Lists of Heads of Government and Heads of State

[Yokai Man]

Her Aura Smiles and Never Frowns

Leaders/de facto leaders of Bulgaria, 1954 - 2009

1954 - 1983†: General Secretary Todor Zhivkov (Bulgarian Communist Party) (1)

1983 - 2001: General Secretary/First Teacher Lyudmila Zhivkova (Bulgarian Communist Party [1983-1988]; (Neo-) White Brotherhood [1988-2001]) (2)

2001 - 2002: Provisional President Todor Kavaldzhiev (Independent)

2002 - 2006: President George Ganchev (Popular Bloc) (3)

2006 - 2009 (resigned): President Hristo Stoichkov (Bulgaria Can Do More) (4)

(1) Died in office; succeeded by daughter [who died in OTL in 1981].

(2) Despite her eclectic tendencies, Zhivkova remained a fairly loyal Soviet ally until the Eastern Bloc began to collapse. Thereafter, she transformed the regime, taking inspiration from the previously outlawed White Brotherhood spriritualist movement; remnants of Marxist-Leninist thought; and elements of Western New Age ideas. Ruled Bulgaria ruthlessly as a European pariah throughout the 1990s; overthrown after the economy collapsed in 2001.

(3) Established a shaky democracy and stabilized the economy, but never overcame substantiated rumors of links to Todor and Lyudmila's secret services while living abroad. Defeated in the 2006 election.

(4) Footballer hero of Bulgaria's second-place finish at the 1998 World Cup in Czechoslovakia (Zhivkova had invested heavily in the national side during the 1990s to improve Bulgaria's image); elected promising to "sweep away" the corrupt establishment and Zhivkova's proteges. Resigned after corruption allegations and probable wiretapping of opposition figures, as well as failed negotiations for eventual membership in the European Confederation.

Great list,I remember my mom having all of Aïvanhov’s books and insisting that his teachings are totally compatible with Orthodox Christianity.

Did Zhivkova’s White Brotherhood regime interfere in the Yugoslav conflict in any way?

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

Although the mass suicide of the population of Glastonbury cost the Greens a seat in the following by-election.

bloody hell

This is probably tied with the National Girlfriend Service one for your darkest list.

 

[Southpaw]

Great list,I remember my mom having all of Aïvanhov’s books and insisting that his teachings are totally compatible with Orthodox Christianity.

Did Zhivkova’s White Brotherhood regime interfere in the Yugoslav conflict in any way?

I did have an idea of her intervening in Macedonia to "spread the movement" and this causing her downfall after a Kosovo-like US intervention afterwards, though it's too late to include that now, I think. In this revision, let's imagine that she kept within her borders, but New Age economics simply failed.

Also, in a revision I would leave some time before the beginning of the transition and her declaring herself First Teacher, a la Mussolini waiting a few years after the March on Rome before officially becoming Il Duce. Maybe have her introduce some initial aspects of her ideas while still nominally communist.

 

[Major Crimson]

So, this is fucking stupid but also, I had to expel the brainworm

Up! Up! Up!
How Britain
landed on the
Moon and What We
Did When We Got There​

2040-2050: Arthur Webber (Labour)

In the 2030s it became obvious that the full consequences of global warming were worse than feared. The world's ice sheets were far less stable than predicted. The Greenland ice sheet, which was expected to take 7000 years to fully melt, and the Antarctic ice sheet, expected to last 10,000 years, were both likely going to be gone in a century. The amount of methane secured underneath them had been radically under estimated, and methane release from the dying seas had been ignored entirely. Attempts at geoengineering such as ocean seeding smothered the seas, making the situation worse.

In 2047, the first cyclone season hit Britain. In 2048 temperatures in Cornwall reached 50 C. In 2049, Most of London was underwater for the whole year. By 2050, a radical solution was needed. The US was working on rebuilding its cities in Canada and Antarctica, Russia was attempting to colonise its own formerly frozen north, China and Africa were dedicated to massive geoengineering projects and India was engaged in mass transhumanism. Britain needed to chose a direction.

2050-2065: X Æ A-Xii Musk (Up! Up! Up!)

Up! Up! Up! was a movement dedicated to one simple policy - that Britain could not survive on Earth but could survive in space. X Æ A-Xii purchased their father's old fleet of ten mothballed SpaceX Starship IIs from the Musk Foundation, which had been left unused since the Lunar Gateway Disaster. The fleet was refitted, repaired, and flights to the moon began in 2052.

The first thousand British people on the British lunar colony of Avalon were specialists and scientists but very soon under Earth's extreme weather, 90% of moon mission places were available to the highest bidder, with 2.5% reserved for international colonists. By 2057, a hundred thousand people lived on Avalon and Britain was expanding into new bases - Python, Blackadder, and Sandford. In 2065 Britain built the biggest rocket in the world, capable of carrying 600 passengers in cramped conditions, or 150 in luxury, and the pace of space travel expanded. By 2065, the space population had reached a million.

X Æ A-Xii had very few domestic policies - the incorporation of Gibraltar as a constituency and turning it into a launch station, hiring refugees from London, Lincolnshire, etc into the space fleet. Devon Laing, X Æ A-Xii's enterprising Chancellor, realised that the government could purchase the houses of people who were selling up to go to the moon and repurpose them to be be sold off to the poorer people left behind. This raised the house prices of remaining properties and helped the government turn a profit both by keeping the cost of space travel high and the cost of property stable.

The other major decision was to allow space colonists to vote in UK Earth based constituencies. This was practical - MPs couldn't be expected to commute to the Moon, but it also meant that Earth constituencies retained spacefaring populations considered likely to vote for more colonisation.

Tragedy struck in 2059 with the loss of a Generation 2 rocket and 150 wealthy travellers. Thankfully British law prevented the worst of the law suits but from then on space travel prices began to drop to fill the quotas.

2065-2070: Xanthippe Kapur (Labour) coalition with Devon Laing (Up! Up! Up!)

Kapur had grown up wealthy but had joined Labour after the destruction of London, when she went from being a promising researcher at the Adam Smith Institute to a climate refugee living in a camp in Luton. She had a great sympathy for those left behind by the pace missions, but not enough political power to push for earth based solutions. In coalition with Up! Up! Up! she pushed for space travel to be made affordable. New one year intensive degrees allowed people to train in essential colonist skills and buy tickets to the Moon. The wealthy appreciated the influx of new service staff, who provided essential maintenance that was long overdue. So much so that some of the original bases were expanded to include housing for them. In other cases, new cities sprung up.

The Generation 3 Starship was smaller and designed to make multiple, small scale launches with minimal cargo. Gibraltar's population reached half a million, as it grew into Britain's primary launch site. A Mars colony was postponed - the moon was closest and Kapur's goal was exodus, not expansion.

On Earth, the situation continued to worsen. The Storegga slide of 2066 released a megatsunami that devastated Scotland and puch of Britain's east coast. This was a human tragedy, but politically useful. Scotland's Green government had been planning to declare independence - the area being cool enough and high enough up to make survival in underground cities seem reasonable. By 2069 the Scottish parliament was quietly suspended due to bankrupcy and the Scottish Green reincorparted into the national party. Cornwall was deemed uninhabitable without specialist gear and by 2070 three hurricanes were hitting the British coast every year.

2070-2080: Asmodeus Huq-Guinness (Conservative) Coalition with Devon Laing (Up! Up! Up!) and Tobin Pratchett (Labour)

Asmodeus was the first Satanist Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, his family having converted during the New Age Revival of the 2030s. He was elected on a law and order platform that was curiously domestic in its priorities - control crime, stamp out illegal immigration, and bring the refugee camps to heel. These were not goals shared by his coalition partners, but their aims were preferable to the Green Party's goal of ending space flight and dealing with the situation on Earth.

The Interplanetary Constabulary was set up in 2070, and immediately worked on stamping out bootleg missions to the British Lunar Territory from outside of the UK. Meanwhile, the government positively encouraged it from enterprising individuals. This was the era of DIY colonists, when a community might save up, build a rocket, blast off, and probably die in space at some point, but those that survived formed a ring of orbital and lunar micro-colonies that were enterprising and unique in their cultures.

On Earth, millions of refugees were arriving in Britain every day, mostly from Africa and Europe, seeking the relative safety of the British Isles. Many were killed by the plagues or megastorms or the poisonous water but Asmodeus set the Royal Navy to gun down the rest in their boats. The EU mostly approved of this policy, they were retreating to underground and underwater citadels and trying to protect themselves from these same roving bands.

In 2076, Gibraltar was lost to the roving bands of the new Brotherhood of the Two Seas - a pirate republic that had set itself up as rulers of the Saharan and Mediterranean seas. This was a foreign policy disaster for Britain on a par with Suez.

2076-2080: Snowbell Bianco (Conservative) Coalition with Alice Templeton (Up! Up! Up!) and Tobin Pratchett (Labour)

Bianco had been a relatively insignificant figure, the Minister for Geoengineering and Terraforming, but that made her an acceptable choice to take over from a discredited and unpopular government. She pushed for a return to the Mars project, as a minor priority. As she famously said "if we want to leave the Earth, we need to reach for the stars". However, her real priority was mass transit. In 2079 the new Generation 4 starships were built, stealing heavily from the successful bootleg designs. It was the cheapest, most crowded rocket Britain ever built, but it was necessary, at a stage when Britain was starting to ferry its impoverished refugee population into space.

On Earth, Bianco avoided the Brotherhood-EU war by giving both sides rights to refuel at British spaceports and floating launch facilities. She pursued an Atlanticist trade deal, aligning more closely with the US and the new Oceanic Republic of Atlantis than with Europe.

2080-2085: Sebastian Lord (Green)

Finally in 2080, public rage at the Earth being left to die grew too much, and the Green Party was swept into power, mostly from constituencies that were well inland. However, this was a government in a difficult position. In 2080, the UK's space population outnumbered the Earth population for the first time, and the population, even those that had voted Green, didn't want to be left on Earth to die. The Greens invested heavily in Wales and Scotland, where underground arcologies were possible and safe. They even begrudingly got behind the Upload project, that had sent some 7% of the world's population into digital habitats. But the reality was, Earth was dying. The government had been elected on a majority to stop the space race, but never had the political capitol to do more than stop the Mars mission and mothball the most dangerous and old starships. It was now inevitable that Britain's future lay in space.

Domestically, the refugee shootings were stopped, but then, there were very few refugees left. Fifty year old restrictions on doomsday cults were lifted which led to a spate of mass suicides which at this point nobody minded too much. Although the mass suicide of the population of Glastonbury cost the Greens a seat in the following by-election.

2085-2095: Alice Templeton (Up! Up! Up!)

The final prime minister to technically run the country from Earth, Smith recognised that Westminster and Downing Street were no longer "undergoing renovations" and established a new political citadel - "The Flying Circus" in Python.

Space flights, which had never really abated under the Greens, were now accellerated. Project Dunkirk was launched in 2092, calling for every launch capable vessel on the Moon to be made available for a massive effort of refugee pick up and transit. On the other end... chaos. Leaky bases with no technology and little technical expertise. Some of which survived, but many failed. But people still went. By 2095, the population of terrestrial British population had been reduced to just 5% of the UK's whole.

2095-2114: Ruby Choudhury (LabourTory Coalition for Change 2100)

The unlikely coalition of the two ostensible parties of government was enough to oust both the exhausted UUU and the politically bereft Greens, and gave Choudhury a majority sufficient to re-form the UK. In 2097, clearance of the bootleg orbital habitats began. These had become the slums of the UK, and their populations were aimed mostly at the new Martian habitats, where Britain aimed to establish a presence on the new frontier. Many of the settlements were useful, however, and were constructed into what became known as the NHS - the National Hellfire Service - an array of lasers aimed at protecting the geographically fracturing British Isles from attack or colonisation.

The small terrestrial British population - just two million people - lived in caves and bunkers and a few big underground cities and presided over a nature reserve of swamps and bleak hillsides inhabited mostly by mosquitos, fungus and algal blooms.

The 2101 Great Reform Act established the new form of the British constitution, Voluntary FPTP. Every citizen got to choose which constituency they lived in from a list of those available on their planet and a recall vote could be called if ever an MP lost their majority in terms of number of pledged votes. This evened out to PR without general elections, which were seen as an unnecessary festival of democracy.

By 2114, the terrestrial UK was covered by the Welsh Constituencies, Scotland had Mars, former English constituencies covered the Moon and the eight Gibraltan constituencies were re-established to cover the Asteroids and beyond. The UK was one of the premier space powers, second only to the USA, India, and China in terms of capability, and only rivalled by the United Federation of Planets in terms of population.

Webber is a good choice for future Lab leader. Always odd to see people from "real life" on lists though.

 

[Sideways]

Webber is a good choice for future Lab leader. Always odd to see people from "real life" on lists though.

He's been in three or four lists. Though it feels like more somehow. Weirdly, often in the late 2050s. He's one of those candidates for "last non-fictional prime minister" - someone young enough to put late in a list but also prominent.

I remember a parody news thing on the other place called "America celebrates its first fictional president - after running out of youth activists and elderly child stars, the writer of our timeline finally included a fictional character in highest office"

 

[Charles EP M.]

I Brought The Wrong Deck

1979 - 1990: Ronald Reagan (Conservative)

The doldrums of the 70s - the inflation, the shortages, the instability, the Winter of Discontent - caused the Tories to panic and gamble everything on Reagan, a naturalised immigrant and former actor. He'd had a long career playing his countrymen in TV and film, and was able to bring a sense of glamour and showmanship to his role, as well as an (admittedly fading) star power that Callaghan lacked. Paradoxically he could also promise 'folksy' good ol' fashioned values and church-going sanity, and further promised that if the UK was going to be in Europe, by god it would be a major player in it.

Reagan's government proved to be harder right than he'd promised and harder right than his cultivated persona implied: mass privatisations, anti-union legislation, military spending, a push for 'decency' against the wrong cultural forces. He would be a figure of hate for the British left, especially when AIDS began to ravage the country; he'd also be noted as managing to anger everyone in Northern Ireland, as his familiar links to Ireland left him unsympathetic to the unionists but he also wouldn't tolerate any "guff" from the republicans. Domestically, even his supporters revolted when he started making free-market reforms to the NHS (unable to fully privatise), a "step too far" VS when he cracked down on 'homosexual indoctrination' in councils like the GLC. Despite this, he succeeded in his main aims of boosting the economy (though not for everyone) and leaving Britain the moneybags of Europe; and in making Britain a hawkish power against the USSR and certain Middle Eastern regimes.

This last part did not endear him to several European leaders, nor (ironically) the American Presidents, as Reagan seemed to have forgotten Britain didn't have the same unilateral power as the States and other countries had to smooth things over. The RAF bombing of Libya particularly shocked the world, followed by a British-backed regime change in the commonwealth nation of Granada, "our back garden": acts that caused a headache for everyone else.

It's strongly believed that his Chancellor and close friend Margaret Thatcher was the 'real' Prime Minister for the last two years of his reign, as early Alzheimer's caught up with him. Certainly, Thatcher tried to become leader after Reagan was gently convinced to retire by the party.


1990 - 1997: George Bush Junior (Conservative)

The son of an American WW2 pilot and oil businessman who'd married a British woman, Bush was an Etonian and an Oxford man and had the accent to match - Labour and satirists both tried to present him as an out-of-touch snob. "What will the Tories do for the working class men of Brixton?" as one GLC member said. He also irked a lot of voters when he decided during the Gulf War to remove Saddam, something the Americans had initially not wanted to do but he'd talked them into it. Now, in the run up to the election, British troops were stationed overseas as peacekeepers. "Tories kept Saddam there and not they've put our boys there!" Bush seemed set to be a brief Prime Minister.

But people ignored that while he was known to be a bit lazy on the details, he was a canny and ruthless man when it came to getting power, and was good at targeting his sort of voters - that's how he'd beaten Thatcher to the post. He narrowly beat Kinnock's Labour in '92, which was so close to losing to a Lib-Lab coalition that there'll be forever conspiracy theories.

Bush wanted to focus on the economy and with a series of heavy anti-terror measures to finally end the Troubles - airport checks between NI and GB became infamously draconian. The economy, in the end, sunk him on Black Wednesday. Britain was thrown into recession, a particularly heavy one. After that, it was clear Bush was just running the clock down before Labour got in.


1997 - 2007: Will Blythe (Labour)

Comedians made a big deal out of three Prime Ministers having links to America - "special relationship" jokes abounded.

Blythe's family were poor and have moved to Britain in dubious circumstances, only for his father to end up dead. The young Blythe was a tearaway kid on the streets of Newcastle before knuckling down to go to university and study law; he would end up winning a Master's place at Oxford (not long after Bush had graduated), only to drop out and get involved in Liverpool's Labour politics. When Kinnock went to war with Militant, Blythe was one of his allies and rocketed up in the party as a result.

He'd been a controversial Labour leader, with his talk of a New Labour, but he was a working-class-northern-boy-made-good fighting the posh guy who'd wrecked everyone's jobs, and to his own surprise had a stonking majority. Social reforms (in particularly on gay rights), a revived NHS, and a government focus on building the e-economy were his bigger domestic achievements, though the biggest was the Northern Irish peace process finally getting started and resulting in the Good Friday Agreement. He also integrated Britain more into the EU, being big on free trade, and controversially brought out a referendum on adopting the euro (it failed).

Having lost two elections to Blythe and worried about his stance with Europe, the Conservatives focused more and more on his personal life, alleged business deals, and marriage, as well as any other 'indiscretion' they could find from Labour: the idea was to paint a picture of sleaze, to disgust the public into voting against him. It failed in 2005 but cut Labour's majority considerably. Over the next few years, it seemed clear the sleaze label was sticking too much to Labour and change was needed.


2007 - 2010: Barack Obama (Labour)

Obama was well-known in London as first a lawyer and then a GLC figure before becoming an MP in Blythe's second term. As with Bush, he was relatively young for a Prime Minister; like Blythe, he could claim to be one of the regular people dun good; unlike them, he was the son of a Kenyan immigrant and had a very un-English name. Ever since he won the 2007 Labour contest (beating David Miliband), people have wondered if he could've won an early snap election too. Obama likely planned to do one, except the economy had dipped again and his first was a raft of spending & plans to get jobs back up.

When he took office, he was 'the future'. However, Labour's government was from the past. After staving off recession, Obama tried to pass major NHS reform and only just got it through parliament as part of his own party felt it went too far. He'd inherited a slim majority and a lot of cliques, and the Labour right seriously had it in for him - every new law he passed was a vicious brawl. While the man remained popular, the perception grew that the party was dysfunctional and change was needed. Talk also began of "left behind" areas, with the idea Obama was a 'cosmopolitan elite' that didn't care, that he was too close to the European nations, and some particularly blunt people made it clear a black PM gave them the shits. For all these reasons, Labour would lose in 2010.

 

[Qaz_plm]

@Charles EP M. your creativity is unrivaled

 

[Bolt451]

He's been in three or four lists. Though it feels like more somehow. Weirdly, often in the late 2050s. He's one of those candidates for "last non-fictional prime minister" - someone young enough to put late in a list but also prominent.

I remember a parody news thing on the other place called "America celebrates its first fictional president - after running out of youth activists and elderly child stars, the writer of our timeline finally included a fictional character in highest office"

Without just going for heads of youth wings like I often do

 

[Wolfram]

2001-2005: George W. Bush (Republican-Texas)

'00 (with Dick Cheney) def. Al Gore (Democratic-Tennessee)​

2005-2009: John Kitzhaber (Democratic-Oregon)

'04 (with Ann Richards) def. George W. Bush (Republican-Texas)​

2009-2013: George W. Bush (Republican-Texas)

'08 (with Michael Steele) def. John Kitzhaber (Democratic-Oregon)​

2013-: John Kitzhaber (Democratic-Oregon)

'12 (with Jennifer Granholm) def. Rick Santorum (Republican-Pennsylvania)​

Suppose you're a Democratic primary voter in the spring of 2004. The President is in bed with corrupt energy executives at Enron and a million other places. His buddies at Halliburton and Lockheed are pushing for pointless wars of choice in Sudan and China and what feels like a million other places. His friends in Congress want to ban abortion and the teaching of evolution. What's worst, he got caught with his pants down on SARS, and thousands of Americans died because he couldn't get his shit together quickly enough. Under the circumstances, there are a dozen placid tribunes of staying the course of Clintonism, and one prickly guy who seems as angry as you are, who's willing to talk about unrealistic expectations on the left and the failures of the Democratic mainstream, who has eight years of experience as Governor and a solid record on healthcare and the environment. You're voting for Kitzhaber. Don't tell me you're not.

But Kitzie's tenure wasn't all sunshine and roses. He may have won the nomination and then the Presidency, but on the way there he ticked off half the Democratic caucus, and when he started trying to govern he pissed off the other half, the old ER doctor who saw himself as practically the Democratic Party's messiah and saw every political decision as a choice that he himself had to make, decisively, and everyone else had to fall in line with. On domestic policy, this had mixed results; his financial and environmental regulations are generally more popular now than they were at the time, but 'Medicare cost control' came at the cost of a lot of vital procedures and quality issues, his micromanagement of the response to Hurricane Harvey is not well-remembered by Jacksonvillites, and his Supreme Court nominees were viewed as more explicitly politicized than anyone this side of Robert Bork. On foreign policy, he almost single-handedly destroyed the Democratic Party's international reputation through his pissing matches with Russia and Iran, not to mention his insistence that the Global South would have to crack down on growth for greenhouse gas emissions to stop.

Under the circumstances, it seemed like a natural choice to bring back a more collegial figure, even if he was kind of a dunce. George Bush's second term is no less controversial than his first. On the one hand, he held back the culture warriors of his own party (even passing National Civil Partnerships to cut the Gordian knot on gay rights, as well as the Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment), repaired America's international standing, and seemed genuinely concerned with maintaining the quality and scale of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. On the other hand, when the housing market went sideways over the winter of '09 and '10, Bush's response was compassionate in style but widely viewed as lackluster, even Hooveresque, a charge not helped by his championing of the Global Common Market that many viewed as a smokescreen for offshoring.

The lesson was learned. America needed a fighter...

 

[Time Enough]

Tess King-’Moment’-ham: Or Here’s How The Left Could Win!

1991-1995: Neil Kinnock (Labour)
1991 (Majority) def: John Major (Conservative), Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrats)
1995-2004: Michael Portillo (Conservative)
1995 (Majority) def: Neil Kinnock (Labour), Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrats), James Goldsmith (Referendum)
1999 (Majority) def: Ann Clwyd (Labour), Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrats)
2004-2009: Alan Milburn (Labour)
2004 (Majority) def: Michael Portillo (Conservative), Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrats)
2009-2016: Tim Collins (Conservative)
2009 (Majority) def: Alan Milburn (Labour), Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrats), Nigel Farage (UKIP), Ron Davies (Forward Alliance!)
2013 (Majority) def: Siôn Simon (Labour), John Leech (Liberal Democrats), Nigel Farage (UKIP)
2016-2018: David Davis (Conservative With UKIP Confidence & Supply)
Brexit Referndum: Stay 54%, Leave 46%
2018-: Tess Kingham (Labour)
2018 (Majority) def: David Davis (Conservative), John Leech (Liberal Democrats), Steven Woolfe (Renew!)

 

[Uhura's Mazda]

List of Prime Ministers of New Zealand
1912-1915: William Massey (Reform minority)
1915: William Massey (Reform-Liberal coalition)
1914 def: Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal), Alfred Hindmarsh (Labour), Paddy Webb (Socialist)
1915-1919: William Massey (War Government: Reform-Liberal)
1919: William Massey (Reform-Liberal coalition)
1919-1922: Gen. Andrew Hamilton Russell (Reform-Progressive coalition)
1919 def: William Massey (Reform), Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal), James McCombs (Labour), Harry Holland (Socialist), Andrew Walker (Moderate)
1922-1925: Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal-Reform-Progressive coalition)
1922 def: Francis Dillon Bell (Reform), Peter Fraser (Communist), Gen. Andrew Hamilton Russell (Progressive), James McCombs (Labour)
1925-1926: Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal-Reform-Progressive-Country coalition)
1925 def: Heaton Rhodes (Reform), Peter Fraser (Communist), James McCombs (Labour), Charles Wilkinson (Progressive), Alexander Ross (Country), Ellen Melville (Women's)
1926-1928: Thomas Wilford (Liberal-Reform-Progressive-Country coalition)
1928-1930: Gordon Coates (Reform-Liberal coalition)
1928 def: Thomas Wilford (Liberal), Peter Fraser (Communist), Rex Mason (Labour), Harry Atmore (New Liberal)
1930-1934: Gordon Coates (Reform-Liberal-Labour coalition)
1931 def: Thomas Wilford (Liberal), Peter Fraser (Communist), Col. Septimus Closey (Nationalist), Rex Mason (Labour), Michael Joseph Savage (Democratic Labour)
1934: Gordon Coates (Reform-Nationalist coalition)
1934-1940: Patrick O'Regan (Popular Front: Communist-Liberal-Labour)
1934 def: Gordon Coates (Reform), Peter Fraser (Communist), Col. Septimus Closey (Nationalist), Michael Joseph Savage (Labour), Walter Nash (Labour Party of New Zealand)
1937 def: Peter Fraser (Communist), George Troup (Reform), Sidney Holland (Nationalist), Michael Joseph Savage (Labour), Alfred Ransom (National Liberal), Walter Nash (Labour Party of New Zealand)
1940-1942: George Forbes (War Government: Reform-Liberal-Labour)
1940 def: Keith Holyoake (Reform), Dan Sullivan (Labour), Peter Fraser (Communist), John Hogan (Nationalist), John A. Lee (Patriotic Socialist)

Prime Minister of the New Zealand Government-in-Exile
1942-1945: Gordon Coates (Independent)

List of Prime Ministers of New Zealand
1945-1946: Lt-Gen. Bernard Freyberg (Government of National Unity: Reform-Liberal-Labour-Communist-Patriotic Socialist)
1946-0000: Peter Fraser (Government of National Reconstruction: Communist-Labour-Radical)
1946 def: Jack Ormond (Reform), Gervan McMillan (Labour), Warren Freer (Radical), Apirana Ngata (Liberal)

When the Reform Party came to power after much parliamentary manoeuvring in 1912, it was scarcely suspected that the supposedly conservative party would achieve so much... reform in so short a time. Before the next election they made the civil service appointments procedures truly non-partisan, they introduced STV for general elections, and they even managed to defuse a couple of potentially hairy labour disputes involving watersiders and gold-miners.

The next two decades were dominated by two tendencies. Firstly, all governments tended to include both the Reform and Liberal parties (plus, often, the Progressives, a faction of Reformers who split off on account of Massey's unaccountable failure to appoint them to Cabinet) and generally continued the liberal policies that the country had become known for: they extended the provision of pensions, established a state-owned shipping corporation, and arranged for wool and dairy to be sold in export markets by state-directed marketing boards. The second tendency was for the Left Opposition parties to spend more time arguing with each other than with the Government. The Labour Party began as the stronger of the two main parties of the left, but suffered splits and lacked imagination in staying ahead of the policies of the Government; the Socialists, emboldened by the success of their negotiations with Massey in 1912-3, grew more interested in electoralism, more popular, and more ideologically united. They joined the Comintern in 1921, at the expense of losing a few moderates, such as the energetic Aucklander M. J. Savage.

By the time the Depression hit, though, both tendencies seemed to be at an end. The Reform-Liberal coalitions had run out of ideas (or at least were reluctant to go any further with Harry Atmore's experimental monetary proposals), while the Communists now towed the 'Third Period' line and held aloof from anything that might conceivably be attractive to the voters. Labour, meanwhile, were co-opted into a grand coalition by Gordon Coates, who won them over simply by reducing a proposed public sector pay cut, promising not to devalue the currency, and kickstarting a public works unemployment relief scheme. Coates' failure to devalue heightened tensions which ultimately led the business community to break with the Government and begin to support a sorry band of right-wing authoritarians led by Colonel Closey.

As the Nationalist Front was characterised by the Communists as a fascist party, their Comintern-directed response was to attempt to head it off by descending from their ivory tower and engaging in a Popular Front with progressive forces. The proposal produced tensions in both the Liberals and Labour, which were divided on the prospect, but when the centre-left faction of the Liberals gained the ascendancy and joined the Popular Front in return for the Premiership, the majority of the Labour Party could hardly stay out for long. Both parties left the Government in 1934, forcing Coates to seek an accommodation with the Nationalists - a combination which allowed him to immediately devalue. This, ironically, made it possible for the next government to oversee economic recovery.

Despite being the first time a Communist Party had shared in the governance of an Anglosphere country, New Zealanders often have to remind foreigners on Alternate History forums that it wasn't actually all that left-wing. The social security system instituted by Labour's M. J. Savage was not as generous as promised, and was overtaken by that of the UK in the late 1940s. The new land value tax was not as equitable as it first appeared. In Government, the Communist Ministers seemed to spend all their time arguing moderation in order to keep the Liberals on board, while the Liberals, in fact, were often not bothered by whatever happened to be on the table. The most unique concept of the Popular Front government, in fact, was their willingness to nationalise credit - a decision which obviated the need to seek overseas loans which would not have been forthcoming from the anti-Communist London money market anyway.

All was going fairly well, bar the odd conservative plot, until 1940, when the Communists withdrew in opposition to the Second World War (which Comintern had told them was one to stay out of) and a new War Government came to power. By the time the Communists had finally decided that Fascism was, after all, a threat (roughly around the time the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union) it was too late. The Japanese were already on the verge of landing on Muriwai Beach.

Gordon Coates re-entered the political scene at this point: the High Commissioner to London was the obvious stand-in to lead a Government in Exile, and strenuously argued for an Allied campaign to recapture New Zealand. This was not achieved until 1945, when the Americans and British launched an amphibious attack as part of the sweeping-up operation. General Freyberg of the Expeditionary Force, as the man on the spot, was put in charge of a Government including all pre-War non-Fascist parties in equal proportions. But times had changed at home: the Communist Party had been the backbone of the Resistance, and now became by far the largest party in electoral terms - they took power with Labour and with a new party of young social democrats who had had their political awakening in the Resistance. Soon, though, the salami tactics dictated by Stalin were to put paid to Peter Fraser's partners and dupes, and set in train four decades of Communist rule.

 

[Nyvis]

Despite being the first time a Communist Party had shared in the governance of an Anglosphere country, New Zealanders often have to remind foreigners on Alternate History forums that it wasn't actually all that left-wing. The social security system instituted by Labour's M. J. Savage was not as generous as promised, and was overtaken by that of the UK in the late 1940s. The new land value tax was not as equitable as it first appeared. In Government, the Communist Ministers seemed to spend all their time arguing moderation in order to keep the Liberals on board, while the Liberals, in fact, were often not bothered by whatever happened to be on the table. The most unique concept of the Popular Front government, in fact, was their willingness to nationalise credit - a decision which obviated the need to seek overseas loans which would not have been forthcoming from the anti-Communist London money market anyway.

Ah, popular fronts, wild beasts.

On the other hand nationalizing finance is halfway to socialism so, nice work?

All was going fairly well, bar the odd conservative plot, until 1940, when the Communists withdrew in opposition to the Second World War (which Comintern had told them was one to stay out of) and a new War Government came to power. By the time the Communists had finally decided that Fascism was, after all, a threat (roughly around the time the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union) it was too late. The Japanese were already on the verge of landing on Muriwai Beach.

Less great, thanks for nothing Stalin.

Gordon Coates re-entered the political scene at this point: the High Commissioner to London was the obvious stand-in to lead a Government in Exile, and strenuously argued for an Allied campaign to recapture New Zealand. This was not achieved until 1945, when the Americans and British launched an amphibious attack as part of the sweeping-up operation. General Freyberg of the Expeditionary Force, as the man on the spot, was put in charge of a Government including all pre-War non-Fascist parties in equal proportions. But times had changed at home: the Communist Party had been the backbone of the Resistance, and now became by far the largest party in electoral terms - they took power with Labour and with a new party of young social democrats who had had their political awakening in the Resistance. Soon, though, the salami tactics dictated by Stalin were to put paid to Peter Fraser's partners and dupes, and set in train four decades of Communist rule.

Interesting, resistance as the path to power for communists make total sense. France came pretty close and largely didn't get there because they couldn't figure out campaigning together with the socialists. If they manage to keep the alliance together, that should work.

I like this, even if I know very little about the individual figures, nice work!

 

[theev]

Got an idea talking to @Oppo

The Marilyn Baby

1961 - 1966: John F. Kennedy / Lyndon B. Johnson (Democratic)
1960 def. Richard Nixon / Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (Republican), various unpledged southern electors
1964 def. Barry Goldwater / Gerald Ford (Republican)
1966 - 1969: Lyndon B. Johnson / vacant (Democratic)
1969 - 1971: Lyndon B. Johnson / Daniel Inouye (Democratic)
1968 def. Ronald Reagan / Charles Percy (Republican), George Wallace / Marvin Griffin (Dixiecrat)
1971 - 1973: Daniel Inouye / vacant (Democratic)
1973 - 1981: Bo Callaway / Paul Laxalt (Republican)
1972 def. Robert F. Kennedy / Walter Reuther (Democratic), John Lindsay / Ed Brooke (Independent)
1976 def. Mo Udall / Terry Sanford (Democratic)
1981 - 1985: Henry M. Jackson / Birch Bayh (Democratic)
1980 def. Paul Laxalt / Buddy Cianci (Republican), Eugene McCarthy / Ed Clark (Libertarian)
1984 def. Donald Rumsfeld / Floyd Spence (Republican)
1985 - 1985: Birch Bayh / vacant (Democratic)
1985 - 1993: Birch Bayh / Tom Bradley (Democratic)
1988 def. Bob Dole / Carroll Campbell (Republican)
1993 - 2001: Carroll Campbell / Dick Cheney (Republican)
1992 def. Tom Bradley / Tom Turnipseed (Democratic), John Silber / Alan K. Simpson (Common Sense)
1996 def. Skip Humphrey / Dick Gephardt (Democratic), Dick Lamm / Joe Kennedy II (Common Sense)
2001 - 2009: Orrin Hatch / Ron Lauder (Republican)
2000 def. Ann Richards / Jerrold Nadler (Democratic), Donald Trump / Jack Welch (Common Sense)
2004 def. Tom Daschle / Steve Grossman (Democratic)
2009 - 0000: Jack Mortensen / Kathleen Brown (Democratic)
2008 def. Ron Lauder / Woody Jenkins (Republican)

Excerpts from 'Timeline of the Kennedy Family' (politipedia.co.us), 2008

1962: John Joseph 'Jack' Mortensen is born to Marilyn Monroe. Tabloid rumors flew around the child since he was born but in 1983 his father would be confirmed as John F. Kennedy.

1963: First Lady Jaqueline Kennedy is assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in an attempt ostensibly aimed at President John F. Kennedy. Oswald would quickly be killed by Jack Ruby as revenge for slaying the First Lady. Conspiracy theories regarding Jackie Kennedy's assassination are very popular among the American public (see 'Jackie Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories' for more).

1964: Then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy allegedly wires hush money to Marilyn Monroe in an attempt to pre-emptively prevent her from leaking Jack Mortensen's paternity to the press in the midst of an election season.

1966: In poor spirits since the death of his wife and poor health since his re-election, President John F. Kennedy dies after a several-week long severe bout of poor health (see 'John F. Kennedy death' for more).

1967: Marilyn Monroe dies of an apparent drug overdoes (see 'Marilyn Monroe death conspiracy theories' for more). Jack Mortensen is left in the care of Monroe's half-sister Berniece Baker Miracle.

1967: President Lyndon Johnson allegedly blackmails then former Secretary of Defense Robert F. Kennedy with information regarding 'The Marilyn Baby' in an effort to prevent a primary challenge in the following year's presidential election.

1972: Former Secretary of Defense Robert F. Kennedy defeats incumbent President Daniel Inouye to win the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination. Kennedy's victory has been partially regarded as a by product of sexual assault allegations produced against President Inouye in the spring of 1972.

1972: Former Secretary of Defense Robert F. Kennedy loses the 1972 Presidential Election to former Georgia Governor Bo Callaway. Many attribute Kennedy's loss to his about-face on the Vietnam War and the Callaway campaign's weaponization of rumors surrounding his brother's administration.

1981: Robert F. Kennedy is appointed Secretary of Peace by President Henry M. Jackson.

1983: Secretary of Peace Robert F. Kennedy resigns for 'personal reasons' that many believe are related to the revelation that his brother fathered a child out of wedlock.

1986: After a decade playing various bit parts and supporting roles, Jack Mortensen plays his first leading role as fighter pilot Pete Mitchell in John Carpenter's Top Gun.

1988: Robert F. Kennedy stars in a Domino's Pizza commercial alongside Domino's mascot 'The Noid.' The commercial portrays a young pizza delivery driver rushing to outrun the Noid and deliver a pizza to a 'special customer' who is revealed at the end of the ad to be Robert F. Kennedy.

1989: Kenneth Lamar Noid assassinates Robert F. Kennedy outside his home in New York City over Kennedy's commercial relation the Domino's mascot 'The Noid' which Noid had falsely believed the ad campaign was a personal attack against himself.

1989: John F. Kennedy Jr. is assassinated in broad daylight in New York City on the orders of Griselda Blanco.

1989: Jack Mortensen acts across Willem Defoe's joker to portray Batman in the first of three Tim Burton movies based on the Batman franchise.

1994: Former Solicitor General Bill Weld defeats long-time Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy for his seat in the Senate.

1999: Jack Mortensen lands an academy award nomination for his role as Captain Leo Davidson in James Cameron's Planet of the Apes.

1999: Following a verbal altercation with David Lynch over Lynch's portrayal of his parents in the movie Venus Descending Jack Mortensen decides to quit acting for an undetermined period of time.

2001: Jack Mortensen announces his intention to challenge Republican California Governor Sonny Bono in the following year's gubernatorial election.

2002: Jack Mortensen defeats incumbent Sonny Bono by a fairly large margin to become the next Governor of California.

2006: Jack Mortensen is re-elected as Governor of California, defeating conservative radio host Dennis Prager.

2007: Jack Mortensen launches his presidential campaign and immediately becomes a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.

 

[Turquoise Blue]

The National Fiction

Kings and Queens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1837-1947)
Victoria (Hanover) 1837-1901
Edward VII (Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) 1901-1910
George V (Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) 1910-1936
Edward VIII (Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) 1936-1943*
George VI (Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) 1943-1952 [-1947]
Elizabeth II (Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) 1952-present [never reigned]

Today, plates are laid out in Buckingham Palace for meals that will never be. Ceremonies are held every once in a while to announce the "arrival" of a monarch to their new palace, when nobody came. The nation sings God save the Queen, but the truth was that God did not save her.

Every day, the United Kingdom of Great Britain tries to deny what happened. It pretends that the Royal Family were never executed by Americans in a misguided nationalistic zeal against the "heirs of George the Tyrant". The brief republic, like the first one was in all but name, erased out of history.

To admit that the Royal Family is dead is to admit that the country failed, utterly. Hence this ghoulish fantasy is continued, that the Royal Family are still alive. The Royal Family unites the nation, unites Britain. They must do. Because the alternative is too horrifying to admit.

The Regent attends all important ceremonies, videos are faked, and there has been consultations with the Japanese about possibly "helping" the Royal Family appear to the people, with the first virtual presence of the Queen planned for the 2022 State Opening of Parliament.

The Queen is planned to 'pass away' on her 120th birthday, and her heir, named George after his grandfather, will take over as Britain's first completely fictional monarch. Many 'quirks' were developed for "George" to sell him as human, and he has a perfectly happy (but not too happy) family including two children which each has their own children. The heir to "George" is "Edward" who is hoped to take over as Edward IX after George VII 'passes away'.

The Royal Family has never died. They live on. Britain endures. It has to.

 

[Time Enough]

1999: Following a verbal altercation with David Lynch over Lynch's portrayal of his parents in the movie Venus Descending Jack Mortensen decides to quit acting for an undetermined period of time.

Surprised it didn’t lead David Lynch to be the Libertarian-Common Sense candidate for 2008. Also, love this.

 

[Edmund]

Jerusalem

1997-2003: Tony Blair (Labour)
1997 (Majority) def. John Major (Conservative), Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrat)
1997 Scottish devolution referendum (Parliament): 76% YES, 24% NO
1997 Scottish devolution referendum (Taxation): 64% YES, 36% NO
1997 Welsh devolution referendum: 51% YES, 49% NO
2001 (Majority) def. John Redwood (Conservative), Charles Kennedy (Liberal Democrat), Alex Salmond (SNP)
2003-2004: Robin Cook (Labour)
2004 Scottish independence referendum: 51% YES, 49% NO
2004-2005: Jack Straw (Labour)
2005-2012: John Redwood (Conservative)
2005 (Majority) def. Jack Straw (Labour), Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat)
2009 (Majority) def. Charles Clarke (Labour), Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat)
2012-2014: Robin Tilbrook (Conservative)
2014-2017: John Denham (Labour)
2014 (Majority) def. Robin Tilbrook (Conservative), Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat)
2017-2022: Shabana Mahmood (Labour)
2018 (Majority) def. Paul Nuttall (Conservative), David Wildgoose (Liberal Democrat)
2022 (Majority) def. Paul Nuttall (Conservative), David Wildgoose (Liberal Democrat)

 

[Time Enough]

1970-1978: Ted Heath (Conservative)
1970 (Majority) def: Harold Wilson (Labour), Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal)
1974 (Majority) def: Harold Wilson (Labour), Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal)
1978-1985: Peter Shore (Labour)
1978 (Majority) def: Ted Heath (Conservative), John Pardoe (Liberal)
1982 (Majority) def: John Biffen (Conservative), Claire Brooks (Liberal)
1985-1991: Bryan Gould (Labour)
1986 (Majority) def: Timothy Riason (Conservative), Claire Brooks (Liberal), Jim Sillars (SNP)
1988 EC Referendum: Leave 43%, Stay 57%
1991-: Gloria Hooper (Conservative)
1991 (Majority) def: Bryan Gould (Labour), David Penhaligon (Liberal), Jim Sillars (SNP)
1993 Welsh Devolution Referendum : Devo 52%, Stay 48%
1993 Scottish Devolution Referendum: Devo 67%, Stay 33%
1994 Yorkshire Devolution Referendum : Devo 57%, Stay 43%
1995 (Majority) def: Derek Fatchett (Labour), David Penhaligon-Peg Alexander (Alliance), Margaret Ewing (SNP), ‘Lol’ Duffy-Valerie Wise (Socialist Labour)

Heathie boy gets his Majority, he smashes the Miners and turns Britain into something resembling a European Social Market system as he ensured that Britain becomes more and more integrated within the European Community. Of course Heath eventually crashes as Britain is hit by a pretty nasty recession. The Tories collapse and someone who is the complete polar opposite of Heath’s Government; a firm Keynesian, supporter of Trade Unions and a Eurosceptic is swept into office on a tide of Left Wing Populist Nationalism.

Shore for the most parts doesn’t change the Social Market system established by Heath, with his Chancellor deciding to just make it more Socialist instead. Trade Unions return from the brink, a national investment bank is created and Councils get more power. But the eternal question of Europe hangs over Shore and his attempts to deal with it are quashed by an increasingly Pro-European Cabinet.

Shore bows out in 85’ and Gould takes over with a reduced majority as the Liberals and SNP finally get a footing. Gould uses his position to bring about more radical change, due to not being weighed down by a small c conservatism of Shore. Local Government gets to Municipalise Services, the beginnings of the new ‘Internet Socialism’ plan takes off and increased rights for minorities are the major elements of Gould's vision. Gould’s plans are sullied by a worldwide recession which whilst Britain wasn’t hit badly by (thanks to new controls on the stock markets and banks) Britain did certainly feel.

Gould’s attempt to pin the blame on Europe and use it as an excuse to get out of the EC goes poorly, as a reformed Conservative party, Liberals and even fellow Labour MPs join the ‘Stay’ Campaign. The referendum fails and Gould spends the next three years trying to do as much as in can within EC rules. When 1991 comes many expect a Conservative Minority Government, Gould and his Reforms are popular and it seems that the Tories relatively fresh faced leader (having taken over after Aitken’s Fraud scandal) would have an uphill battle ahead of her.

But Hooper gains a majority of fourty on a message of One Nation, Pro-European Toryism as the message cuts through a population tired of Labour Governments. Hooper’s tenure is about turning Britain into European Federalised State. Devolution spreads across the nation, Britain joins the ERM (carefully, despite John Major’s protests about it’s potential) and a sense of Pan European Brotherhood effects all the major British parties. 1995 see’s Hooper’s Majority increase to about 60 seats as Labour collapses into infighting.

It’s 1997 and Hooper is proud of her accomplishments and is prepared for the final step, joining the single European Currency, the natural conclusion of the plans started by Heath all those years ago. But there’s a force bubbling in Europe, voices from the Right and Left united in one aim, to get Britain out of Europe.

The Reform Party has emerged as the vessel for this idea and it’s gained a spokesperson in the form of a former Labour Minister now turned TV host, David Owen who plans to take the country via storm...

 

[Oppo]

the beginnings of the new ‘Internet Socialism’ plan takes off

The new millennium we were denied

 

[Time Enough]

The new millennium we were denied

It says a lot that the 2019 Manifesto nicked a lot of Gould’s ‘Internet Market Socialism’ ideas but without any of the cool stuff like mass Cooperatives or Trade Union ran banks.

 

[Wolfram]

1988: Robert F. Kennedy stars in a Domino's Pizza commercial alongside Domino's mascot 'The Noid.' The commercial portrays a young pizza delivery driver rushing to outrun the Noid and deliver a pizza to a 'special customer' who is revealed at the end of the ad to be Robert F. Kennedy.

1989: Kenneth Lamar Noid assassinates Robert F. Kennedy outside his home in New York City over Kennedy's commercial relation the Domino's mascot 'The Noid' which Noid had falsely believed the ad campaign was a personal attack against himself.

This sure is something.