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Lists of Heads of Government and Heads of State

Fantastic list @Oppo. I wonder, who is the narrator of the piece?
In the story it was meant to be a fictional MP who gets assigned by the Wyatt government to sell a Crippite democracy to American exiles.
This is something that I've seen in a couple of lists before; were there proposals for it in OTL?
The wiki page for John Wardlaw-Milne discusses his proposal for a bit - I think Mumby was the first to do it in a list though.
 
Ready for Government '83 Part 2

1991-1996: Michael Heseltine (Conservative-SDP-Green Coalition)
Def: David Steel (Liberal Democrat) John Smith (Labour) David Owen (SDP) Jonathan Porritt/Jean Lambert (Green) Alex Salmond (SNP) Dafydd Wigley (Plaid Cymru) David Molyneaux (UUP) Ian Paisley (DUP) John Hume (SDLP) Gerry Adams(Sinn Fein) John Alderdice (Alliance) Michael Meadowcroft (Liberal)

Britain's first election under STV was a surprise. A surge for the Conservatives during the election on a direct attack against the Lib Dem-Labour relationship, confusion over how the new system worked combined with inaccurate polling leading up to the election meant the Tories were the largest party on 30% of seats. The SDP and Greens also rose in the votes as people protested against the media narrative of the Lib-Lab government “playing the system” to their advantage. Ironically their votes had greater impact due to the voting system the coalition had introduced. Nonetheless the SDP almost doubled their seats and the Greens entered parliament for the first time. A six party coalition was attempted by Steel but competing demands meant it fell through.

The first wave of Lord-Senators was elected with the Conservatives taking the lion’s share of seats with the Greens and the Workers getting seats too, notably Nina Temple of the Worker’s party who refused to use the title “Lady”.

Internationally Britain did quite well with Heseltine getting on well with President Bush and then President Biden. Britain would be part of the UN lead intervention in the former Yugoslavia throughout the 90s. Heseltine was also a key part in improving post-soviet US-Russian relations, with a famous photo of Boris Yeltsin and Joe Biden shaking hands with Heseltine in the middle.

The newly empowered Green Party had a schism over going into government with Derek Wall leaving the party over the agreement. Nonetheless several Green policies were enacted and Sara Parkin became Environmental Minister. Wall would sit as an independent before eventually joining the People’s Party formed by ex Labour members kicked out by Labour.

The government was shaky, to say the least. A program of austerity and “streamlining” of government with caveats of empowering communities and local authorities and promoting green business at the behest of each of the Jr partners in the coalition.

The Coalition would also suffer being present when the Pound fell out of the European Exchange Rate mechanism in 1993. This would lead to a recession in Britain which further damaged the government's reputation, despite Hesletine repeatedly pointing out that Britain entered the ERM under the Liberal Democrats

This austerity proved unpopular and in the polls Britain would punish the SDP and Greens for it. With them flagging in the polls the government held together, the smaller parties hoping for a rise in the polls that would never come.


1996-2001: Margaret Beckett (Labour-Workers Minority)
Def: Michael Heseltine (Conservative) David Penhaglion (Liberal Democrat) John Smith (Labour) James Goldsmith (Referendum) Peter Taafe (Workers) David Owen (SDP) Jonathan Porritt/Jean Lambert (Green) Alex Salmond (SNP) Dafydd Wigley (Plaid Cymru) David Trimble (UUP) Ian Paisley (DUP) John Hume (SDLP) Gerry Adams(Sinn Fein) John Alderdice (Alliance) Michael Meadowcroft (Liberal) Geoffrey Clements (Natural Law)

The second Margaret, as she is known to pub quiz bores everywhere never expected to to be Prime Minister. The retirement of John Smith in 1995 led to a power vacuum in the Labour leadership that was filled by two big names. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. In face of plummeting Conservative polling numbers it was decided Labour needed a unified leader quickly. In the end Beckett was chosen as a compromise between the slightly more traditional Brownite group and the more reformist Blairite group. As such when the election came about in May 1996 Beckett Lead Labour to a narrow Plurality of votes in the election. In the face of Conservative austerity, Britain swung firmly to the left, empowering both Labour and the Left wing “Worker’s Voice,”. The Conservatives also lost votes to the single-issue Referendum Party, who during Beckett’s first term would split to variously join with the Social Democrat Party and the United Kingdom Independence Party. In the end a Labour-Workers Government formed with a Liberal Democrat Supply and Confidence motion. The privatisation of British rail was cancelled. The economy was invested in and the hourly wage received a significant increase with Beckett’s theme of “Getting people back to work,” being a slogan agreed on by all 3 parties.

A rising voice in Beckett's first term was that of English Devolution. With the creation of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, followed by the successful creation of The Northern Ireland Assembly in 1999 and London Assembly in 2000 many were now calling for various devolved assemblies for Cornwall, Yorkshire, London and so on. Various parties would coalesce under a single banner to fight the next general election as the “Federal Alliance” with Robin Tilbrook being elected their only MP.
 
Nye Bless Us: 65 years of Bevanism in the UK

Prime Minsiters of the Great Britain (1945-2021)

1945-1951: Clement Attlee (Labour)
1945 (Majority) def. Winston Churchill (Conservative), Archibald Sinclair (Liberal)
1950 (Majority) def. Winston Churchill (Conservative), Clement Davies (Liberal)


1951-1955: Winston Churchill (Conservative)
1951 (Majority) def. Clement Attlee (Labour), Clement Davies (Liberal)

1955: Sir Anthony Eden (Conservative) *

1955-1960: Aneurin Bevan (Labour) **
1955 (Majority) def. Sir Anthony Eden (Conservative), Clement Davies (Liberal)

1960-1967: Barbara Castle (Labour)
1960 (Majority) def. Sir Anthony Eden (Conservative), Jo Grimond (Liberal)
1965 (Minority, S&C from Liberal) def. George Jellicoe, Earl Jellicoe (Conservative), Jo Grimond (Liberal), Roy Jenkins (CommonWealth)
1966 EEC Membership Referendum: 59% NO, 35% YES, 6% Abstention


1967-1968: Anthony Greenwood (Labour)

1968-1979: Keith Joseph (Conservative)
1968 (Majority) def. Anthony Greenwood (Labour), Roy Jenkins (CommonWealth), Jo Grimond (Liberal)
1972 (Majority) def. Anthony Greenwood (Labour), Roy Jenkins (CommonWealth), Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal)
1977 (Minority, S&C from Liberal and CW) def. David Owen (Labour), Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal), Roy Jenkins (CommonWealth)
1977 EEC Membership Referendum: 52% YES, 45% NO, 3% Abstention


1979-1984: David Owen (Labour)
1979 (Coalition, with Liberals) def. Keith Joseph (Conservative), David Steel (Liberal)

1984-1988: Sir Geoffrey Howe (Conservative)
1984 (Majority) def. David Owen (Labour), David Steel (Liberal)

1988-1997: Tony Benn (Labour)
1988 (Majority) def. Geoffrey Howe (Conservative), David Steel (Liberal)
1991 Commonwealth/Republic Referendum: 53% YES, 46% NO, 0.9% OTHER
1991 Strasbourg Treaty Referendum: 55% LEAVE, 41% JOIN, 4% OTHER
1993 (Majority) def. Michael Heseltine (Conservative), Cyril Smith (Liberal)
1996 Northern Irish Sovereignty Referendum: 45% INDEP., 29% UK, 26% IRELAND


1997-2003: Robin Cook (Labour)
1998 (Majority) def. Michael Heseltine (Conservative), Paddy Ashdown (Liberal)
2000 Federal Referendum: 60% Federal, 29% Devolution, 11% No Change


2003-2010: Caroline Spelman (Conservative)
2003 (Coalition, with Liberal) def. Robin Cook (Labour), Menzies Campbell (Liberal)
2005 Electoral Referendum: 68% FPTP, 15% AV, 11% STV, 6% OTHER
2008 (Majority) def. John Prescott (Labour), Menzies Campbell (Liberal)


2010-2012: Liam Fox (Conservative)

2012-2020: John McDonnell (Labour)
2012 (Majority) def. Liam Fox (Conservative), Mike Russel (SNP), Norman Lamb (Liberal)
2017 (Majority) def. Justine Greening (Conservative), Shaffaq Mohammed (Liberal), Mike Russel (SNP)


2020-20??: Hilary Benn (Labour)

British Heads of State (1945-2021)
1936-1952: George VI (Monarch)
1952-1991: Elizabeth II (Monarch)
1991-1992:
Charles Windsor (Interim) ***
1992-2000:
Dennis Skinner (Labour)
1992 def. Margaret Thatcher (Conservative), Menzies Campbell (Liberal), Charles Windsor (Write in)
1996 def. John Redwood (Conservative), Menzies Campbell (Liberal), Charles Windsor (Write in)

2000-2004: John Bercow (Conservative)
2000 def. Charles Kennedy (Liberal), Jeremy Corbyn (Labour), Charles Windsor (Write in)
2004-2012: Paddy Ashdown (Liberal)
2004 def. Betty Boothroyd (Labour), Sir Nicholas Soames (Conservative), Charles Windsor (Write in)
2008 def. Tony Benn (Labour), Sir Nicholas Soames (Conservative), Alex Salmond (SNP), Charles Windsor (Write in)

2012-2020: Ken Livingstone (Labour)
2012 def. Nick Clegg (Liberal), William Haugue (Conservative), Charles Windsor (Green), Alex Salmond (SNP), Tommy Robinson (BNP)
2016 def. Jeremy Hunt (Conservative), Charles Windsor (Green), Vince Cable (Liberal), Tommy Robinson (BNP), Alex Salmond (SNP)

2020-20??: Charles Windsor (Green)
2020 def. Sajid Javid (Conservtive), Danny Alexander (Liberal), Ed Balls (Labour)

* = POD: Herbert Morrison suffers a heart attack in '53 and retires, Attlee follows a year later opening the door for Bevan. He goes on to strengthen his position within the Party by defeating Eden.

** = Bevan retires when his health starts to fail like in OTL, however the influx and influence of prominent Bevanites in Labour opens a wider leadership contest that Castle evntually wins after Bevan denounces Harold Wilson. Labour Right and pro-Europeans leave the party to form their own in protest over the Bevanite hold on the Party, by the time the UK joins the Common Market in 1978, CommonWealth entered terminal decline.
*** = Britain votes to replace the Monarchy with a nominal but popularly elected Head of State, Elizabeth remains head of the Commonwealth and is asked to act as an interim HoS til an election is held but she refuses; Charles accepts the role, and often appears as a 'write in' candidate for the Presidency before joining the Green Party in 2012. After being elected as President outright in 2020, he abidicates his claim to the Throne and Head of the House of Windsor to Prince William.
 
Was Independence on the NI referendum an attempt to hobble the United Ireland side that went horribly wrong?
No, the DUP and other Unionists begin to become dissolutioned with the UK govt. under Benn and decide if thats the way Britain is going they'd rather go on themselves. On the flipside, the more radical Marxists/Nationalist elements of the United side hate the Irish govt. good relations with the UK and are convinced they're gonna be sold out by Dublin.

I just love the irony of the extremes on both sides putting the kibosh on one another so that no one's happy.
 
1988-1997: Tony Benn (Labour)
1988 (Majority) def. Geoffrey Howe (Conservative), David Steel (Liberal)
1991 Commonwealth/Republic Referendum: 53% YES, 46% NO, 0.9% OTHER
1991 Strasbourg Treaty Referendum: 55% LEAVE, 41% JOIN, 4% OTHER
1993 (Majority) def. Michael Heseltine (Conservative), Cyril Smith (Liberal)
1996 Northern Irish Sovereignty Referendum: 45% INDEP., 29% UK, 26% IRELAND
Don’t want to be too critically since this a good list but Tony Benn was never a Bevanite even when he turned to the Left. If your looking for someone to be an 80s Bevanite then it’s probably Neil Kinnock or any of the Tribune Group of MPs.
 
A Very International Coup

LEADERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND
1979-1984: Margaret Thatcher (Conservative)

1979 (Majority) def: James Callaghan (Labour), David Steel (Liberal)
1983 (Majority) def: Michael Foot (Labour), David Steel-Roy Jenkins (Liberal-Social Democratic Party Alliance)

1984-1987: Norman Tebbit (Conservative, leading Emergency Government)
1987-1987: Tony Benn (Labour)

1987 (Minority) def: Norman Tebbit (Conservative), David Steel-David Owen (Liberal-Social Democratic Party Alliance)
1987-1988: Terry Fields (Labour)

LEADERS OF THE UNITED BRITISH DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

1988-1988: Peter Taaffe (Revolutionary Socialist League)
1988-1989: Ken Livingstone (New Socialist, leading Transitional Government)
1989 Monarchy Restoration Referendum: Yes 82%, No 18%

LEADERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN*
*United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1990
1989-1990: Ken Livingstone (New Socialist, leading Transitional Government)
1989 (Grand Coalition with Labour, Conservatives, Liberals and Social Democrats)
1990-: Chris Patten (Conservative Revival)
1990 (Majority) def. Ken Livingstone (New Socialist), Jack Straw (Labour), Paddy Ashdown (The Democrats), Robert McLennan (Social Democratic Party)

"I still think I did well." - Norman Tebbit, when asked on his allegedly heavy-handed response to the murder of Margaret Thatcher.

"Some ask why I did it. Everything I had wanted, Taaffe had achieved. The abolition of the monarchy and the Lords, a British Socialist society, unification in Ireland. But the people weren't happy, were they?" - Ken Livingstone

"Patten did well in reunifying the country, but he was shit with the economics of the whole thing, really." - Someone on the Sea Lion Press British Politics Thread
 


The Master but he’s !Jeremy Thorpe talking about Heath’s government won’t tell the public the truth about the Autons or the Axonites or Silurian virus but he will


1970 - 1973: Edward Heath (Conservative)

1973: Harold Masterson (National Alliance)

1973 - 1974: Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (Emergency)

1974 - 1983: Tony Benn (Labour)

1983 - 1992: Michael Heseltine (Conservative)


1992 - 1997: Jeremy Corbyn (Labour)


The government was suffering a storm of events: inflation, strikes, the Troubles, rising crime, and repeated failures of expensive scientific projects. Unexplained waves of mass murder by unspecified "terrorists", or "accidents", or in one case an unprecedented plague, struck fear into the public and made them feel something was going on that nobody would tell them.

Masterson, a fast-rising leader in the Liberals, campaigned on not just economic stability but about revealing "the truth" of these events. That truth, in a shocking Prime Minister's Questions and press conference, was that Earth had been targeted by extraterrestrials - and Masterson had the evidence to prove it, and reporter James Stevens of the Daily Chronicle had a series of hard-hitting exposes on the matter. The government collapsed and so did Wilson's Labour, as he proved to have been keeping this secret as well. The charismatic Masterson formed a new government out of a coalition of disgruntled MPs and Lords.

And after two weeks, just as he opened a peaceful first contact with the Toclafane, he was violently overthrown by the army under backing from the UN. Evidence came out that Masterson was responsible for several murders, including of his former aide Scott Normans and his predecessor in the Liberals - that he'd been brainwashing people through the banned Keller process - that he'd even been involved in several terrorist acts - and that the Toclafane were hostile, and had murdered the US President Nick Richards. Half the country refused to believe this, seeing the Lethbridge-Stewart government as a 'deep state' coup by Whitehall and foreign interests, but this view fell as Lethbridge-Stewart proved to be a calm, lawful figure who was working hard to have elections as soon as possible. The lack of any action against a newly hard-left Labour further undermined the Masterite stance.

Benn was the last Labour figure left standing after the fall of Wilson and the MPs who defected to the Alliance, and he was able to push past a damaged Tory party. The Tories would fall to gain power under a harder monetarist view, leading to One Nation paternalism to win out. But under all this, the rump Alliance seethed, muttering about conspiracies and cabals and governments that didn't fit the will of the people or could fix problems.

All they needed was a leader.

In 1997, they found one in a former - and effective - headmaster, and they believe he's the best one they've ever had.

The-Demon-Headmaster-c-BBC_hi004600911.jpg
 
You may think I'm implying the Demon Headmaster is the Master but I can't possibly comment.

IIRC Lance Parkin wrote a story for a fanzine where the post-War In Heaven Master ended up as a sinister hypnosis-using headmaster in a British boarding school, so there's a legitimate case that this is true.
 
IIRC Lance Parkin wrote a story for a fanzine where the post-War In Heaven Master ended up as a sinister hypnosis-using headmaster in a British boarding school, so there's a legitimate case that this is true.

This raises a question after the revival: is the Master brought into the Time War the Hardiman Master or the cloned Gleaves Master, and what happened to the other one??
 
1969 - 1974: Fmr. Vice President Richard Nixon (Republican)
1968 (with Spiro Agnew) def. Vice President Hubert Humphrey (Democratic), Governor George Wallace (American Independent)
1972 (with Spiro Agnew) def. Senator Edmund Muskie (Democratic), John Hospers Faithless elector
1975 - 1977: Vice President Gerald Ford (Republican)

1977 - 1981: Senator George McGovern (Democratic)
1976 (with Moon Landrieu) def. Fmr. Governor Ronald Reagan (Republican)

1981 - 1989: Fmr. President Gerald Ford (Republican)
1980 (with Bob Dole) def. President George McGovern (Democratic)
1984 (with Bob Dole) def. Fmr. Vice President Moon Landrieu (Democratic)

1989 - 1993: Fmr. President George McGovern (Democratic)
1988 (with Bess Myerson) def. Senator Barry Goldwater Jr. (Republican), Rep. Jim Traficant (Populist)

1993 - 1997: Fmr. Senator Howard Baker (Republican)
1992 (with Elizabeth Dole) def. Governor Mario Cuomo (Democratic)

1997 - present: Fmr. Vice President Bess Myerson (Democratic)
1996 (with Hamilton Jordon) def. President Howard Baker (Republican), Governor John Silber (Independent)
 
This raises a question after the revival: is the Master brought into the Time War the Hardiman Master or the cloned Gleaves Master, and what happened to the other one??

The Gleaves version regenerates into first the child War Master from the Titan Comics, and then into Dhawan. Meanwhile the original becomes first Yana, then Saxon, then Missy. I am very intelligent

Anyway, S.P.L.A.T--Bannerman Road Gang teamup when?
 
The Armalites of the South

1861-1862: Jefferson F. Davis / Alexander H. Stephens (Non-Partisan) [Provisional]
1862-1868: Jefferson F. Davis / Alexander H. Stephens (Pro-Administration / Anti-Administration)

1861: Unopposed
1868-1871: Nathan B. Forrest / Howell Cobb (Patriot's, with extra-political support from America Will Break)
1867: John C. Breckinridge / Albert G. Brown (Jeffersonian), Robert E. Lee / scattered (Pro-Administration Independent)
1871-1874: Nathan B. Forrest / vacant (Patriot's, with extra-political support from America Will Break)
1874: Fitzhugh Lee / Patrick C. Cleburne (Jeffersonian) [Disputed]

1873: Louis T. Wigfall / Leonidas Polk (Patriot's)
1874-1902: Wade Hampton III / Sterling Price, later various (Patriot's, with extra-political support from America Will Break)

AWB Time-travels to 1864, turns the war around at the last hour. Robert E. Lee's opposition to them comes from their extra-territorial status in the Confederacy and the undue influence these men from another world have on his Confederacy. Getting his hands on a history of the Civil War as it was he finds himself increasingly unsure of what has come to pass but finds little political support for it. His silence for a time is bought with nitroglycerine pills but as Confederate Politics develops between the Pro-Expansionist, Pro-International Slave Trade and AWB supported Patriots who have questionable views about continued Democracy in the Confederacy and the Jeffersonians who are hardly better and want to tiptoe around the AWB Lee finally throws his hat into the ring. The results are disappointing though for him, but surprising for such a political novice, he wins a majority in his home state of Virginia and on a national scale wins more votes then John C. Breckinridge but outside of Virginia he fails to make any gains in the Electoral College, and in fact loses several delegates pledged to him there.

The Forrest years are brutal, the Ku Klux Klan, a new veterans organization funded by the AWB grows in size and violence in support of the Patriots. AWB backed filibusters set off for Central America and the Coast of Africa. The United States dictatorship under President McClellan is bogged down in a war in Canada against Britain, Mexican Republicans are defeated by Napoleon III and in Santo Domingo the yoke of the Spanish Empire is entrenched. Robert E. Lee is overwhelmed by the sense that Democracy in the world is dying but cannot for years yet reconcile his worries for such with the growing discomfort he feels about his knowledge of the end of Slavery in the world that was supposed to be. He retreats from the question for some time, to become the Commandant of the Virginia Military Institute and to organize the decentralized system that would become the Confederate Military Academy system.

And then in 1873 he does find some degree of hope. His nephew Fitzhugh becomes the Jeffersonian candidate for President and begins to openly question the violence's spreading across the Americas and the growing economic and political power of the non-citizen, and diplomatically immune, and growing AWB population. In this campaign Marse Robert found a new hope. he traveled the nation he fought for, he met with old comrades many of whom worried about the Confederacy becoming an AWB colony, and some admitting that they knew it already was a protectorate. In his rhetoric, Robert E. Lee grew bolder about his disdain for what the South was becoming but still, even as the election grew nearer grappled with his conflicted feelings that he now held for the Peculiar Instiution.

And then, Fitzhugh won. The AWB and the KKK were furious and seemed to many to be staying in their tents like Achilles, or Guilty Men. In Richmond and Rivington there was intense negotiations. The AWB hardly cared about the Patriot's but their personal status while the Patriot's held their own aims about what the South should be. And in these Negotiations, quietly done in empty offices and hotels, Robert E. Lee would find himself outfoxed and growing more and more tired. But also more revolted by what he had helped create. In the end the deal as it was was a mere papering over of the problems of the three factions in Southern Politics. But Lee trusted these men at their word. And so the inauguration moved forward. In the week before though things began to turn sour. AWB-KKK forces began protesting. In New Orleans a mob seized control of the city. Filibuster forces started returning home. A coup seemed inevitable.

Fitzhugh and his uncle were ready to fight though, and the inaugural was a tight military affair heavy in security. But shortly after the swearing in, word came over the Telegraph wire, the regular army units outside of the City, under the command of George Pickett were in revolt, and other revolts were happening across the Country. Fitzhugh was hurried off the stage, he would attempt to escape the city for Petersburg but was doomed. As the forces of Counter-Revolution closed it it was Robert E. Lee who gave the final, off the cuff address of the hopeful administration. He would die giving it, as the assassins bullet ripped into him from what seemed like an impossible range. But what he said would live on forever in the dark shadows, the company towns and the slave cabins for decades to come. For he told the world the truth he had denied forever: that Slavery was wrong, that the AWB was an evil, that true republicanism called for the involvement of all peoples to have a say in their life.

In what would follow Lee was the South's greatest traitor, but long after he was dead and gone, long after Wade Hampton had fallen into corrupt irrelevance under the lords of the AWB, Lee's Last Address as it would forever be called would keep a fire going, one that would, eventually see the dreams of Lee's old opponent Abraham Lincoln be realized
 
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The Armalites of the South

1861-1862: Jefferson F. Davis / Alexander H. Stephens (Non-Partisan) [Provisional]
1862-1868: Jefferson F. Davis / Alexander H. Stephens (Pro-Administration / Anti-Administration)

1861: Unopposed
1868-1871: Nathan B. Forrest / Howell Cobb (Patriot's, with extra-political support from America Will Break)
1867: John C. Breckinridge / Albert G. Brown (Jeffersonian), Robert E. Lee / scattered (Pro-Administration Independent)
1871-1874: Nathan B. Forrest / vacant (Patriot's, with extra-political support from America Will Break)
1874: Fitzhugh Lee / Patrick C. Cleburne (Jeffersonian)

1873: Louis T. Wigfall / Leonidas Polk (Patriot's)
1874-1902: Wade Hampton III / Sterling Price, later various including Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (Patriot's, with extra-political support from America Will Break)

AWB Time-travels to 1864, turns the war around at the last hour. Robert E. Lee's opposition to them comes from their extra-territorial status in the Confederacy and the undue influence these men from another world have on his Confederacy. Getting his hands on a history of the Civil War as it was he finds himself increasingly unsure of what has come to pass but finds little political support for it. His silence for a time is bought with nitroglycerine pills but as Confederate Politics develops between the Pro-Expansionist, Pro-International Slave Trade and AWB supported Patriots who have questionable views about continued Democracy in the Confederacy and the Jeffersonians who are hardly better and want to tiptoe around the AWB Lee finally throws his hat into the ring. The results are disappointing though for him, but surprising for such a political novice, he wins a majority in his home state of Virginia and on a national scale wins more votes then John C. Breckinridge but outside of Virginia he fails to make any gains in the Electoral College, and in fact loses several delegates pledged to him there.

The Forrest years are brutal, the Ku Klux Klan, a new veterans organization funded by the AWB grows in size and violence in support of the Patriots. AWB backed filibusters set off for Central America and the Coast of Africa. The United States dictatorship under President McClellan is bogged down in a war in Canada against Britain, Mexican Republicans are defeated by Napoleon III and in Santo Domingo the yoke of the Spanish Empire is entrenched. Robert E. Lee is overwhelmed by the sense that Democracy in the world is dying but cannot for years yet reconcile his worries for such with the growing discomfort he feels about his knowledge of the end of Slavery in the world that was supposed to be. He retreats from the question for some time, to become the Commandant of the Virginia Military Institute and to organize the decentralized system that would become the Confederate Military Academy system.

And then in 1873 he does find some degree of hope. His nephew Fitzhugh becomes the Jeffersonian candidate for President and begins to openly question the violence's spreading across the Americas and the growing economic and political power of the non-citizen, and diplomatically immune, and growing AWB population. In this campaign Marse Robert found a new hope. he traveled the nation he fought for, he met with old comrades many of whom worried about the Confederacy becoming an AWB colony, and some admitting that they knew it already was a protectorate. In his rhetoric, Robert E. Lee grew bolder about his disdain for what the South was becoming but still, even as the election grew nearer grappled with his conflicted feelings that he now held for the Peculiar Instiution.

And then, Fitzhugh won. The AWB and the KKK were furious and seemed to many to be staying in their tents like Achilles, or Guilty Men. In Richmond and Rivington there was intense negotiations. The AWB hardly cared about the Patriot's but their personal status while the Patriot's held their own aims about what the South should be. And in these Negotiations, quietly done in empty offices and hotels, Robert E. Lee would find himself outfoxed and growing more and more tired. But also more revolted by what he had helped create. In the end the deal as it was was a mere papering over of the problems of the three factions in Southern Politics. But Lee trusted these men at their word. And so the inauguration moved forward. In the week before though things began to turn sour. AWB-KKK forces began protesting. In New Orleans a mob seized control of the city. Filibuster forces started returning home. A coup seemed inevitable.

Fitzhugh and his uncle were ready to fight though, and the inaugural was a tight military affair heavy in security. But shortly after the swearing in, word came over the Telegraph wire, the regular army units outside of the City, under the command of George Pickett were in revolt, and other revolts were happening across the Country. Fitzhugh was hurried off the stage, he would attempt to escape the city for Petersburg but was doomed. As the forces of Counter-Revolution closed it it was Robert E. Lee who gave the final, off the cuff address of the hopeful administration. He would die giving it, as the assassins bullet ripped into him from what seemed like an impossible range. But what he said would live on forever in the dark shadows, the company towns and the slave cabins for decades to come. For he told the world the truth he had denied forever: that Slavery was wrong, that the AWB was an evil, that true republicanism called for the involvement of all peoples to have a say in their life.

In what would follow Lee was the South's greatest traitor, but long after he was dead and gone, long after Wade Hampton had fallen into corrupt irrelevance under the lords of the AWB, Lee's Last Address as it would forever be called would keep a fire going, one that would, eventually see the dreams of Lee's old opponent Abraham Lincoln be realized

deconstruction + reconstruction of Turtledove is always fun - remind me to actually write up “the AWB get a head start of a few years and end up turning to...William Walker” some time
 
(Disclaimer: I do not believe that I have any insight into the future. This predictive list is merely for fun, and does not represent my views on what I believe the future is likely to be, let alone what it actually will be like).

2019-2031: Boris Johnson (Conservative)
def 2019: (Majority) Jeremy Corbyn (Labour), Nicola Sturgeon (SNP), Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrats), Jonathan Bartley & Sian Berry (Green)
def 2024: (Majority) Keir Starmer (Labour), Ed Davey (Liberal Democrats), Nicola Sturgeon (SNP), Jo Cherry (I4S), Jonathan Bartley & Sian Berry (Green)
def 2029: (Majority) Kier Starmer (Labour), Ed Davey (Liberal Democrats), Jo Cherry (I4S), Magid Magid & Amelia Womack (Green), Humza Yousaf (SNP)

2031-2035: Kwasi Kwarteng (Conservative)
2035-2043: Dehenna Davison (British People's)
def 2035: (Majority) Kwasi Kwarteng (Conservative), Vaughan Gething (Labour), Ed Davey (Liberal Democratic), Magid Magid & Amelia Womack (Green), Jo Cherry (14S), Huzma Yousaf (SNP)
def 2040: (Majority) Fay Jones (Conservative), Chloe Hutchinson (Liberal Democratic), Rosie Duffield (Labour), Kelsey Trevett & Ivi Hohmann (Green), Mhairi Black (SNP), Owain McBride (14S)

2043-2050: Lewis Brackpool (British People's)
def 2044: (Majority) Saqib Bhatti (Conservative), Chloe Hutchinson (Liberal Democratic), Kelsey Trevett & Ivi Hohmann (Green), Rosie Duffield (Labour), Mhairi Black (SNP)
def 2048:
(Minority) Freddie Sawyer (Conservative endorsed by Liberal Democratic), Alexandria Thurnherr & Kyle Downie (Green [did not take seats]), Henna Shah (Labour)

2050-xxxx: Freddie Sawyer (Conservative)
def 2050: (National Alliance with Liberal Democratic and Labour) Lewis Brackpool (British People's), Hettie Ainsworth & Lewis Akers (Green [did not take seats]), Henna Shah (Labour)


It is important to recognise that Labour's collapse was inevitable. When Thatcher broke the back of the unions, she broke the Labour party's financial and recruiting base permanently. Blair might have sold the party's soul, but its spirit had already departed. Could any other party have risen to the status of opposition? It is doubtful. The SNP were geographically limited by their nature, and quickly began to crumble over a former leader's inappropriate behaviour. The Liberals might have had a chance, if their prior co-operation with the Conservatives hadn't turned off their old base and made it hard to put clear blue water between the two parties. The Greens were always an outside bet, with views that--as strange as it seems now--were considered hilariously extreme, and barely enough MPs to fill a phone booth.

So in the end, the only thing that could defeat the Conservatives was themselves.

Unlike with the Liberals, rather than being split up, both parts of the Labour Party that left ended up under the same umbrella. Increasingly upwardly-mobile ethnic minority voters plumped for the party of business, and increasingly downwardly-mobile working-class voters were swayed by the parties that claimed to speak for their nation. Of course, these two growing wings of the Conservative Party were diametrically opposed to each other. It could only end in fission. If one were to go from their self-descriptions, you would conclude that of Britain's two parties, one is economically to the right and socially to the left, and the other is the other way around. You should look more closely.

The BPP talk themselves up as the party protecting the British working-class from globalist billionaires, but they have just as many corporate sponsors as the Conservatives, even holding their last conference in a Wetherspoons PartyCentre. Those dispossessed by climatic collapse are told to suck it up, with an inundated Lincolnshire being left for dead by the 2048 budget. Continually hostile to organised labour, precarious renters, and imaginary benefits cheats, the BPP prefer the working class that exists in their mind to the real one.

On the other side of Parliament, the Conservatives are just as lukewarm on the left-wing part of their policies. While certainly more progressive than his mother, Sawyer shares her enthusiasm for deportation and anti-migrant naval action, with a record number of anti-raft boats in the channel. The UK still lags behind in government support for gender transition, with most forced to use expensive private services. The faces at the top might have reshuffled, but for those on the bottom the Conservatives are the same party they were in 2019.

In the early Naughties, British satirists joked about how the two parties had become interchangeable. Now the joke is the reality. With both parties ultimately seeing themselves as the heirs of Thatcher, the main hope for the British left lies outside politics. As the world burns and drowns, the British state slowly losing its grip on its extremities is a blessing just as much as it is a curse. Parliament might be rigged, but it's no longer the only game in town.

--Greg Cohen, Walk Away: A Left Program For The 22nd Century
 
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In what would follow Lee was the South's greatest traitor, but long after he was dead and gone, long after Wade Hampton had fallen into corrupt irrelevance under the lords of the AWB, Lee's Last Address as it would forever be called would keep a fire going, one that would, eventually see the dreams of Lee's old opponent Abraham Lincoln be realized

I want to see more of these Turtledove decon-recons

Socialist Al Smith and the Population Reduction should be done justice
 
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