasteries.

Attempts to destroy the Fifth Reich have come to naught, no plane or boat can enter their seas or cross into their airspace without simply disappearing, and over it all reigns the quixotic sorcerer who first rose to prominence as Wolfgang Kapp's publicist.
 
a spooky halloween list

A Spooky Halloween List, no that Cottingley one doesn't count that was an unrelated whim.

Chancellors of the First German Republic

1919-1919: Philipp Scheidemann (Social Democratic)
1919 (Weimar Coalition with Centre and DDP) def. Walter Nauhaus (Teutonic), Arthur von Posadowsky-Wehner (German National Peoples'), Hugo Haase (Independent Social Democratic), Rudolf Heinze (German Peoples')
1919-1920: Gustav Bauer (Social Democratic leading Weimar Coalition with Centre and German Democrats)
1920-1920: Wolfgang Kapp (German National Peoples' leading Military Government, backed by Freikorps and the Thule Society)

Volkskaisers of the Third German Reich

1920-1925: Erich Ludendorff (Nonpartisan 'Thulist')
1921 def. William von Preussen (Nonpartisan 'Hohenzollern')
1925-1928: Alfred von Tirpitz (Nonpartisan 'Junker')
1925 def. Rudolf von Sebottendorf (Nonpartisan 'True Thulist'), Erich Ludendorff (Nonpartisan 'Ludendorff Thulist'), William von Preussen (Nonpartisan 'Hohenzollern')
1928-1932: Alfred Hugenberg (Nonpartisan 'Junker')
1928 def. Gregor Strasser (Nonpartisan 'Workers'), Walter Nauhaus (Nonpartisan 'Thulist'), William von Preussen (Nonpartisan 'Hohenzollern')
1932-1933: Hermann Goering (Nonpartisan 'Thulist')
1932 def. William von Preussen (Nonpartisan 'Hohenzollern')

Volkskaisers of the Fourth German Reich

1933-1938: Hermann Goering (Thule Society)
1933 Plebiscite, YES 99%, NO 1%
1938-1951: Heinrich Himmler (Thule Society)
1938 Plebiscite, YES 100%
1951-1951: Rudolf Hess (Thule Society)

Volkskaisers of the Hyperborean Reich / Fifth German Reich

1951-XXXX: Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln (Thule Society)
1951 acclaimed by the Grand Masters of the Germanenorden of Hyperborea

So the POD is the Thule Society successfully couping the People's State of Bavaria (with a minor POD having Goering not have his OTL flight injury, and a slightly more major one in that errr magic works).

The Thulists become the largest right-wing grouping in the new Reichstag, thanks to locking down Bavaria - and together with the DNVP give the Kapp Putsch a few more teeth when the time comes. The Putsch itself ends up abolishing the Republic, and rather than restoring the Kaiserreich simply establishes the kind of totalitarian conservatism the plotters imagined.

The Thulists endure some setbacks thanks to early alignment with and then destruction at the hands of Erich Ludendorff. The Reich's 'elections' are only held when the Reichstag loses confidence in the Volkskaiser - and Ludendorff's controversial divorce and marriage was too much for the legislature's carefully maintained hyper-conservative majority. Tirpitz was a safe pair of hands right up until he retired, and so seemed Hugenberg. The man contended with the Reich's most narrow election since the end of the Great War, as Strasser was able to scrape up the remnants of the broken left and push them into a box smeared with Reichsadlers. Hugenberg's victory was followed by bloody retribution against Strasser's gang.

Only for it to turn out he was a Jew. This was unacceptable, and it broke the back of the Junkers who had taken back control of the Reich. And so the Thule Society returned, and tore the constitution such as it was to shreds. Goering was a smooth, handsome war hero and took the Reich forward at a breakneck pace, to reclaim Germany's proper place in the sun. He would fall to internal plotting on the eve of his planned war, and it would be Himmler who would plunge the world into a decade of bloodshed.

Himmler's Fourth Reich plunged the depths of forbidden knowledge and combined them with the clinical surety of the the modern age to bring about profanities undreamt of. At the height of his success, the best part of three continents knelt to him. But all bad things come to an end, as surely as the good. The remains of the European empires, together with the United States and the now extremely nervous Japanese came together. It took years, and at its end, the world population had been reduced by some unholy percentage. Himmler shot himself as his gods abandoned him, but it would be Hess who finally submitted to the Allies.

But the Thulists are not yet done. At the height of their power, Himmler had his most powerful sorcerors raise the lost continent of Thule from the depths - in the process destroying Iceland in a fountain of magma, and causing horrific flooding throughout much of the Atlantic. The new continent was quickly claimed and guarded with the most powerful binding spells the Reich could muster. Now, the last remnant of Himmler's dream still stands, the seas around it forever wreathed in impenetrable fog. The population of Hyperborea is only a few hundred thousand, but they are the most dedicated that the Thule Society could muster, pure Aryan stock drawn from across Europe and indoctrinated by the Germanenorden's monasteries.

Attempts to destroy the Fifth Reich have come to naught, no plane or boat can enter their seas or cross into their airspace without simply disappearing, and over it all reigns the quixotic sorcerer who first rose to prominence as Wolfgang Kapp's publicist.

This is bloody good :D I do love me some WW2 Occultism
 
I wonder which Tory MPs, if any, would've defected to UKIP after a Remain victory in 2016.
 
I wonder which Tory MPs, if any, would've defected to UKIP after a Remain victory in 2016.

After the Reckless and Carswell experiences, none, I would expect. The twin difficulties of seat retention and dealing with Farage were already too well-established.

I'm not really sure what the ultimate goal would be given I think a second referendum would be improbable - but Cameron would have been out of the leadership sooner rather than later and Johnson or some other fellow traveller for the right of the party would have good prospects in the subsequent contest. There's no reason to bolt.

Defection would only re-emerge as an issue if UKIP did actually bank the 20%ish they were polling during the campaign at the next election and broke through in seats.
 
After the Reckless and Carswell experiences, none, I would expect. The twin difficulties of seat retention and dealing with Farage were already too well-established.

I'm not really sure what the ultimate goal would be given I think a second referendum would be improbable - but Cameron would have been out of the leadership sooner rather than later and Johnson or some other fellow traveller for the right of the party would have good prospects in the subsequent contest. There's no reason to bolt.

Defection would only re-emerge as an issue if UKIP did actually bank the 20%ish they were polling during the campaign at the next election and broke through in seats.

I think what you'd have seen is a period of 'the issue is settled' but with Britain making vague noises in the commission that '2 speed might be good' and the ERG would bank on waiting till the next big federalist issue and being able to catapult back into power based on that.
 
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Justa Grata Honoria
417-505

Handuga Lorenz playing Honoria in the 1501 film
"The Empress of the World"


Kings of the Hunnic Empire / Emperor of the Roman Empire

402-448: Theodosius II (Eastern Empire)
402-408: Arcadius (Co-Ruler)​
408-414: Pulcheria (Regent)​
414-448: Pulcheria (Co-Ruler)​

Theodosius' refusal to pay a tribute of 700 pounds of gold to the Huns a year lead to war in 446 and the unstoppable Huns advanced rapidly towards Constantinople, arriving shortly after an earthquake that destroyed the city's walls. Taking this as a sign, the Huns sacked the city, killing many of the inhabitants and raising the city to the ground.

With the city in ruins the imperial court was moved to Antioch, where Theodosius II would meet his end to an assasin's knife in short order.

425-455: Valentinian III (Western Empire)

Valentinian's sister Justa Grata Honoria developed a reputation within the empire for ambition, promiscuity, and, in general, behaviour completely unbefitting a meek Roman woman. In an attempt to keep her on the straight and narrow she was pledged to Bassus Herculanus - a suitably boring and unambitious senator. To escape a life of boredom, Honoria sent a message to Atilla the Hun. The message included her ring, which he took as a marriage proposal.

434-459: Attila (The Hunnic Empire)

Attila claimed the right to marry Honoria and claimed half of the Eastern Empire as a fitting dowry. Instead, he would take the whole Empire. After defeating the combined forces of the Romans and assorted Gothic tribes at Aurelianum the Goths took Rome. They were too burdened with loot to leave in a hurry and perhaps because of this they made the surprise decision to stay in Italy, and shortly after beseiged Ravenna, sacking that city also. Honoria and Attila were married at the Imperial Palace in Ravenna shortly before the building was burned to the ground and Attila claimed the title of Emperor of Rome.

448-455: Flavius Zeno (Eastern Empire)

Following the death of Theodosius, the Isaurian guard took direct control of the blasted empire and attempted to restore order. War with the Sassanids in 449 would put the Empire in existential danger and the Western Empire would hold them off only after making major concessions, however Attila's intervention into the Eastern Empire's European provinces in 455 would lead to the end of the Empire. The Sassanids joined the attack in the West, taking the Levant. By the time Zeno was killed in battle Egypt was cut off and Europe was a lost cause.

453-455: Attila (Western Empire)
m. Justa Grata Honora (452)​

Attila would rule the Western Roman Empire in a remarkably hands off manner. Allowing agents and, increasingly, the Empress Honora to control the western court. The court was beyond corrupt, positions were mostly granted by selling them to the highest bidder and little concern was given even to loyalty. The Hunnic horde was embedding itself in key locations to pounce on rebellions and carry off more treasure. Attila wasn't even concerned with the rump empire in France and Hispaniola, when the horde was ready for more plunder it in fact marched instead into the richer but less defended eastern empire.

453-459: Messianus (Western Empire)

Remnants of the Roman imperial system and army gravitated toward Lutetia, where Messianus was declared emperor by his troops. The Lutetian Roman Empire would last for four years before Attila turned his attentions to it, and a further two years would pass before the sacking of Lutetia and Messianus' suicide.

455-509: Barsauma (Eastern Empire)

The Eastern Roman Empire's beaurocracy struggled to re-establish itself after the loss of it's capital and many senior officials, and when it suffered defeat it split rapidly. There were many claimants to the Eastern empire, from Sassanid puppets to barbarians to the champions of the chariot teams, but in the end power was taken up by the church - or rather a fringe monophysite sect of monks with a history of sectarian violence. Barsauma would lead an ever diminishing fraction of Antioch and Turkey with an ever more megalomaniacal hand until his death. His increaslingly apocalyptic bent and his extreme antisemitism have been played down by his ideological disciples, and to this day he is venerated as one of the most important religious figures within the Roman Monophysite Church, which still makes up a significant minority of the population around Antioch.

455-459: Attila (Roman Empire)

On taking Constantinople a second time Attila would claim Imperium over a united, if much reduced, Rome. His policy towards government began to change as it became clear he intended to make a go of things in the Empire. He would continue to appoint Bishops and Patriarchs as useful local stooges and snitches, but discouraged religious orthodoxy. He would put a minimal effort into maintaining the courts and basic organs of government, but Romans and senators would expect no further special treatment. It was a chaotic, barely functional empire, but it was a system that found some supporters. Enough, at least, that his position was vaguely stable as he rode west to defeat the rump Western Emperor and encounter his successor.

459-466: Ambrosius Aurelianus (Western Empire)

Ambrosius Aurelianus would over time become a famous figure in the British Isles and to this day archaeologists attempt to find proof of Merlin, or Camelot, or his other mythic triumphs. However the history of Ambrosius is more prosaic. He was paid to fight for the western Romans and following Lutetia he defeated the overlaidened and somewhat exhausted Huns at Samarobriva. This was a great propaganda boost for a defeated Empire and The Emperor Ambrosius would go on to rule parts of Britain for a number of years as a rump Roman vassal.

459-462: Ellak (The Hunnic Empire)

Attila had three sons, of note, and they did not get on. However, Attila also had territories from Hispaniola to the Caspian Sea and from Greece to Denmark. Nobody expected a single ruler to control it all. Though it would appear that Ellak and Ernak were unaware of this - for three years the Roman Empire and the Hunnic Empire launched ccountless raids and sackings and attempted coups. According to legend Ellak was killed by Ildico - a former wife of Attila who was remarried to Ellak. Ernak would restore order in both Empires and Ildico would go on to be remembered as a folk hero to the Gothic peoples.

459-468: Ernak (Roman Empire)

According to myth Attila had been told that his people would fall with him but Ernak would restore them to greatness, and he was always a close adviser of his father's. His empire had the best Hunnic troops, more money, and more power. The only thing it lacked was political stability. But Ernak knew enough to delegate these tasks to his court, and to his mother-in-law. Increasingly, land, power and prestige belonged to people who owed it to the Ernak and the Roman Empire was being recreated in the image of it's conquerors. Meanwhile, the conquerors were being recreated in the image of Rome. Hunnic soldiers exchanged their horses for the management of estates and with that was a need for writing and organisation. The Hunns never learnt Latin, or converted to Christianity, but they considered both things to be a useful quality in slaves and therefore allowed them to survive and even flourish in the new order.

The Year of the Seven Emperors

The year of the seven emperors is recorded as such due to the neat historiography of having it sit alongside the Year of the Four Emperors in the 1st century, the Year of the Five Emperors in the 2nd, the Year of Six Emperors in the 3rd century and the Year of Eight Emperors in the 7th century. While there was a year with seven emperors, the crisis was in no way restricted to that time and they weren't all properly Roman.

468-471: Syagrius (Western Empire)
m. Galla Placidia the Younger (468)​
Gaining some additional legitimacy through a strategic marriage to the daughter of Valentinian III Syagrius was the first to claim the purple. He wouldn't even receive the legitimacy of being killed by a fellow pretender, Bel-Kermak's Saxon raiders would kill him in the sacking of Londinium as Britain began its long transition from being a Romano-Celtic country to being a Hunnic-Saxon one.

468: Longinus Calvus (Eastern Empire)
m. Galla Eudocia (444)​
An Isaurian general originally, Longinus married another of the daughter's of Valentinian and made his own attempt to restore the Empire, this time through Moesia. While he gained backing from a surprising number of segments, this was largely because he was never really seen as a contender. Nobody was surprised when he was executed.

468-472: Ricimer (Rome)
m. Ascama (465) (daughter of Elak)​

Unlike the first two Ricimer attempted to wrest control of the Empire away from the Huns but not restore some kind of pre-Hunnic Empire. He elevated Honora's son Romulus to the purple as a co-emperor to win over further support from the Huns and was instrumental in the defeat of Gaiseric's invasion and Longinus' rebellion. Eventually, shortly after the defeat of Longinus his army was routed by the Hunns and he was killed.

468-477: Gaiseric (Vandals)
m. Licinia Eudoxia (466)​

The Vandals launched a substantial a battle into Roman territory, taking advantage of Arian sympathies in Hispaniola and Hunnic distraction. Gaiseric was stopped by Romulus before he could reach Rome and his campaign was dramatically over-ambitious, however Gaiseric survived the period of civil war and would continue to be seen by Romans was one of the last remaining friends of classical civilisation.

468-473 Bel-kermak (Hunnic Empire)

Following the defeat of the Longinus and Syagrius Bel-Kermak came to rule a vast Empire with strategic advantages of the their Roman neighbours. But it was still only barely an empire, more a loose confederacy of Gothic countries who were regularly bullied by Hunnic overlords. The Roman Empire presented a far more tempting offer - legal protections, a measure of equality, and protection of trade. Bel-kermak was pushed back on all fronts by rebellion, defection, and military defeat.

468-532: Romulus Hunorum (Roman Empire)
Romulus Hunorum would be remembered for consolidating a Roman Empire that may have lost Africa and Asia but had finally gained central Europe. He reformed the political order and oversaw the change between Latin and Gothic serving as a Lingua Franca. The economy slowly recovered, religious differences gave way to official toleration, and the Hunnic ruling classes were firmly ensconced in power.

Romulus spent most of his time at the front, and continued the usual practice of Hunnic emperors holding the Imperial Bureaucracy at arms length. However, the influence of first his mother and then his wives kept security on the political front while Romulus concentrated on securing his new border. In time, however, the Emperors would come to resent power remaining in the hands of Christian, Latin speaking administrators who could set themselves up against Emperor, but throughout Romulus' reign the Hunnic ascendancy was strong and healthy.

The emperor began the practice of paying nominal loyalty to one or other Christian sect, but with the understanding that those traditions stopped as soon as he was on campaign and needed to rely on real spiritual power. It would be another fifty years before a Hunnic Emperor would see loyalty to a particular Christian sect as anything more significant than their choice of chariot team.

The Hunnic Roman Empire had sowed the seeds of its destruction from the start - the lack of unity, the lack of political alleigance to the centre, the over-emphasis on military service, the toleration of both Gothic and Latin legal and linguistic traditons, and most of all, the lack of solidarity within the Hunnish ascendancy. The largest surprise was that the Empire lasted until the seventh century before it splinitered into nations. However, Romulus would be remembered alongside the original Romulus, Augustus, and Constantine, as one of the five (or arguably six) founders of Rome, and would be the last of those to rule the Empire as Emperor rather than as Consul.
 
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