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Least favorite alt-history story?

This all strikes me as incredibly deterministic to dismiss polling out of hand due to weird results it possibly causes. Reagan’s outlier polls ended up embodying his later polling averages, same with Obama in 2008. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to humor a scenario in which when polling averages have them already down by 15 points the Tories are completely destroyed after losing the Falklands and being revealed as having covered up serial child abuse. This poli-sci logic is very “as goes Missouri so goes the nation”
 
Are we talking David Owen’s Magical Electoral Fun Ride here? Because if so, he ain’t getting a stonking Majority but there’s a silly timelines possibility where he forms a coalition with the Tories or Labour after David Alton defects etc.
i’m talking about this big homie

 
This all strikes me as incredibly deterministic to dismiss polling out of hand due to weird results it possibly causes. Reagan’s outlier polls ended up embodying his later polling averages, same with Obama in 2008. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to humor a scenario in which when polling averages have them already down by 15 points the Tories are completely destroyed after losing the Falklands and being revealed as having covered up serial child abuse. This poli-sci logic is very “as goes Missouri so goes the nation”

I've seen people before in AH politics discussions argue that polling is more relevant than actual election results, but I don't think I've seen anyone argue that a single outlier poll which all the British posters are telling you is clearly totally ridiculous is more relevant than actual general election results.
 
An outlier poll doesn't reflect reality. By their nature, an outlier poll has no relevance to a later result.
I've seen people before in AH politics discussions argue that polling is more relevant than actual election results, but I don't think I've seen anyone argue that a single outlier poll which all the British posters are telling you is clearly totally ridiculous is more relevant than actual general election results.

It’s actually really awesome to make up someone to argue against.
 
While the poll had a shocking result it wasn’t a complete outlier. There were other polls in December 1981 where the Alliance were at 43-44%. 4% going from Labour and the Tories to the Alliance was all that separated the poll on the 14th with others that month. With more polling, there definitely would have been results showing them between 44% and 50.5%.

Additionally, having 25 MPs defect to the Alliance would have had major ripple effects. We can of course discuss the plausibility of that occurring, but the additional factors at play will of course have an impact on Tory prospects.
 
Alright, so I've misinterpreted this. Could you please explain what you mean then?
There’s a reason why politics exists as it does now and in many cases once seemingly unlikely scenarios largely materialized. I’m not saying that implausible scenarios are more likely but that it’s worth exploring how documented political momentum can be carried further than it was OTL.

Dismissing scenarios out of hand based on how that’s not what happened in real life would invalidate everything on this forum.
 
While the poll had a shocking result it wasn’t a complete outlier. There were other polls in December 1981 where the Alliance were at 43-44%. 4% going from Labour and the Tories to the Alliance was all that separated the poll on the 14th with others that month. With more polling, there definitely would have been results showing them between 44% and 50.5%.

Six or seven percent difference still renders it an outlier.

Like I've already said and absolutely nobody responded to, (I guess because facts are too 'pol sci') the maximum a party can realistically expect in both this era and that is about 43-44% of the vote. Any polling above that is just voodoo. To transfer polling at that level into a general election result would require absolutely everything to go right for the Alliance and nothing wrong, and absolutely no wasted vote factor to kick in.

Like I also said, the lowest the Tory vote has gone in recent times, in what was a historical defeat and when they really did have all the political winds blowing against them, was 31%. That was also an election when both the main opposition parties were not threatening or a mobiliser of the Tory vote.
 
Anyway I find ‘Alliance Wins Stories’ boring anyway...yes I helped write one, shut the fuck up.

But anyway, I think everyone gets too hung up on the early 80s when there’s interesting scenarios beyond that. Like if the Alliance manages to have a slight surge in 87’ and Kinnock keeps Labour stuck on 200 or so then there’s all sorts of stuff that could happen there. Additionally there’s also a lack of ‘No Alliance stories’ too.
 
Anyway I find ‘Alliance Wins Stories’ boring anyway...yes I helped write one, shut the fuck up.

But anyway, I think everyone gets too hung up on the early 80s when there’s interesting scenarios beyond that. Like if the Alliance manages to have a slight surge in 87’ and Kinnock keeps Labour stuck on 200 or so then there’s all sorts of stuff that could happen there. Additionally there’s also a lack of ‘No Alliance stories’ too.

Agreed that the Alliance clearly winning is a both boring and implausible scenario. OTOH them making a minor breakthrough but not a mould-breaking one and the eighties being just as politically unstable and dysfunctional as the seventies is interesting, plausible, and as far as I'm aware, totally unexplored to date.
 
Agreed that the Alliance clearly winning is a both boring and implausible scenario. OTOH them making a minor breakthrough but not a mould-breaking one and the eighties being just as politically unstable and dysfunctional as the seventies is interesting, plausible, and as far as I'm aware, totally unexplored to date.
Indeed, I like the idea of exploring more chaotic 80s and 90s politically because it seems everyone is a bit too preoccupied with certain images like ‘Roy Jenkins PM’ or ‘Thatcher Losing the Falklands etc’

I think one of the better timelines in recent times I’ve read is @Callan Plus Debris with an early 90s that starts with an awkward Labour minority propped up by David Penhaligon and David Owen. Stuff like that is interesting and presents a different ideal to 80s/90s Political timelines etc.
 
Indeed, I like the idea of exploring more chaotic 80s and 90s politically because it seems everyone is a bit too preoccupied with certain images like ‘Roy Jenkins PM’ or ‘Thatcher Losing the Falklands etc’

I think one of the better timelines in recent times I’ve read is @Callan Plus Debris with an early 90s that starts with an awkward Labour minority propped up by David Penhaligon and David Owen. Stuff like that is interesting and presents a different ideal to 80s/90s Political timelines etc.

Thatcher losing the Falklands could be interesting, but not for the wish-fulfillment reasons people want it to be. It's the earliest clear opportunity for her to resign (I'm very dubious on a 1978 election pushing her out; bear in mind, Callaghan's internals pointed to another hung parliament, and that's before the campaign has even begun) and it's interesting to speculate on Thatcherites/the right being an opposition force within the Tories a decade earlier than OTL. I get the feeling Euroscepticism would become a big insurgent force within the eighties, not like in the nineties IOTL.

With two years' gap between the war, Thatcher's resignation and the GE I also don't think it's any more guaranteed that the Tories lose the election than they lost 1959 after Suez, which is what a lot of people assumed in the lead-up to that election. It's not going to be the landslide of OTL, of course. A Conservative government with a small majority/Alliance coalition and the right outside the tent pissing in would be pretty interesting to explore. I'm hugely doubtful about the prospects of electoral reform but you could end up with the Greens and *UKIP as established third parties by the nineties and a more left-leaning economic management than OTL.
 
(I'm very dubious on a 1978 election pushing her out; bear in mind, Callaghan's internals pointed to another hung parliament, and that's before the campaign has even begun)
I do use that as a POD for the story I’m currently writing but that’s not the focus and I mainly used it to have a background that went against the consensus of ‘Labour wins in 78, turns to Monetarism and wins forever’ that often seemed to pop up.

But I would probably have changed it if I was more adventurous etc.
With two years' gap between the war, Thatcher's resignation and the GE I also don't think it's any more guaranteed that the Tories lose the election than they lost 1959 after Suez, which is what a lot of people assumed in the lead-up to that election.
An 84’ Election being like 1959 would be a fascinating and fun scenario within itself. But yeah, much like how @Callan had Plus Debris have the Tories have 98 seat Majority I doubt the Falklands going bad would cause the Tories to collapse completely etc.
I'm hugely doubtful about the prospects of electoral reform but you could end up with the Greens and *UKIP as established third parties by the nineties and a more left-leaning economic management than OTL.
Indeed. Part of what I have exploring/explored in For A Friend is due to a Soft Monetarist consensus being prominent amongst the Conservatives and Labour, there’s more discontent on the Left/Right of British politics etc.
 
In a similar vein, I can consider scenarios in which the Argentine ground forces hold out much longer than they did when they came under attack. It's implausible (given comparative levels of training, readiness, and operational doctrines), but one can grant it. It's more implausible to postulate that the Argentine forces win the ground battles. I can dismiss out of hand scenarios which suggest that the Argentine ground forces sweep the British troops aside, board and capture the ships in San Carlos Bay, sail them to the Thames, land and capture the Houses of Parliament.

The key was the landings, I remember you writing, was it not? Have their planes target the boats carrying troops, they have a chance, even if that results in big losses to their airforce, instead of their dogfighting with British cover for the landings, which achieved nothing of strategic value.
 
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