Filled in some blanks and also wrote how I thought things would look by Season 4
SPOILERS FOR SEASONS 1-3 of For All Mankind
For All Mankind (Bolt's Version)
1969-1973- Richard Nixon/ Spiro Agnew (Republican)
Def 1968- Hubert Humphrey/Edmund Muskie (Democrat) 1973-1977-Ted Kennedy/Frank Church (Democrat)
Def 1972-Richard Nixon/Spiro Agnew 1977-1985-Ronald Reagan/George HW Bush (Republican)
Def-1976- Ted Kennedy/Frank Church (Democrat)
Def 1980- John Glenn/Barbara Jordan (Democrat) 1985-1992-Gary Hart/Bill Clinton (Democrat)
Def 1984- George HW Bush/Jack Schmitt (Republican)
Def 1988- Bob Dole/John McCain (Republican) 1993-1995-Ellen Wilson*/Jim Bragg* (Republican)
Def 1992-Bill Clinton/Al Gore(Democrat)
1995-1996- Jim Bragg*/Vacant 1996-1997: Jim Bragg*/Nancy Johnson (Republican)
1997-2001: Jim Bragg*/Ann Richards (Republican/Democrat)
Bill Clinton/Ann Richards (Democrat) def Jim Bragg/Nancy Johnson (Republican) Jerry Brown/Dick Lamm (Reform) 2001-Present:Howard Dean/Ann Richards (Democrat)
Def 2001: Pat Buchanan/Jack Kemp (Republican) Ralph Nader/Winona LaDuke (Reform)
"... I'm sure there are some disappointed people here. You know what? You know something? You know something? If you had told us after the JSC Bombings that we'd be going back to Mars in even greater numbers? people would give anything for that.
And you know something? You know something?
Not only are we going back to Mars ... we're going to go to Venus! The Asteroids! and the Moons of Jupiter! and The Rings of Saturn and the outer gas giants! , and we're going to Alpha Centauri! and Sirius! But First then we're going to Washington, D.C. To take back the White House. Yeah!
This was my entry for last month's HoS list challenge! This month's challenge is still ongoing, there's a week and a bit left to get your entries in, the theme is WW1, and the link is in my sig, and we've got 2 entrants so far so it's really anyone's game.
1939-1940: Neville Chamberlain (Conservativeleading War Government) June, 1940: No-confidence vote called over destruction of British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk. Chamberlain resigns.
1940-1941: E. F. L. Wood (Conservative minority) May, 1941: No-confidence vote called over German invasion of the Soviet Union. Wood is forced to call a snap election.
1941-1948: Stafford Cripps(Ind. Socialist leading War Government) def 1941: (War Government formed)Leo Amery ("Anti-Appeasement" Conservative), E. F. L. Wood (Conservative), Archibald Sinclair (Liberal), Harry Pollitt (CPGB), Archibald Maude Ramsay (Peace)
1948-1950: Stafford Cripps(Ind. Socialist leading Popular Front) def 1948: (Popular Front ofLabour,Radical Action,CPGB,and "Young" Conservatives) Leo Amery &Archibald Sinclair (Constitutionalist Coupon), R. Palme Dutt (Worker's Communist Party), Denis Kendall (Peace)
1950-1953: Tom Driberg(CPGB leading Popular Front) def 1951: (Popular Front ofLabour,CPGB,Radical Action,and Victory) Gwilym Lloyd George (Constitutionalist), Richard Law ("Dissident" Conservative), R. Palme Dutt (WCP)
1953-1960: Oliver Lyttleton (Constitutionalist) def 1953: (Majority)Tom Driberg(CPGB leading Popular Front), Richard Law (Free Democrats)
def 1958: (Majority)Jenny Lee(Labour leading Popular Front), Peter Thorneycroft (Free Democrats)
July, 1960: No-confidence vote called over the government's support of the American response to the Azores Crisis. Lyttleton resigns.
1960-1962: Fitzroy Maclean (Constitutionalist)
1962-1967: Frank Haxell(Ind. Trade Unionist leading Popular Front) def 1962: (Popular Front Majority)Fitzroy Maclean (Constitutionalist), Julian Amery (Free Democrats)
1967-1973: Peter Carington (Constitutionalist) def 1967: (Majority)Frank Haxell(Ind. Trade Unionist leading Popular Front), George Kennedy Young (Free Democrats), Jean McCrindle (Worker Representation Committee)
1973-0000: Reggie Maulding(Victory leading Popular Front) def 1973: (Popular Front Majority)Peter Carington (Constitutionalist), George Kennedy Young (Free Democrats), Frank Crichlow (Worker Representation Committee)
July 1975, Comecon membership referendum: 61.3% YES, 38.7% NO
Britain is, as readers of this column should be well aware by now, a funny country in many ways. Nearly everyone I've met has been extraordinarily friendly to a confused American journalist, and happy to answer any stupid questions, but if you cut in a queue or ask to buy a cigarette at 5:03 when the shop closed at 5 they take it as an attack on their family name. The government hands out amenities like healthcare and gas heating willy-nilly, but it won't let you buy more than six eggs at a time unless you have a doctor's note or criminal connections. Thousands of acres of lovely green lawn and a love for the most confusing and boring bat-and-ball game in existence, and, as Bill Jr never stops griping about, not a single baseball game in site. The oddest thing, though, has to be their political system, which seems a lot like cricket--dull, intricate, and observed outside the UK by a small group of obsessives. At least, it did up until it became our problem.
Regular readers may remember that after the last general election, I made a resolution to myself to learn exactly what British politics was and how it worked, and I figured the best place to start with that was Paul, considering that his job was covering it for the Herald. Unfortunately, I decided to do so as part of a night out over a few beers, and as a result I remember very little about the subject or indeed anything else bar a vague sense of warm contentment and a furious Paul screaming lines of Shelley at a policeman from the gutter. I did try to ring Paul for a refresher, but unfortunately he's in Malta looking at the contracts for a hospital, God only knows why. Luckily, any of you can look elsewhere for an accurate synposis--I'm just here to give the ground's-eye view of what the average Brit thinks joining Comecon means, and why anyone thought it was a good idea in the first place.
From what I recall of Paul's explanation, Richard's attempted explanation from calling him the other day in the middle of a long lunch, and the explanation of a few Wheatsheaf regulars I picked out at random, the British pick their political parties roughly the same way they pick their luxury rations at the supermarket. On one side, you have the government-made goods, which consists of the same thing rebadged five or six times to create the illusion of choice. On the other side, you have privately-made goods that cost more stamps and have fancier packaging but may as well be--in fact, are almost identical to--the government goods. If you get hold of anything else, you're either vaguely bent or a determined teenager making it out of your garage. There are some points where this metaphor falls apart, considering as how record discs can't embezzle money and lump sugar can't try and start nuclear wars, but it basically works for me.
Like everything in Britain, it all goes back to the War, and their refusal to let it end. Cripps and the Popular Front (silly thing to call your political party, really--what happens when you're unpopular?) wanted to fight Germany on the basis of socialist solidarity, and Amery's Constitutionalists (again, no constititution! Really, we should arrange a swap) wanted to fight Germany because they threatened Britain. Since they were leading the war together, they had to agree on the same basic things, and they've kept agreeing ever since. The Pops want huge nationalised industries to keep the working man employed; the Cons want them because it keeps British industry productive in case of threats. The Cons want to shut down pirate stations and unlicensed papers because they spread vice and break down moral fibre; the Pops want to do it because it'll lure people away from the educational, paternalistic, BBC controlled from Whitehall. The Pops saw nothing wrong with joining up with the Soviets when they needed to, and bar a few rumbles in the Fifties, neither do the Cons--they're just worried about pissing us off by doing it.
This last view is especially popular. Everyone I've spoken to about Comecon has thought of it as joining up with "our old friends, the Russkies"--even its opponents are more worried about losing the bits of the rest of the world they have left, or how the Americans will feel about it. (For whatever reason they keep looking at me all concerned at that bit, as if there's some mechanism psychically connecting me to Gallup's office.) It's yet another bloody thing that goes back to the War, when it was just them together holding out against the Axis until Hull hauled us over the Atlantic. The Red Army still get one concert a year at the Albert Hall in their honour, and it was even been graced by Kuznetsov himself at the start of his whistle-stop tour of the capitalist world, which I'm sure he appreciated. For us, the communists are the ultimate boogeyman, reds lurking under beds; over here, the communists are more like a Clint Eastwood character, a bit rough on the surface but ultimately on the sherrif's side against the bandits. There isn't any fear about the new arrangement.
Instead, the main emotion that dominates is apathy. Everyone who campaigned against joining Comecon--right down to Pete W. from the Wheatsheaf, who swore blind to me over drinks that he'd "take to the hills"--seems to have shrugged their shoulders and conceded it as inevitable. Which might be fair enough, if everyone who was for it didn't seem the exact same way. I watched a tape of Healy, the CPGB leader, announcing he'd succeeded in what was basically his party's goal for decades, and he looked and sounded more like he'd found an unexpectedly nice toy in his cereal box. On both sides, there's this sense of dull resignation about the whole thing, which mirrors how most British people think about politics--something far away someone else sorts out without them. Even the people who are angry--the bent shopkeepers and ex-toffs yelling about anti-democratic infiltration, the partying students and druggies yelling about state capitalist oppression--keep saying this was the inevitable result of all the things they don't like about the last thirty years. And really, they're not too far off.
Let's look at what's funny about Britain again. British people make a great virtue of going without, and accepting collective hardship without complaint--even a perverse pride in being able to shut up about it. They calmly accept an economic system where nearly all basic goods are indistinguishable, but cheap and occasionally reliable, and every service takes three times as long as it should. Their political system consists of a cycle of various nakedly corrupt or stern old men, sitting on top of a bureaucracy of faceless men in derby hats who hold all the actual power, all greased by meaningless pomp. The media is regulated to within an inch of its life, and somehow can still make the government the butt of every joke while implying it may as well be the weather for all the viewers can do. Each and every thing on this island--the clothes, the buildings, the food--is grey, mass-production grey, the kind of grey one only gets when no-one complains about lack of colour.
A lot of the rest of this paper has speculated as to why the UK chose to join the Eastern Bloc, but frankly--and I'm saying this with love, and some nostalgia, seeing as how the terms of the Comecon agreement make this one of my last columns--I'm surprised they didn't choose to do so earlier. Really, once you smooth over the symbols on the wall, they seem to have the communist system down much better than the Russians do.
--William E. Bryson has been the Des Moines Register's UK correspondent for the past 10 years. The Missing Isles, a collection of his columns, is due to be published next month.
This was my entry for last month's HoS list challenge! This month's challenge is still ongoing, there's a week and a bit left to get your entries in, the theme is WW1, and the link is in my sig, and we've got 2 entrants so far so it's really anyone's game.
PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES: 36. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (D) - November 22, 1963 - January 20, 1969 '64 def. Barry Goldwater (R), 503-35 EV/ 64.9%-33.9% 37. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey (D) - January 20, 1969 - January 20, 1977 '68 def. Richard Nixon (R), George Wallace (I), 272-176-90 EV/ 40.1%-40.7%-16.9% '72 def. Nelson Rockefeller (R), Curtis LeMay (I), 293-218-24 EV/ 45.8%-44.0%-8.0% 38. Secretary of State Henry S. Jackson (D) - January 20, 1977 - January 20, 1981 '76 def. John Ashbrook (R), (1) 55.8%-39.1% 39. Governor Ronald W. Reagan (R) - January 20, 1981 - January 20, 1985 '80 def. Henry Jackson (D), (1) 48.9%-43.8% (2) 53.8%-46.2% 40. Senator Daniel Inouye (D) - January 20, 1985 - March 29, 1991 '84 def. Ronald Reagan (R), (1) 46.3%-49.5% (2) 50.3%-49.7% '88 def. George H.W. Bush (R), (1) 61.1%-37.5% 41. Vice President Jimmy Carter (D) - March 29, 1991 - January 20, 1993
42. Senator Elizabeth Holtzman (D) - January 20, 1993 - January 20, 2001 '92 def. Bob Dole (R), (1) 51.6%-46.1% '96 def. William Cohen (R), (1) 48.6%-48.2% (2) 50.9%-49.1% 43. Vice President Al Gore (D) - January 20, 2001 - January 20, 2005 '00 def. Pat Buchanan (R), (1) 54.7%-42.1% 44. Senator John McCain (R) - January 20, 2005 - January 20, 2009 '04 def. Al Gore (D), (1) 47.5%-47.7% (2) 51.3%-48.7% 45. Senator Bernie Sanders (D) - January 20, 2009 - January 20, 2017 '08 def. John McCain (R), (1) 50.1%-46.3% '12 def. Paul Ryan (R), (1) 52.8%-44.7% 46. Vice President Barbara Lee (D) - January 20, 2017 - May 26, 2018 '16 def. Mitt Romney (R), (1) 49.1%-48.6% (2) 50.5%-49.5% 47. JCS Chairman Mark Milley (I) - May 26, 2018 - November 1, 2023
48. JCS Chairman Charles Brown (I) - November 1, 2023 - November 1, 2027
50. JCS Chairman Eddie Gallagher (I) - November 1, 2027 - February 17, 2032
Transitional Council - February 17, 2032 - Incumbent
1857-1863: David Rice Atchison (Manifest Destiny) [1]
1863-1869: William M. Gwin (Manifest Destiny) [2]
1863 Def: Henry Wise (Old Republican)
1869-1872: Alexander Stephens (Old Republican)[3] 1869 Def: William Walker (Manifest Destiny)
1872-1873: Robert E. Lee (Independent) [4]
1873-1879: Lucius Lamar II (Old Republican) [5] 1873 Def: Nathaniel Bedford Forrest (Manifest Destiny)
1879-1883: John L. O'Sullivan (Manifest Destiny) [6] 1879 Def: Augustus Garland (Old Republican)
1883-1884: J.E.B Stuart III (Military)[7]
1884-1885: Felix Huston Robertson (Golden Loyalist) [8]
1885-1886: Barzillai J. Chambers (Radical) [9] 1885 Def: Fitzhugh Lee (Old Republican)Felix Robertson (Golden Loyalist)
1886-1893: Wade Hampton III (Golden Loyalist) [10] 1887 Def: William Mahone (Reform)
1893-1895: James Longstreet (Reform) [11] 1893 Def: Jubal Early (Golden Loyalist) A.C Haskell (Old Republican)Jim Kohler (Pan-Texan Alliance)
1895-1897: Disputed [12]
1899: Position Abolished [13]
[1] If you were a child in the UIS, there was one man who stood above the rest of the UIS. David Rice Atchison. Up until the liberation of the South, he was revered as a secular deity. A man on par with George Washington who won against a vastly more industrialized north to win the Union of Independent States's independence. Of course, the reality of this was he was less a benevolent deity but rather a demon from hell. After losing the Election of 1856 to Horace Mann, Atchison seceded much of the South from the United States. Seeking to continue the conquest of Cuba and protect the horrid institution of slavery. As the American Civil War escalated into a worldwide conflict, millions died in America alone. With a total of two million between the UIS and US perishing alone. While another thirteen million Europeans were killed. All to protect the enslavement of millions of people. As President, he tolerated massacres by generals and approved the use of poison gas on American soldiers in St. Louis. Killing thousands. Unfortunately, Atchison got his independence he sought. With President Fernando Wood singing the Treaty of Sao Paulo in 1862 that got the UIS Cuba and much of Kentucky and Tennessee.
[2] William Gwin would succeed President Atchison as President. A staunch imperialist, he promised to build the UIS into a prosperous and "free nation." Advocating for the expansion of slavery into the southern hemisphere. However, with the exhaustion of the populace meant that military expansion was not an option. Instead, he supported Colonel William Walker's invasion of Nicaragua with left over guns and poison gas. With Walker carving out the new colony of Miskito. Furthermore, the British Revolution left a key opportunity in 1868 for the UIS to seize Jamaica, the Bahamas, Belize, and Guyana. Which were renamed to Atchison, Jefferson, and Jubilee respectively. With the expansion of slavery and the re-enslavement of Atchison, the economy started to recover. Especially with the addition of the Cuban sugar and tobacco industries bringing in millions. However, the UIS's filibusters angered both the Republic of Britain and France. With the UIS becoming incredibly unpopular internationally.
[3] Alexander Stephens was elected as the main opponent of the Manifest Destiny Party. A supporter of Jeffersonian principles, Stephens loosened press restrictions and reintroduced habeas corpus. Despite opposition from the Manifest Destiny Party, Stephens opposed filibusters as warmongering and cut all support for them. Furthermore, he opened immigration from countries such as Austria, Hungary, and Britain. Generally, his term is associated with enforcing secularism (mainly as an attack against anti-slavery preachers) and attempted to buy Aleyska from Russia. Which failed miserably when Congress blocked this attempt. Soon after on February 3rd, 1872, he dies in a train accident in Arkansas.
[4] Robert E. Lee, one of the UIS's heroes was elected to serve a year long term as acting President. Doing little of note.
[5] Lucius Lamar II was elected President as a continuation of President Stephens. He was generally aligned with agrarian interests and worked to cut subsidies for industrialization. Viewing it as a threat to the southern way of life and republican values. He would be instrumental in protecting the wilderness of the South and opened the first National Parks in 1876. He'd also attempt to cut the military budget, a decision that was killed off by Congress. At the same time, he attempted to build goodwill with other nations. Sending diplomats to Mexico, France, and Portugal. Even offering to send an expeditionary force to help the French in the Tenth Crusade (which was promptly rejected). Finally, he encouraged migration to Texas and Cimarron Territory.
[6] John O'Sullivan is mostly remembered for his incompetence and setting off the fall of the UIS. Elected on a platform of continuing the expansion of the UIS. Taking advantage of anti-French sentiment amongst the aristocracy, he would begin to build up the UIS Navy. Expanding to fifteen Ironclads and fifteen Giffards. Despite this military buildup and an outburst of Union Nationalism, the Second French Empire didn't fear the UIS. In fact, the UIS presented an excellent opportunity for French Emperor Napoleon IV. Seeing the UIS as continuing the slave trade in Africa in connection with Portugal, France had the perfect humanitarian mission. Furthermore, the UIS had colonies in the Caribbean that were very profitable. All they needed was a justification. One that came when fifty filibusters on June 14th, 1882, raided the French colony of Yucatan. The men ended up killing fifty French colonists and in response, Napoleon IV demanded that the men be given to France for trial and the UIS pay reparations. O'Sullivan refused and the two nations were at war. Despite optimism from the aristocracy and O'Sullivan, the war went about as well as you'd expect. Immediately, the vast French Army mobilized, and it didn't take long for O'Sullivan to realize his mistake. The French soldiers sent to the Americas weren't mere conscripts from the streets but rather veterans from the Tenth Crusade who had fought the Ottoman Empire. By the end of the year, the UIS's colonies in the Carribean minus Cuba were under French control. And by January of 1883, the French launched an invasion of Georgia itself. Despite the efforts of the military, the French easily crushed the army in battle. Taking advantage of superior technology including smaller and faster gatling guns and larger and quicker Giffards that swept across the South. In an act of desperation, most of the arsenal of poison gas the UIS had was deployed on the French. A decision that only incurred more wrath when France responded by firebombing Richmond. Killing President O'Sullivan.
[7] Elected by a rump Congress, JEB Stuart was tasked with fighting the French. An effort that was futile in the end. After a couple more months of fighting Stuart realized the French were unbeatable and reluctantly gave into their demands. Losing every colony south of Florida and the city of Savannah (which the French took as a naval base) was humiliating. The attempted abolition of slavery divided the nation, and the reparations completely crashed the economy. Worsened by the chemical warfare in Georgia, the agricultural productivity of the UIS sharply decreased. With a collapsing economic situation and aristocrats viewing Stuart as a traitor for complying with the French demands to end slavery, his days were numbered.
[8] Felix Huston Robertson had earned his fame and infamy in the First War of the Worlds. Notable for massacring hundreds of African American soldiers and re-enslaving hundreds more. A wanted war criminal by the United States, he lived up to his reputation by participating in the re-enslavement of Atchison in 1868. Now an old general, Robertson saw his rival Stuart destroying the UIS and acted accordingly. Storming the charred neighborhoods of Richmond, he marched on the White Palace in Richmond and executed President Stuart in a coup. Despite support amongst the planter class, the coup found apathy from the majority of working-class Unionists. Whose contempt of the planter elite had begun to grow. Especially in Texas where even the middle class despised the rest of the nation. Viewing them as traitors who killed tens of thousands in the name of imperialism and domination. In spite of Robertson being a Texan, he didn't help these matters when he banned labor and farmer unions. Angering agrarian radicals in Texas. As the economy continued to falter for the majority of the UIS, Robertson's popularity collapsed. Combined with his ordering of the army to repress bread riots there was no chance he'd be re-elected.
[9] Barzillai J. Chambers was elected as the reformist candidate. Sweeping the middle class and poor, he narrowly defeated Fitzhugh Lee of the Old Republicans on a platform of reigning in the planter elite. Of course, with the gerrymandering of the UIS this was impossible. With Congress blocking his attempt at land reform. Chambers during this time clashed with Congress for over a year. He attempted to legalize labor unions and his attempt to nationalize the banking industry angered the plantation elite further. The final straw that broke the camel's back was his attempt to push through slavery reform. Attempting to amend the constitution to gradually eliminate slavery from 1886 to 1906. In response, the Golden Loyalists returned to Richmond and Chambers found himself removed by gunpoint.
[10] Wade Hampton III like Atchison was simply a thug. Someone who couldn't accept change and someone who killed many in response to change. Elected by a Congress at gunpoint, Hampton condemned President Chambers as a traitor and a puppet of the French and Americans. Putting the former President on trial Chambers was executed for high treason, racial treachery, and espionage. A decision that only ignited popular opposition to him. With poor workers from the Congaree River to Texas rioting in response. Even middle-class tradesman were mad as hell. Viewing the plantation elite as strangling economic growth. Still, Hampton had the army behind him, and the rebellions were crushed. However, the execution of President Chambers ignited Texan nationalism and the cracks in the UIS were exposed to the world. Combined with the Great Slave Rebellion, Hampton's power was waning by the hour. The slaves were crushed, yes. However, the mass execution of one-thousand collaborators earned him sanctions and every day guns ended up in the hands of dissidents courtesy of Mexico and America. Guns that were used to kill his men. By the end of his reign, the economy was still in the gutter and even Hampton realized his position was untenable. Come 1893, despite calls for him to suspend the constitution, Hampton instead stepped down.
[11] James Longstreet was never going to succeed as President. The forces of reaction were against him from the start and despite his healthy victory over the Old Republicans and Golden Loyalists, he knew slavery could only be ended by violence. His decision to free dissidents only brought in more opponents of his administration. Self-described Fascists wanted unity with the new revolutionary United States and when released they began to organize. In Texas, nationalist "Blue Coats" advocated for independence and industrialization. Joining Agrarians in opposing Longstreet's industrialization plan as it ignored Texas. Of course, the Old Republicans led by A.C Haskell of South Carolina opposed Longstreet's liberal policies and the Golden Loyalists opposed to Longstreet's attempted ouster of pro-coup officers. Unsurprisingly, something had to give, and the 1895 midterms ensured this. The Reform Party and Pan-Texan Alliance gained enough seats to abolish slavery and soon enough, the old forces responded by seceding from the UIS. Forming the Confederation of Free Territories (CFT), South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida seceded from the union. Despite claims by Consul A.C Haskell of peaceful secession, a failed secession referendum in Georgia would cause the CFT's "Green Shirts" to attack Georgia. Pledging to liberate the secessionist counties. With the UIS breaking into Civil War, more factions emerged. Realizing a true chance to secure independence, Texas declared its independence under Jim Kohler. From there, the Unitary Fascist Pact led by Samuel Clemens of Missouri and Albert Parsons of Arkansas announced a general strike. The UIS Civil War had begun.
[12] The Civil War was a bloody affair. All respective nations had no professional army. With most combat being fought by disorganized militias that quickly degenerated into guerilla warfare. Almost immediately, Texas and the UFP declared neither would attack each other. Instead forming a united front as the CFT and UIS both attempted to secure control of Texas. Furthermore, the CFT implemented Wirz Camps "named after Henri Wirz" to use against slaves. Turning many areas of the south into work camps with horrid conditions that horrified millions. Eventually, the slaves themselves created a new nation. With a successful slave revolt in Florida creating the state of New Africa. In response, the CFT deployed soldiers against the new state. A decision that coincided with the entry of the United States into the war. Joining the UFP and Texas, the US stormed the South with a professional army. Within five months, the UIS and CFT ceased to exist after the fall of Richmond and Charleston.
[13] With Wade Hampton III's surrender on June 10th, America was once again reunited. Cimarron and Texas were given their independence under the Republic of Texas and now America was back. Despite the pleas of the UIS elites for mercy, there would only be justice. At the Lexington Trials the old elites were put on trial. Wade Hampton III and A.C Haskell were sentenced to death along with fifty-seven others. While another three hundred were given life imprisonment. Meanwhile, in Texas Felix Huston Robertson was guillotined. The next day on May 25th, 1898, the army seized the property of the plantation elite. The Revolution had come to the South and now the South would be finally free.
In the same vein as @neonduke ‘30s stumble ever on’ work.
Secretary General of the League of Nations (1945 - ):
1945 - 1951: Pablo de Azcárate y Flórez (Republic of Spain) 1947 def. Henri Bonnet (Republic of France), Petros Voulgaris (Republic of Greece) 1951 - 1955: Konni Zilliacus (United Kingdom) 1951 def. Georg Dertinger (German Republic), Patrick McGilligan (Irish Free State) 1955 - 1959: Raffaele Guariglia (Kingdom of Italy) 1955 def. Alexandros Svolos (Republic of Greece), René Massigli (Republic of France) 1959 - : Katsuo Okazaki (Empire of Japan) 1959 def. Seán MacBride (Republic of Ireland), Kurt Georg Kiesinger (German Republic)
“In the wake of Secretary General Bernardo Attolico abrupt death, the League of Nations would push the Under-Secretary Pablo de Azcárate y Flórez in as General Secretary. Flórez decided that reform of the League was needed in the wake of the Pacific Conflict and Soviet Aggression in Eastern Europe. The setting up of a Four Year term limit and elections for the General Secretary were some of Flórez’s reforms which took place over his six year tenure. Elected in his own right in 1947, Flórez was supported by the ‘Socialist’ nations at the time, and a few Liberal ones as well to become leader. The dichotomy of ‘Socialist, Liberal, Conservative and the so called National Conservative’ strain would be the political elements of the election process…”
“Japan’s return from the political cold was through the election of Katsuo Okazaki to the Secretary General position of the League of Nations, the former Sportsman turned Foreign Minister and then Diplomat was seen as representing the new liberal and urbane face of Japan under the tenure of Prime Minister Seiichi Okada particularly after the seemingly leftist nationalistic tendency of Kanjū Katō. Worries over Japan’s former Nationalistic status would be put to rest when the April Crisis occurred in Austria. Student Rebels allied with Trade Unions and Communists to overthrow the Fatherland Front Government. Worries amongst the German government lead to troops amassing on the border.
Attempts to persuade Germany otherwise went nowhere, so a blockade and the establishment of League of Nations observers would occur to help facilitate the new Austrian government’s transition into democracy. Okazaki’s handling of the crisis, would have ramifications for the Central European National Conservative tendency and for the renewed focus and power of the League of Nations…”
In the same vein as @neonduke ‘30s stumble ever on’ work.
Secretary General of the League of Nations (1945 - ):
1945 - 1951: Pablo de Azcárate y Flórez (Republic of Spain) 1947 def. Henri Bonnet (Republic of France), Petros Voulgaris (Republic of Greece) 1951 - 1955: Konni Zilliacus (United Kingdom) 1951 def. Georg Dertinger (German Republic), Patrick McGilligan (Irish Free State) 1955 - 1959: Raffaele Guariglia (Kingdom of Italy) 1955 def. Alexandros Svolos (Republic of Greece), René Massigli (Republic of France) 1959 - : Katsuo Okazaki (Empire of Japan) 1959 def. Seán MacBride (Republic of Ireland), Kurt Georg Kiesinger (German Republic)
“In the wake of Secretary General Bernardo Attolico abrupt death, the League of Nations would push the Under-Secretary Pablo de Azcárate y Flórez in as General Secretary. Flórez decided that reform of the League was needed in the wake of the Pacific Conflict and Soviet Aggression in Eastern Europe. The setting up of a Four Year term limit and elections for the General Secretary were some of Flórez’s reforms which took place over his six year tenure. Elected in his own right in 1947, Flórez was supported by the ‘Socialist’ nations at the time, and a few Liberal ones as well to become leader. The dichotomy of ‘Socialist, Liberal, Conservative and the so called National Conservative’ strain would be the political elements of the election process…”
“Japan’s return from the political cold was through the election of Katsuo Okazaki to the Secretary General position of the League of Nations, the former Sportsman turned Foreign Minister and then Diplomat was seen as representing the new liberal and urbane face of Japan under the tenure of Prime Minister Seiichi Okada particularly after the seemingly leftist nationalistic tendency of Kanjū Katō. Worries over Japan’s former Nationalistic status would be put to rest when the April Crisis occurred in Austria. Student Rebels allied with Trade Unions and Communists to overthrow the Fatherland Front Government. Worries amongst the German government lead to troops amassing on the border.
Attempts to persuade Germany otherwise went nowhere, so a blockade and the establishment of League of Nations observers would occur to help facilitate the new Austrian government’s transition into democracy. Okazaki’s handling of the crisis, would have ramifications for the Central European National Conservative tendency and for the renewed focus and power of the League of Nations…”
The Pacific Conflict started due to Japanese aggression against British forces in China. Eventually France, the Dutch and America become involved, the eventual Soviets invasion of Manchuria and Commonwealth - American Invasion of Japan leads to Japan surrendering and in time a democratic government and New Emperor is installed.
Meanwhile the Soviet War of aggression manages to capture portions of Easter Europe, mainly Molotov - Ribbentrop lines, before hitting a stalemate against a combined ‘Central European Force’. Eventually an agreement leads to the Soviet Union keeping some gains in return for withdrawing from Poland and Eastern Prussia.
I found out that Baldwin was on holiday and that the initial decision to form the National Government was done by Chamberlain and that Baldwin would have opposed it if he wasn't on holiday and refused to do any work when on it.
So... what if?
An Alternate National Government, or History Repeats, First As Tragedy... Ramsay MacDonald (Labour, then Labour-led National Government with Liberal Unionists (and Liberals 1931-34)) 1929-1935 1929: def. Stanley Baldwin (Conservative), David Lloyd George (Liberal)
1931: def. Stanley Baldwin (Conservative), Austen Chamberlain (Liberal Unionist), Herbert Samuel (Liberal), James Maxton (ILP) William Jowitt (Labour-led National Government with Liberal Unionists) 1935-1940 1935: def. Edward Wood (Conservative), Austen Chamberlain (Liberal Unionist), Herbert Samuel (Liberal), John Strachey (ILP) Clement Attlee (Labour-led National Government with Liberal Unionists, then War Cabinet) 1940-1946 Eustace Percy (Conservative minority with support from Liberals, then majority) 1946-1954 1946: def. Clement Attlee and Leo Amery (Labour and Liberal Unionist), John Strachey (ILP), Leslie Hore-Belisha (Liberal)
1948: def. Clement Attlee and Ernest Petter (Labour and Liberal Unionist), John Strachey (ILP), Leslie Hore-Belisha (Liberal) Harold Macmillan (Labour majority) 1954- 1954: def. Eustace Percy (Conservative), Annie Maxton (ILP), Richard Dyke Acland (Liberal)
A really good idea; am I right in saying that the list is an analogue of events from OTL 1886? Also, would you be able to give a summary of how events unfold during this period?
1970-1976: Michael Foot (Labour) [12] 1971 (Majority) def. Reginald Maudling (National); Arthur Holt (Liberal)
1976-1987:Margaret Thatcher (National) [13] 1976 (Majority) def. Michael Foot (Labour); Jo Grimond (Liberal)
1980 (Majority) def. Barbara Castle (Labour); Jo Grimond (Liberal)
1984 (Majority) def. Denis Healey (Labour); Alan Beith (Liberal)
[10] Leader of the Labour Party since 1957, Hugh Gaitskell was a new force in British politics. In a future without both Mosley and Morrison, the future of the Labour Party remained up for grabs and found itself caught between two big figures – the reformist, domineering former Chancellor Hugh Gaitskell and the lion of the Left, and Deputy Leader Aneurin Bevan. It was Bevan’s closeness to previous Labour leaders that kept him from the leadership, and so Gaitskell swept up the needed votes, but still found stiff opposition to his efforts to reform the structure of the Labour – Gaitskell’s trade union allies and the Bevanites linked to block the attempt to remove Clause Four of the Labour Constitution. Nevertheless, Gaitskell and his allies were able to reshape the political strategy of the Labour Party, the net result: in many ways a cigarette paper couldn’t have put a cigarette paper between the manifestos of 1959, which proved to the detriment of Labour, but in 1963 proved a boon, as Hailsham lurched the Nationals to the Right – Labour, with the death of Nye Bevan in 1960, and no one on the Left yet to take up the mantel, was immune to such critiques.
Regrettably, there would be no honeymoon for Gaitskell. Divisions that had gone quiet in the latter period of Opposition would reopen. By Gaitskell’s sudden death on the hot summer of 1968, he had become exceedingly controversial, and his party divided. Nevertheless, there were certainly achievements that can be pointed to, as perhaps the most positive decision that Gaitskell made was making his acolyte Roy Jenkins his Home Secretary, in which position he excelled in liberalising Britain. Capital punishment was abolished for good and all; homosexuality was legalised, as was abortion; the path for divorce was eased; and many forms of censorship were ended. While others cowed, Gaitskell insisted that the government put these Bills at the top of its agenda – the side-effect of these also necessitated long overdue reforms to the House of Lords in the Parliament Act 1964. Education also received top billing in the government’s priority – the Open University was founded under his direction. And comprehensive schools were rolled out nationwide, followed by the abolition of grammar schools; both heartfelt measures aimed at ending the class divide in Britain. An effort to abolish public schools took its first steps as well. Perhaps most long overdue of its reforms, however, was the end of the racialist restrictions to immigration that the government had placed on immigration to and from the Commonwealth, part of wider measures to eliminate racial discrimination in all elements of British society.
In economic terms, certain quarters of the economy were booming, but others had yet to recover from the last Labour government and wages were slow to rise. Gaitskell had some success in the 50’s by introducing a national income policy with the consent of the unions which kept wages even throughout national and private sectors. The expectant stance of the government that this policy would continue frustrated many, including Gaitskell’s union allies, which necessitated its statutory enforcement by Harold Wilson’s Treasury. To the Labour Left, the continuing restraint that this required in spending terms was a dear frustration to bear and, in their minds, signalled a betrayal by Wilson – and paddled off to their own reservation to cause Gaitskell further trouble, having counted on Wilson to have them tow the Party line.
At the same time, Gaitskell was coming under increasing pressure from newly elected President Johnson in Washington for a committal to Vietnam. The decision was not one taken lightly, but Gaitskell was committed to renewing the ‘special relationship’ that had begun to lapse under Butler, and Britain had also wrapped up its successful anti-Communist operations in Malaysia and Borneo at the same time. It was hoped that the presence of British troops and strategies might accomplish the same results. Naysayers in the early days were already pointing to the Suez adventure as to advise against the measures, though the argument against this came from the fact that this adventure came with the explicit endorsement of the United States. Although the war in Vietnam never garnered the same amount of attention in Britain as it did in the US, the use of crueller and more extreme methods to suppress the Vietcong prompted revolt in the Cabinet. The Prime Minister himself was horrified by the results and by the conclusion of the Tet Offensive was looking to extricate British forces from the conflict.
Problems came when Tony Benn, a noted backbencher, began issuing calls for an inquiry into British participation in the War. More extremist opponents of the war both then and now claimed that Gaitskell had been coopted into the war by a Capitalist conspiracy, nevertheless the correlation between Britain’s short-term economic interest with the sudden influx of dollars into the UK economy and the arrival of British troops in Indochina did raise eyebrows. No formal agreement ever seems to have existed, but the understanding between the two leaders seems to have been implicit. Other quarters also began to blacken the government’s foreign policy – Britian’s engagement in Vietnam, prompted the white settler government of Ian Smith in Rhodesia to declare their independence. With its attention in Southeast Asia, the British military lacked the means to intervene, not least when the apartheid regime in South Africa increased their troop presence in Namibia at the same time British troops in Zambia went on alert.
As summer moved from its peak, Gaitskell was reaching his limit. Physically he was exhausted, and doctors had cautioned him after a bad bout of the flu rendered him bedridden most of the prior December and counselled him against travel. Letting others move in his place, and the condition of the economy in the election, another healthy majority followed for Gaitskell. By July, his health had recovered and permitted his attending a conference in Paris over the future of Europe that became marked by his arguments with President de Gaulle. Returning to London, a week later Gaitskell was admitted to hospital and though the doctors made an incredible effort as the month turned, he died, aged 62 – to the Labour Right, he remained a martyr, to the rest a divisive figure who left their potential unfulfilled.
Prime Minister – Hugh Gaitskell (1963-68)
First Secretary of State – Douglas Jay (1963-66); George Brown (1966-68)
Lord Chancellor – The Lord Gardiner (1963-68)
Leader of the House of Commons – Michael Stewart (1963-66); James Callaghan (1966-68)
Leader of the House of Lords – The Viscount Attlee (1963-66); The Earl of Longford (1966-68)
Chancellor of the Exchequer – Harold Wilson (1963-68)
Foreign Secretary – George Brown (1963-68)
Home Secretary – Roy Jenkins (1963-68)
Secretary of State for the Commonwealth – Patrick Gordon Walker (1963-65); Michael Stewart (1966-68)
Secretary of State for Defence – Denis Healey (1963-68)
Secretary of State for Education – Anthony Crosland (1963-66); Fred Peart (1966-68)
Secretary of State for Employment – James Callaghan (1963-66); Alfred Robens (1966-68)
Secretary of State for Social Services – Anthony Greenwood (1963-66); Judith Hart (1966-68)
Minister of Health – Judith Hart (1963-66); Barbara Castle (1966-68)
Minister of Agriculture – Arthur Bottomley (1963-66); Richard Crossman (1966-68)
Minister for Housing – Richard Crossman (1963-66); Michael Foot (1966-68)
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster – Alfred Robens (1963-66); Anthony Crosland (1966-68)
Minister of Overseas Development – Michael Foot (1963-66); George Thomson (1966-68)
Minister for Power – Michael Stewart (1963-66); Edward Short (1966-68)
President of the Board of Trade – Douglas Jay (1963-68)
Secretary of State for Scotland – George Thomson (1963-66); Willie Ross (1966-68)
Secretary of State for Wales – Cledwyn Hughes (1963-68)
Minister for Transport – Barbara Castle (1963-66); Anthony Greenwood (1966-68)
[11] The 1968 Labour Leadership contest was, as Tony Crosland said at the time, between “a drunk” and “a crook”. The drunk being George Brown, Gaitskell’s loyal foreign secretary and so much the John Bull, Cold Warrior that Nikita Khrushchev actively avoided having to meet him after their one and only introduction when the Soviet Leader passed through London in 1960. Brown had not been expected to win the contest, nevertheless, when Anthony Greenwood threw his hat in as a “straight” Left wing candidate, as much to challenge Wilson as anything else, Brown suddenly became the Parliamentary Labour Party’s uncontroversial safe bet – oh, how they would rue that assumption.
When Brown was seated in Downing Street, he immediately ordered a reshuffle to resolve the two main issues of the start of his premiership, namely: the extrication of British forces from Vietnam, and his despised rival Wilson. In Brown’s mind, he solved both issues in one, he not only moved Wilson from the Treasury to the Foreign Office, but as was most Left-Wing members of the Cabinet shifted to Foreign Affairs briefs and merely told to get on with resolving the situation in Indochina. Predictably, complications followed, not least because Wilson had enjoyed his period as Chancellor and remained determined to keep his hand on the tiller when the economy was entering shaky footing; and was now tasked with a brief and policies that he had been ambivalent about at best and hostile to at worst. Promptly, the policy of Britain’s withdrawal from Vietnam was a disaster – while the Johnson administration envisioned a slow, strategic withdrawal, involving the replacement of foreign troops with South Vietnamese, training and equipping them to hold the status quo; Britain’s policy makers rapidly began moving themselves out as fast as possible – the result being that at a time when all parties were aiming to deescalate, the US felt forced to escalate in the holes British troops were leaving behind them and any good faith that Brown hoped to have within his own Party or with Washington was whipped away from him before he could realise what was happening.
Economically, things were turning against Brown as well. Speculation against Sterling was a running theme of economic policy since the end of the War, with many predicting that devaluation might be inevitable. Mosely and Morrison had managed to avoid the issue, Butler had inherited a weak Sterling after Suez, and given a free hand to rebuild it and Gaitskell had used American goodwill to keep it floating, but Brown had squandered his by winter ‘68. To resolve the situation, Brown grabbed onto the first lifeline he could find: Europe.
The golden era of Britain as the leader of European unity had lapsed by the late 50’s and Gaitskell had prevented most of the efforts by de Gaulle and the Germans to move to a greater Economic Community in Europe – a move that had vexed many of his own supporters, Brown included. Nevertheless, Brown spent 1969 shuttling from one European capital to another to speed up the process that had only gotten off the ground after his predecessors’ death. The French proved hard to overcome and were sceptical that any new European deal would be a silver bullet for the British economy, but that they themselves would be infected by the same sickness. Yet Brown persevered, and the Treaty of Bonn was signed in September and the Bill oven-ready for the House of Commons to pass.
Although the diplomacy was impressive on Brown’s part, the Cabinet was split on the issue and Brown had long put off any internal debate on his pet project. In the Cabinet meeting before the vote on the European Community Bill, Brown shouted down all his opponents, mercilessly prompting a walkout. Douglas Jay, Barbara Castle, and Peter Shore promptly resigned on principle of the policy, but most damaging for Brown was when Harold Wilson followed them who had grudgingly put up with the Prime Minister pursuing the policy without consulting his Foreign Secretary. It looked as though the Bill might fail to make it but for a last-minute U-turn by the National Party, after Shadow Foreign Secretary Edward Heath’s herculean effort to convince his Party Leader of the merits of the policy. Britain would join with European Community, but Brown had broken his Cabinet, his back and much the rest of his anatomy to do it.
Then the facts of Brown’s deal began to kick-in as French Premier Georges Pompidou had insisted that Britain devalue the Pound upon ratification of the Treaty – the very thing he had sought to prevent by going to Europe! The policy was greeted as humiliation by the Right, as Enoch Powell rose to relish, while Harold Wilson was seemingly vindicated. Worse still, devaluation prompted the Treasury to batten down the hatches, cuts were planned, and the national incomes policy tightened even further. All measures prompted the coal miners to come out on strike, fed-up with yet more austerity imposed on them by their own, and similar wildcat strikes around the country. Although the government managed to negotiate a deal with miners, the message was clear – the Prime Minister had lost control of the country and his drinking habits, as even Private Eye noticed his becoming increasingly “tired and emotional”. Jim Callaghan, in a move to stand up for the unions, challenged Brown for the leadership after papers circulated of a new Bill on union powers. Wilson also put his hat in, and the Prime Minister finished last in the first round: he would not be standing in the second.
[12] To the shock of many in the press, James Callaghan had a poor showing in the leadership election. Instead, the leading man of the Left for the leadership was the owlish figure of Michael Foot, who came in at the centre of the PLP’s “Stop the Rot” movement – aimed at overturning the divisiveness of the previous years. Foot’s main rival for the leadership was Harold Wilson, the frustrated and calculating, after his replacement at the Foreign Office Roy Jenkins ruled himself out on account of his divisive Europeanism. A coalition of the down-and-out Left, dissolute moderates and the reasonable Right aligned in favour of the former editor of Tribune.
It was a peculiar choice, but they were peculiar times. A noted republican, Foot was not naïve about what to expect from the press after the Palace rang for him. The Daily Mail was foaming that the country could expect its imminent collapse, and the Telegraph reported that the Royal Family were planning to seek refuge in Canada or the West Indies – the kind of rhetoric that people hadn’t heard since the Earl of Chartwell was growling about Mosely’s Labour. In a rare display of speed, the usually don-like Foot met whipped round to meetings with both Roy Jenkins and Denis Healey to persuade them to stay in place. Both men were impressed by his pragmatic attitude, mollifying Jenkins with his determination not to get bogged down on the European issue, and Healey by that olive branch to defend the integrity of Labour in power. Only in the minds of right-wing press editors was the honour of Michael Foot cause for contempt, while he envisaged a term as leader in which he mediated between factions, led its strategies and the UK’s greatest advocate to the World.
It was a time when a good advocate was in sore need. By August 1970, devaluation was proving an issue as the Treasury had seemingly overshot itself, and in the prior budget Healey had forced through budget cuts in anticipation, while his officials thought he had gone too far when the pound crashed it was apparent that they had not done enough. All this came in time for the Labour Party Conference where the trade unions were expected to push for mass nationalisation. Foot, mindful that his Chancellor was in Singapore negotiating with the IMF in between meetings with Commonwealth finance ministers, rose to unleash his oratory and invocated the spirit of Nye Bevan to mollify them. When Healey returned, Foot was astounded at the vicious terms that the IMF would impose on the UK’s sovereignty. But with the stakes as high as they were, there was no other option – the alternative of facing the consequences of devaluation, and of possible further devaluation was acceptable to neither man. Nevertheless, the economy managed to be stabilized, and the National leadership in such disarray, Foot sought a mandate in 1971 and was won a slender a mandate, despite crowing from the Right that Labour policy was made at the beck and call of the TUC.
Foot had his own bone to pick with the unions, however – keenly aware from his own Plymouth constituency that Labour’s grand designs to redraw the British economy meant little to the average constituent, especially those who didn’t have the luxury and protection of working in heavily unionized sectors. Conscious many working-class, natural Labour supporters were worried about the Unions being able to “hold the country hostage”, Foot sponsored a Bill by his friend and new Employment Secretary, Barbara Castle, giving the Secretary powers to enforce settlements in inter-union disputes and unofficial disputes, and enforce penalties for non-compliance. Again, Foot almost came into struggle with the Trade Unions, but after a conversation with Jack Jones, the Prime Minister effectively shamed the latter into compliance citing that if European Unity was a threat to Democratic Socialism in Britain, so to were closed shops and the ability of Unions to contravene the power of industries that had been practising workplace democracy since the Morrison days. Jones would accept meekly the new Industrial Relations Act, and the continuation of the national incomes policy. For his trouble, though nobody would thank him in the long term, Foot had saved the idea of Keynesianism for Prime Ministers that would follow and sowed the seeds for further Party scrutiny on groups like the Militant Tendency that had begun to infiltrate Labour.
A second aspect that Foot would be credited with would be the nuclear deterrent, which had been at the centre of public debate since the late 50’s. Inevitably, the cuts required by the IMF inevitably required biting into the defence budget and the unilateralist Foot was only too keen to rid the United Kingdom of it nuclear burden, but as a pragmatist could not hope to move the military or even his own Party with sentimentality alone. Britain’s nuclear programme by the 1970’s was centred on the long-outdated V-bomber fleet and increasingly flimsy Blue Streak programme, both since Butler’s premiership. Efforts to modernize an independent nuclear deterrent had floundered since then: Gaitskell, out of patriotism, had refused to surrender the independent deterrent to American intervention; and Brown found his overtures to buy into America’s Polaris a slammed door in his face. Surprisingly, Foot found an ally in the form of his Chancellor, Denis Healey, the NATO loyalist and an Atlanticist and Defence Secretary without parallel, who cited fiscal purposes as the main reason for abandoning the strategic nuclear deterrent. Roy Jenkins put up resistance around the Cabinet table, but when the suggestion that rather than ending the strategic deterrent, Britain might instead withdraw the Army from Northern Ireland and the Rhine, he soon accepted the proposal. Nevertheless, Foot could not end the UK’s entire nuclear arsenal: and to this day retains a tactical nuclear force in the hands of the RAF and, if needed, the Fleet Air Arm; as well as a nuclear energy programme that is peerless within Europe in the hands of the National Nuclear Corporation, though days of British Prime Ministers have Armageddon in their pocket ended with Foot.
By 1973, the economic crises that defined Foot’s ascension were over – Britain having missed out on the latest Arab Oil Embargo for a change. He had seen Britain through the worst. But the electorate was feeling Labour fatigue. In 1974, the Prime Minister floated the idea that he might resign so that a fresh perspective might be welcomed to the electorate, but his friends and former enemies talked him down – the unity that Foot had cultivated was preferable to idea of a hypothetical return to disunity. So, he carried on, all the way to the Palace for the election. But the National Party of 1976 was a different kettle of fish to that of 1963, even 1973, and though Foot would be vilified for it at the time, he would be the last Labour Prime Minister for twelve years.
Prime Minister – George Brown (1968-70); Michael Foot (1970-76)
Lord Chancellor – The Lord Gardiner (1968-76)
Leader of the House of Commons – Fred Peart (1968-71); Edward Short (1971-76)
Leader of the House Lords – The Lord Shackleton (1968-76)
Chancellor of the Exchequer – Denis Healey (1968-76)
Foreign Secretary – Harold Wilson (1968-70); Roy Jenkins (1970-76)
Home Secretary – James Callaghan (1968-71); Shirley Williams (1971-76)
Secretary of State for Employment – Roy Mason (1968-71); Barbara Castle (1971-76)
Secretary of State for Education – Edward Short (1968-71); Roy Hattersley (1971-76)
Secretary of State for Industry – Anthony Crosland (1968-71); Anthony Greenwood (1971-73); Eric Varley (1973-76)
Secretary of State for Defence – Anthony Greenwood (1968-71); Anthony Crosland (1971-73); Peter Shore (1973-76)
Secretary of State for Environment – Eric Varley (1968-71); Reg Prentice (1971-73); Anthony Crosland (1973-76)
Secretary of State for Industry – Bob Melish (1968-71); George Thomas (1971-73); Reg Prentice (1973-76)
Secretary of State for Social Services – Michael Stewart (1968-71); Peter Shore (1971-76)
Minister of State for Overseas Development – Barbara Castle (1968-70); Reg Prentice (1970-71); David Owen (1971-76)
Secretary of State for Trade – Peter Shore (1968-70); Cledwyn Hughes (1970-76)
Secretary of State for Health – George Thomas (1968-71); John Silkin (1971-76)
Secretary of State for Scotland – William Ross (1968-76)
Secretary of State for Wales – Cledwyn Hughes (1968-70); The Lord Elwyn-Jones (1970-76)
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – James Callaghan (1971-76)
Minister for Agriculture – Reg Prentice (1968-70); David Owen (1970-71); Albert Booth (1971-76)
Minister for Local Government – Shirley Williams (1968-71); Eric Varley (1971-72); Harold Lever (1972-76)
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster – Michael Foot (1968-70); Harold Lever (1970-72); Eric Varley (1972-73); Bob Melish (1973-76)
[13] Little can be said of Mrs (or Baroness) Thatcher that has not already been written. Her legacy might well simply be “the Iron Lady, longest serving British Prime Minister of modern times” but that would be surrendering to simplicity for the sake of it. Thatcher dominated Britain of the 1980’s, true enough earing her status as the Iron Lady, but more than that: she would define the image of Britain for decades to follow and the identity of the National Party forever. Though naysayers within her own Party might state to the contrary, Thatcher invented the ideology of the National Party was eclectic at best. A broad coalition which under Butler and Eden had been an eccentric alliance between One-Nationists like themselves, “Shire Tories”, frothing anti-everywhere nationalists like Enoch Powell, and strict monetarists like Peter Thorneycroft. The success of Thatacher would be to fuse these factions into one coherent ideology for the Party to follow: the free market, privatisation, centralisation, deregulation, and nationalism.
Arriving in Parliament in the election of 1955, representing Orpington, Thatcher spent the early Butler years on the backbenches where she was singled out as one to watch by the leadership, being promoted to junior positions within the European Office and later the Treasury. Surprising many, Thatcher was elevated to the Cabinet as Housing Minister by Hailsham, where she buttressed the new Chancellor’s monetarism – in her new position, Thatcher was responsible for the only lasting effect of the Hailsham government when she published a white paper on the rights of tenants that included purchasing their council houses. Through the 60’s she kept quiet and stayed away from the big personality clashes between Maudling, Powellites, Heathites and concentrated on shaping policy with her mentor Kieth Joseph. 1968 and ’71 were great disappointments to the National Party, with its members and supporters left grasping for an answer for the listlessness they found themselves in when the odds seemed to favour them, but it would transpire that there was something rotten in the State of Denmark as a pair of scandals rocked the National Party leadership and paved the way for Thatcher. Maudling’s conduct came under attack when the Metropolitan police launched probes into his business dealings with John Poulson in the run up to ’71 election, and his successor John Profumo soon had his own tackle tangled in a scandal about his former mistress and so the road was eventually cleared for Thatcher.
Thatcher’s main virtue in the campaign of ’76 was her harsh stance on inflation, which despite the best efforts of the Foot and Healey kept regurgitating itself on them. Her monetarist approach of cutting huge swathes out of government budgets, rather than the timid approach of her predecessor that had been negated solely by the need for the IMF bailout. Capitalising on the humiliation that the bailout had connoted to the public, Thatcher and her supporters in the press availed the nation of the patriotism in her prudence. Nevertheless, despite her radical vision Thatcher was forced to move slowly; Britain was becoming increasingly divisive in its political discourse, and Thatcher had a party that was far from being in her own image. Quietly over the rest of the decade, Thatcher would peel away the basis those who were against her, and in 1979 this old guard were swept away in what became known as “the Night of the Long Knives” and although there would be clashes with the so-called “wets” and “dries”, Thatcher held all within her hand going forward.
By the end of her tenure, Thatcher would privatise, coal, gas, North Sea oil, water, electricity, steel, council houses, telecommunication; government shares in the automobile, aviation and electronic sectors were sold off; and the financial severely deregulated. Thatcher would take a slower approach than her ideological soulmate, President Ronald Reagan, whose single term in office was met with ignominy after Jack Kennedy evicted him from the White House the year after Thatcher came to power, and there was no effort to reverse or discourage the Morrisonian approach for worker participation – many of the newly privatised industries allowed their employees to buy shares at special discounts, and spots on their boards opened up to managers of longstanding. Despite the efforts to show continuity in Thatcherism with “Butskellism”, escalating violence, strike action, riots characterized her first term and the long running disputes with the miners in the run up to the election of 1980 prompted the slogan of “Who rules Britain?”, which once answered Thatcher took as a mandate to crackdown on the unions and the IRA.
Abroad, Thatcher was the consummate Cold Warrior and cultivated close relations with the four US Presidents (Reagan, Kennedy, Biden, Bush), whose terms coincided with her own tenure, and urged each of them in turn to take a tougher line on Moscow’s excesses. She also went onto broker a settlement of the Rhodesian problem that had bubbled away, smoothing the way for Black rule of the new Zimbabwe. The great crisis of the Thatcher premiership came in the shape of the 1982 Falklands War, wherein Britain and Argentina went to war in the South Atlantic. At the conclusion of the War, Thatcher was a titan on the world stage, adored in the Press as “the Iron Lady”, a fever which she rode all the way to another victory in 1984.
Despite her personal popularity however, she and her Party were increasingly vulnerable – unemployment was growing higher than ever post-War, public services were cracking, and crime growing. The expected landslide the National Party had been hoping for did not appear, already her rivals began conspiring to supplant her. The real clash came in the Westland Affair, but Michael Heseltine would be left felled by his own dagger, and ultimately out in the cold for years to come, though the Prime Minister had nevertheless received a grievous wound. Though many urged her to stepdown, Thatcher would not be dissuaded given her record with the electorate and counted on a snap election to restore faith in her leadership. It was a gamble set not to favour her.
Prime Minister – Margaret Thatcher (1976-87)
Lord Chancellor – The Lord Thorneycroft (1976-80); The Lord Soames (1980-
Foreign Secretary – Edward Heath (1976-79); Geoffrey Howe (1979-84); The Lord Carrington (1984-87)
Chancellor of the Exchequer – Sir Kieth Joseph (1976-86); Geoffrey Howe (1986-87)
Home Secretary – Ian Gilmour (1976-79); William Whitelaw (1979-84); Geoffrey Howe (1984-86); Norman Tebbit (1986-87)
Leader of the House of Lords – The Lord Carrington (1976-87)
Leader of the House of Commons – Francis Pym (1976-79); Norman St John-Stevas (1979-80); John Biffen (1980-84); John Wakeham (1984-86); Nigel Lawson (1986-87)
Secretary of State for Employment – Jim Prior (1976-80); Leon Brittan (1980-83); Tom King (1983-84); Norman Fowler (1984-87)
Secretary of State for Energy – Tom King (1976-79); David Howell (1979-80); Peter Walker (1980-83); Leon Brittan (1983-84); Cecil Parkinson (1984-86); John Wakeham (1986-87)
Secretary of State for Education – Norman St John-Stevas (1976-79); Mark Carlisle (1979-80); Tom King (1980-83); Patrick Jenkins (1983-84); Kenneth Baker (1984-87)
Secretary of State for Industry – Geoffrey Howe (1976-79); Airey Neave (1979-80); Cecil Parkinson (1980-83); Norman Tebbit (1983-84); Kenneth Clarke (1984-86); Douglas Hurd (1986-87)
Secretary of State for Environment – Michael Heseltine (1976-80); Patrick Jenkins (1980-83); Kenneth Baker (1983-84); Nicholas Ridley (1984-86); Chris Patten (1986-87)
Secretary of State for Europe – John Biffen (1976-79); Teddy Taylor (1979-80); Nigel Lawson (1980-84); Paul Channon (1984-86); Nicholas Ridley (1986-87)
Secretary of State for Wales – Nicholas Edwards (1976-84); Peter Walker (1984-87)
Secretary of State for Scotland – Teddy Taylor (1976-79); George Younger (1979-86); Malcolm Rifkind (1984-87)
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – John Davies (1976-79); Humphrey Atkins (1979-80); Jim Prior (1980-83); Douglas Hurd (1983-84); Tom King (1984-87)
Secretary of State for Defence – Airey Neave (1976-79); Francis Pym (1979-80); Michael Heseltine (1980-86); George Younger (1986-87)
Secretary of State for Health – Sally Oppenheim (1976-79); Patrick Jenkin (1979-80); Norman Fowler (1980-84); John Moore (1984-86); Kenneth Clarke (1986-87)
Secretary of State for Trade – Patrick Jenkins (1976-79); John Nott (1979-80); Norman Tebbit (1980-86); Cecil Parkinson (1986-87)
Minister for Agriculture – John Peyton (1976-79); Peter Walker (1979-80); Michael Jopling (1980-84); Douglas Hurd (1984-86); Nigel Lawson (1986-87)
Minister without Portfolio – The Lord Soames (1976-79); Norman Fowler (1979-80); Airey Neave (1980-83); Kenneth Clarke (1983-84); Nigel Lawson (1984-86); Leon Brittan (1986-87)
1987-1992: Denis Healey (Labour) [14] 1987 (Majority) def. Margaret Thatcher (National); Alan Beith (Liberal)
1992-1996: Neil Kinnock (Labour) [15] 1992 (Coalition w/ Liberal) def. John Major (National); Paddy Ashdown (Liberal)
1996-2001: Norman Tebbit (National) [16] 1996 (Majority) def. Neil Kinnock (Labour); Paddy Ashdown (Liberal)
[14] Denis Healey was leader of the Labour Party for 12 years and Prime Minister of the UK for 5 of those years. Predictably, his impact on the Labour Party is often seen as much greater than the impact he had on the country. The 1970s and early 80s were a time a division in the Labour Party, that necessitated the change that Healey would bring. In the aftermath of the defeat of 1980, there were many on the Right of the Labour Party that were pondering whether they should split from the main party and form their own strictly social democratic one, likewise the Left of the Party split where the old acolytes of Nye Bevan (like Foot and Barbara Castle) were at loggerheads with the grassroots infiltration of the Militant Tendency, who rallied around the stalwart of the backbenches, Tony Benn – who in the leadership contest of 1980 was Healey’s main rival for the leadership. The genius of Healey and such was his belief in the Labour Party, that he understood that if the intellectual social democrats, pragmatists of the soft-left and the dogged Bennite activists could be coalesced into attacking the government, rather than each other, they were a certainty for victory in any election.
The main accomplishment of Healey in reforming the Labour Party was in democratising it. Party MPs were put up for re-confirmation by the membership; the Deputy Leadership was to be elected by the Party conference, and the National Executive Committee required to add local authority representatives. It resulted in sapping away the strength of Benn within the Party and at the 1983 Conference his term as Deputy Leader was ended when Peter Shore beat him in the contest. After losing his seat in 1984, Benn consequently retired from politics and the Party belonged to Healey.
1987 was a good year for Healey to rise to the premiership. Eastern Europe was restless and Healey, who had first cut his teeth in government by working on Moseley’s European projects, was determined to lead in the challenges that this posed. He conducted a whistlestop tour of the South and Eastern Europe, landing in Dresden, Vienna, Milan, Prague, and Krakow, speaking brazenly of a future where all these cities were part of a wider ‘mittel Europa’. The net result was that when the seismic events of 1989 began, Healey was perhaps the most prepared of the world leaders. While Berliners were taking sledgehammers to the Wall, the Prime Minister was making the TV rounds as welcome news and floating the possibility of reunification. Shortly afterwards, he welcomed his fellow EEC leaders to London for discussions on how they should meet the challenges that were to come – never sentimental about European Unity, unlike many of his contemporaries, he saw it was the means to an end of peace and prosperity, rather than an end in itself. Rapidly, Healey began to push British and European investment into the old Warsaw Pact, responsibility of which was handed to an empowered Council of Ministers (Healey being no fan of European federalism), aimed at reigniting the economies of these decaying nations before their capital and labour took advantage of their access to free trade and movement and emigrated to pastures green in Western Europe.
Beyond Europe, the final major event of Healey’s tenure came when he joined President Bush Sr. and the United Nations Coalition in its invasion of Iraq, ultimately leading to Bush reorientating American policy back to the UK over Germany in European affairs for the rest of the Century. This was a personal triumph for Healey, ever the Atlanticist, and he proved crucial in the UN’s handling of the situation after the invasion and the United State’s in its dealings with Saudi Arabia afterwards, leading to a rapid withdrawal of their troops from the area after Sadam had been routed from Kuwait. His experiences of Indochina, striking a chord that was just close enough to home with Bush and his fellow Republicans that had missed out on the adventures in Vietnam before Reagan retook the White House.
As a result, Healey is often lauded as being one of those British Prime Ministers more popular abroad than at home, his hand keenly felt on a Europe without the Iron Curtain dividing it. Although he was initially applauded for having brought the Thatcher years to an end, many in the Labour Party had envisioned a more introspective term of office, as they either reformed or reversed the excesses of the previous government. Healey would spend much the rest of his career defending his lack of progress on this front. Nevertheless, he managed to end his term in office on his own terms and at the age of seventy-four announced he would retire from office, resigning the leadership in April 1992 and serving as an interim prime minister until the next election.
Healey Cabinet, June 1987 – August 1992
Prime Minister – Denis Healey (1987-92)
Lord Chancellor – The Lord Morris of Aberavon (1987-92)
Chancellor of the Exchequer – John Smith (1987-92)
Foreign Secretary – Neil Kinnock (1987-92)
Home Secretary – Roy Hattersley (1987-90); Gerald Kaufman (1990-92)
Secretary of State for Defence – David Owen (1987-92)
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry – Peter Shore (1987-90); Gordon Brown (1990-92)
Secretary of State for Environment – Bryan Gould (1987-90); John Prescott (1990-92)
Secretary of State for Health – Gerald Kaufman (1987-90); Peter Shore (1990-92)
Secretary of State for Social Security – Robin Cook (1987-90); Bryan Gould (1990-92)
Secretary of State for Education – Michael Meacher (1987-90); Robin Cook (1990-92)
Secretary of State for Employment – Gordon Brown (1987-90); Bill Rodgers (1990-92)
Secretary of State for Energy – John Prescott (1987-90); Tony Blair (1990-92)
Secretary of State for Transport – Bill Rodgers (1987-90); Michael Meacher (1990-92)
Secretary of State for Europe – Tony Blair (1987-90); George Robertson (1990-92)
Secretary of State for Scotland – Donald Dewar (1987-92)
Secretary of State for Wales – Denzil Davies (1987-92)
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – George Robertson (1987-90); Jack Straw (1990-92)
Minister for Women – Margaret Beckett (1987-92)
Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries – Jack Cunningham (1987-92)
Leader of the House of Commons – Jack Straw (1987-90); Roy Hattersley (1990-92)
Leader of the House of Lords – The Baroness Williams of Crosby (1987-92)
[15] The 1990s was time for the (some said inevitable) resurgence of the Liberal Party. Having spent most of the post-war period as an irrelevance, with a good election result putting their Commons numbers in double figures, the Liberals had begun to make something of a comeback during the turbulent and divisive 70s, only for scandal and the neo-liberal approach of Mrs Thatcher to leave them humbled as that decade turned. But with the dawning of the 90s, under the leadership of a gallant former Royal Marine Officer, the Liberals were making yet another comeback. During the Healey government, the Liberals took a string of seats in by-elections from both Labour and the Nationals including dealing worrying blows at their safe seats in Ribble Valley in Lancashire and Easington in County Durham. After Healey announced his resignation in April ’92, many within the Labour Party began to think on what this might mean for their prospects in the election, as while the Nationals were exposed in the more rural seats, as well as the West Country, Scotland and certain Welsh seats, the window for Labour to win a majority seemed to be closing.
Not least as the economy was hiccupping again, and Labour’s failures to overturn the monetarist consensus post-Thatcher had many voters questioning what had been the point in voting them in 1987 as unemployment went back up to 2 million in 1991, and the popular press, who had been neutral at best 5 years before, turned back against Labour. There seemed to be good foundation for this as the Labour Party elected Neil Kinnock, disciple of their hated Michael Foot. Nevertheless, Kinnock managed to maintain a lead in the polls ahead of the Nationals, with most people counting on a reduced majority. Most agreed that it was The Sun who caused the upset with the now (depending on the perspective) infamous headline. Quite early on during election night it was clear that the Liberals had an impressive turnout that would translate into 50 seats, enough, if either Party chose, to form a majority government. Unfortunately for the Nationals, their reticent leader was unwilling to put up a fight for a coalition, mainly for he, and most people, expected Labour to form a weakened minority.
As such, John Major was spending the day at Lords, with aides and allies watching the cricket, planning on how they could push themselves in front come the snap election due in a few months. Meanwhile, Neil Kinnock was delaying his drive to the Palace as he called four of Labour’s most senior members (the now former Prime Minister, Denis Healey; his predecessor’s protégé, Roy Hattersley; Deputy Leader, Robin Cook; and the Scottish supremo, John Smith) for their advice on how to approach the Ashdown situation, before making the call to the man himself. Only Cook, surprisingly, seems to have been the one that actively urged for a coalition, Hattersley being actively opposed to it, and Kinnock ultimately convincing Smith of the course of action they should take. Although he was in a weak position, Kinnock showed no anxiety and flourished as a leader – it was not without good reason that Healey and chose him for his foreign minister. Though neither Ashdown or Kinnock would prove or had been particularly close colleagues they agreed, and three Liberals would enter the Cabinet – Ashdown himself, the first Deputy PM since 1955; Ming Campbell at Defence; and Diana Maddock at Agriculture – the first Liberals since 1945.
What followed was the assuaging of many egos within the Cabinet, as room had to be made for the newcomers. David Owen’s rude shift to Environment never sat easy with anyone, and Gerald Kaufman’s demotion to what prior to the election hadn’t been a Cabinet position later had to be buttressed with greater responsibilities – while Jack Cunningham’s reward of promotion to the Foreign Office never quite felt earned considering the loss of a majority as the election manager. Still, he proved capable and alongside Ashdown proved vital rallying President Carter in backing a UN intervention in Rwanda and Bosnia, peacekeeping missions that defined a decade for a world no longer in the shadow of the Cold War. Yet more defining for the Coalition than its foreign policy would be its Constitutional reforms, both devolution and electoral reform were top of the agenda.
In 1994, the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments sat for the first time, led by Donald Dewar and Ron Davies respectably, both of whom retired from the Commons for the new Assemblies. The Liberals also had their pet project for regional development agencies come to fruition to further localise government and devolve the spending power of the Treasury, they were all elected under proportional representation the Liberals preferred choice, which further drew on the importance of intra-Party cooperation for the Coalition and laid the groundwork for national reform of the electoral system. Although the Labour Party, so often rewarded by the First Past the Post system, was not prepared to submit to the peril of PR on such a scale and moved for Alternative Vote instead.
At the same time, on a more practical level, John Prescott was going back and forth to Calais as the Channel Tunnel unfurled, giving Britain an umbilical cord to the continent. As far as the economy went, this was a time when such extravagance in spending had to be rationed. John Smith and Gordon Brown, though brilliant, were hawks when it came to the deficit and determined to keep a balanced budget and prevent another round of devaluation and inflation that had been the death knoll for Labour in the 70s. Pages had to be cut from both the Liberal and Labour manifesto: the £4 an hour minimum wage, new commuter trains for British Rail, and renationalisation of the National Grid. Nevertheless, shared manifesto pledges on increased spending on public services were kept, including the Liberal’s National Investment Bank and Labour’s £50 million modernisation of NHS mental health care. But this required the opening of new avenues of revenue for the government, after all tax and other routes were exhausted, leading to the great controversy of the coalition years: university funding.
The abolition of student grants and government support and their replacement with tuition fees that were to be backed by low interest government loans caused any number of pains for the government. The Liberals especially found the plan heard to swallow, having been the product of a committee led by Labour peer and Chancellor of Oxford Roy Jenkins, as did Labour activists finding it a hard pill to swallow from the Prime Minister that had boasted he was the first of his family in generations to attend university, only to pull the ladder up behind him. This began the cracks in the coalition and the new policy only allowed the opposition to continue building up momentum as they were preparing to go into battle with the government over Europe.
Since European Unity had been a movement in British politics, there had been no Party so consistently pro-European as the Liberal Party and in the post-Cold War world the EEC was key in nursing the former Soviet satellites back to health, which prompted the Community’s evolution into a greater Union. The Treaty of Antwerp was the culmination of this period setting up a European constitution, shared citizenship, further integration, and the potential for a single currency. Reaction to this in Britain was lukewarm at best and though the Coalition were agreed on signing the Treaty, they disagree on whether certain provisions needed to be negotiated first – Kinnock especially, a comparatively recent convert away from Euroscepticism, felt honour bound to seek redress for Britain’s contribution and guarantees to keep the Pound protected, aware as he was of many voters in his marginal seats worried about their financial future being held hostage in Brussels and Strasbourg. Ashdown and the Liberals felt that this was a bad faith on Britain’s part, trying to have it both ways of being in the Union and acting as though it were out of it, while the Nationals remained virulently opposed to the Antwerp Treaty. Protests in the capital began bubbling in the early spring of 1996 which prompted Kinnock to seek a renewed mandate. Brief conversations took place between Ming Campbell and Roy Hattersley about campaigning under a joint ticket for a renewed ticket, but the manifesto pledges on Europe were too different with the Liberals demanding an immediate ratification of Antwerp by Parliament and Labour again stating Kinnock’s preference for negotiating a new settlement before ratification. The nuance of Labour’s position would have been difficult to market in any election, but with the Nationals front bench breathing fire on the topic and the hostile press back to full froth about the ‘Welsh Windbag’ in Downing Street, the Prime Minister’s chances to articulate his position were drowned out.
Kinnock-Ashdown Cabinet, August 1992 – May 1996
Prime Minister – Neil Kinnock (1992-96)
Deputy Prime Minister – Paddy Ashdown (1992-96)
Leader of the House of Commons – Robin Cook (1992-96)
Leader of the House of Lords – The Baroness Williams of Crosby (1992-96)
Lord Chancellor –The Lord Irvine of Lairg (1992-95)*
Home Secretary –Roy Hattersley (1992-95)*
Chancellor of the Exchequer – John Smith (1992-96)
Foreign Secretary – Jack Cunningham (1992-96)
Secretary of State for Justice – Roy Hattersley (1995-96)*
Secretary of State for Defence – Menzies Campbell (1992-96)
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry – Gordon Brown (1992-96)
Secretary of State for the Environment – David Owen (1992-95); Jack Straw (1995-96)
Secretary of State for Health – Bill Rodgers (1992-96)
Secretary of State for Social Services – Margaret Beckett (1992-96)
Secretary of State for Education – Jack Straw (1992-95); Stephen Byers (1995-96)
Secretary of State for Employment – Frank Dobson (1992-96)
Secretary of State for Transport – John Prescott (1992-96)
Secretary of State for Energy – Michael Meacher (1992-95); Alan Milburn (1995-96)
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food – Diana Maddock (1992-96)
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – Tony Blair (1992-96)
Secretary of State for Scotland – Donald Dewar (1992-95); George Robertson (1995-96)
Secretary of State for Wales – Ann Clwyd (1992-96)
Secretary of State for Europe – Tom McNally (1992-95); Peter Mandelson (1995-96)
Minister for the Arts and Communication – Gerald Kaufman (1992-96)
Minister for International Development – Mo Mowlam (1992-96)
Minister for Women’s Affairs – Jo Richardson (1992-95); Harriet Harman (1995-96)
*Offices of Lord Chancellor and Home Secretary merged under the 1994 Domestic Affairs Act. Responsibilities for communication and broadcasting in the Home Office transferred to the Arts Ministry.
[16] The key to rise of Norman Tebbit lays in the tenure of his predecessor as National Party leader, John Major. A councillor from Brixton, who hadn’t even been in Lady Thatcher’s Cabinet, Major aimed to make the same kind of changes to the National Party that Denis Healey had made to the Labour Party – to democratise it – but he went much further than Healey in one respect. Rather than continue to allow the MPs sole authority in leadership elections, it instead went to the membership alone. As expected, they showed Major their appreciation by electing him leader with a thunderous majority, but it was a reward that they could only take away in the end. After his feeble performance in the ’92 election and his being caught completely blindsided by the formation of the Coalition, the Tory rank-and-file inevitably revolted against him at the first chance. Duly, when Michael Heseltine predictably announced he would challenge him at the 1994 Tory conference, popular support for Major in the Party collapsed, but in seeking the prize Hesletine had forgotten the prize rule of British politics: the assassins never sit the throne.
A movement rose to draft another candidate to stand for the leadership, one more representative of the Conservatives “core values”. So entered Tebbit, after a visit from the former Prime Minister, Lord Parkinson and John Redwood, he was prompted to throw his hat in the ring, but Tebbit swore that he wouldn’t be able to fully commit himself to a leadership campaign – in 1988 there had been a botched attack by the IRA on the National Party conference in Bournemouth with the explosives detonating early, and though no one was killed, there were several injuries, Tebbit’s wife among them. Since then, he had and been inactive in the House of Commons yet was prepared to take the leadership if it could be won for him. A very old fashioned but effective campaign was fought John Redwood leading the charge in the Shadow Cabinet, and the backbenchers mobilized to lobby for him by David Davis and Alan Clark which promptly swept the National Party membership off their feet.
Once leader, Tebbit settled comfortably into his new role, and quickly became the darling of the Right-wing press and tapped into both an old-fashioned patriotic, paternal form of Conservatism from the Party’s past and the newer populist Neo-Liberalism of the Thatcher years – both of which formed the perfect flanks on which to attack the Coalition and their Constitutional reforms as well as the fragility of the economy under their Stewardship in the Mid-Nineties. Europe and the impending Antwerp Treaty rapidly appeared as the favourite stick to beat the government with, but tensions within the National Party prevented Tebbit to leaning to heavily on that crutch, and during the General Election preferred to tour constituencies dominated by Students where he pointed out that tuition fees had been solely on the initiative of the Liberals and Labour, and the Nationals had never contemplated such a policy (though he never mentioned anything about of its repeal). It was a move that rewarded Tebbit as over the night of the May 1st 1996, the coalition had been broken, and of Tebbit’s 37 seat majority 20 of them came from the so-called “campus constituencies” like Sheffield Hallam, Leeds Central, Oxford East, Leeds Northwest, Cambridge, and Oxford West.
In government, as in Opposition, Tebbit was keen to have all factions of the National Party acutely represented, not matter how uncomfortable it made them. John Major was recalled to serve as Health Minister, and Chris Patten, having impressed Tebbit with his efforts at rapprochement, handed the Leadership of the House; Alan Clark and Ian Gow, as well as being rewarded for their support form the backbenches, were given Northern Ireland and Defence, making clear the governments intent for a vigorous solution to the Troubles; while Heseltine and Douglas Hurd held the Treasury and Foreign Office respectively.
That summer, the highlight of the governments was when it deployed RAF aircraft from Cyprus in junction with UN forces in the area to bomb Republican Guard forces in Iraq before they could be deployed against Erbil, a huge boon for the Kurds and galvanised them in their push for independence. Likewise, it became a boon for Tebbit, his first mark on the international stage leaving him bold enough to encourage Heseltine to push for tax cuts in his Autumn statement that would stimulate growth in the years to come.
Afterwards, Northern Ireland returned to the headlines. Violence in Northern Ireland peaked in the early 80s, even spilling over onto the mainland as the IRA expanded its bombing campaign, ending with the attempted bombing in Bournemouth, activity died down under the Healey government and the Coalition moved to negotiate a permanent settlement between the Republicans and Unionists only for them to stall. Once Tony Blair’s ceasefire expired in the autumn of 1995 however, the two sides were back at it once again, with escalation a constant fear. In New Year 1997, British intelligence received reports that the IRA high command was discussing a resumption of the bombing campaign on the mainland – a week later the Army Council met on a farm south of the border. Locals reported hearing gunfire just after midnight, with half a dozen figures all in black spotted running to nearby woodland and a strange black transit van speeding through roads nearby. Among the dead included the Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, and the nationalist leadership went into paralysis, violence spiked in Northern Ireland, and one successful car bomb was detonated outside the new Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow, but violence was more erratic than before.
Accusations of British complicity in the massacre followed, including, according to the memoirs Timothy Bell, a brusque phone call from President Carter to the Prime Minister, but nothing was found or released to prove anything, and the official government inquiry eventually ruled internal divisions within the IRA led to the assassinations. In the meantime, the number of British troops in Ulster rose, but IRA’s body count rose even faster to the point that 18 months after its leadership was decapitated, the British government receive a communique from the IRA that put peace talks on the table. Although a permanent settlement would require another 10 years of talks and negotiations, the armed struggle for a united Ireland was over – and leaders on both sides resigned themselves to rigours of politics in the new devolved assembly.
Meanwhile, across the Channel, Britain’s position on the Antwerp Treaty was coming to ahead. During the election, Tebbit had been able to dictate terms in debates on the subject and the Nationals were never pinned down on the subject the way Kinnock and Ashdown were being. Once in Downing Street, out of deference to the pro-Europeans at the top of his government Tebbit did not rule out signing the treaty and adopted Kinnock’s position that serious redresses had to be made first. And so, the negotiations slogged on for 2 years, with arguments in Cabinet persistent throughout, most keenly felt in the divide between No 10 and 11 Downing Street. Michael Heseltine always maintained that regardless of the outcome that Britain should sign the Treaty, while Tebbit maintained Britain was uniquely able to keep the benefits of EEC membership without surrendering to its federalisation. In February 1998, National Party chairman spoke bleakly about the prospect of successful negotiations, which the Prime Minister himself later affirmed. Outraged, Heseltine resigned, later followed by Chris Patten and Norman Lamont, with the humiliated Foreign Secretary joining them a day later after a delegation of European representatives refused to meet him in light of the Prime Minister’s comments.
The “Antwerp Rebels”, with another 10 backbenchers, became resolved to fight a rearguard action in the name of getting Britain “in”. Labour and the Liberals threw their weight behind them, but the Prime Minster was secure in his position, having won a smattering of by-elections that increase his majority to 40 (with the Rebels) and further defections in Cabinet quickly squashed. The pro-European Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke couldn’t resist the alure of the Exchequer and the charismatic John Redwood soothed the rank-and-file membership after his he replaced Hurd, and John Major soon dutifully mollified the any wavering backbenchers after his move to Leader of the House to replace his friend Patten. Fresher faces around the Cabinet table in the guise of David Davis, Edwina Currie and Timothy Bell energised the government, as did the promoted William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith. Without Britain dragging its progress, European federalisation sped up, its members sharing a common currency and central bank by the new millennium; in return for British acceptance of this, she was allowed to pursue new free trade agreements with the rest of the world.
With the Antwerp question duly resolved, Tebbit’s government could finally move on. Despite expectations, the Nationals made no move to repeal the electoral reforms of the Coalition and reinstitute the First Pass the Post – the criticisms of AV now rang hollow now that the Nationals had proved that both majority government and one led by the National Party were possible. Time also came for the Nationals to but their mark on Education, an area of policy where Labour dominated consensus had reigned for 30 years. A pair of young whizzes in the National Party think-tank A New Way had cobbled together a new policy that earned a respectable place in the Party’s manifesto. The ‘Free School’ policy remains to this day and was the best example of Thatcherism back in action, as with any individual, organisation or group were entitled to government funding in proportion to the number of pupils educated at the schools they were permitted to establish. From Labour and the unions there came an appalling backlash, with the marketisation of education setting their blood to boil, yet the public didn’t seem to agree with them. Ever since the abolition of public schools under Michael Foot, comprehensive education had become a satirist wet dream to such an extent that the under Thatcher there was serious discussion at the Cabinet level about the reintroduction of national service to compensate for the failings of comprehensives. Parents appreciated the choice they now had when it came to education, the ‘free schools’ avoiding the trappings of elitism that the old public schools had.
Overall, things were looking good for the Nationals by the turn of the millennium, the economy growing, a din in Northern Ireland, and a popular strong leader at the helm. Victory in the next election seemed assured, but rumours began circulating about the future of the Prime Minister. Tebbit’s former reticence came back to bite him, and it was no secret that his wife needed greater care. Columns in The Sun and Mail at the time mentioned that Ian Gow and John Redwood were lobbying backbenchers to back them if Tebbit just so happened to stand down. In his memoirs, Tebbit acknowledges that his indecisiveness at this time ultimately cost the election. Whether he should indeed stand aside, and for who, or carry on, the answer eluded him – a cryptic answer during a BBC interview implied that he would not be Prime Minister by the end of the year. Naturally this slip up was twisted all out of shape, at worst he doubted that the Nationals would win the election, at best he was expecting people to vote for him only to hand power to someone as yet unknown. The electorate took this about as well as could be expected.
Tebbit Cabinet, May 1996 – June 2001
Prime Minister – Norman Tebbit (1996-2001)
Leader of the House of Commons – Chris Patten (1996-98); John Major (1998-2001)
Leader of the House of Lords – The Lord Mackay of Clashfern (1996-2001)
Chancellor of the Exchequer – Michael Heseltine (1996-98); Kenneth Clarke (1998-2001)
Foreign Secretary – Douglas Hurd (1996-98); John Redwood (1998-2001)
Secretary of State for Justice – Kenneth Clarke (1996-98); Michael Howard (1998-2001)
Secretary of State for Defence – Ian Gow (1996-2001)
Secretary of State for Education – John Patten (1996-2001)
Secretary of State for Employment – Michael Howard (1996-98); Edwina Currie (1998-2001)
Secretary of State for the Environment – John Redwood (1996-98); William Hague (1998-2001)
Secretary of State for Health – John Major (1996-98); Iain Duncan Smith (1998-2001)
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry – Michael Dobbs (1996-2001)
Secretary of State for Social Security – Gillian Shephard (1996-2001)
Secretary of State for Transport – Michael Portillo (1996-2001)
Secretary of State for Europe – Nirj Deva (1996-2001)
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – Alan Clark (1996-2001)
Secretary of State for Scotland – Malcolm Rifkind (1996-2001)
Secretary of State for Wales – David Hunt (1996-2001)
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food – Iain Duncan Smith (1996-98); Timothy Bell (1998-2001)
Minister for the Arts and Communication – William Hague (1996-98); David Davis (1998-2001)
Minister for International Development – Norman Lamont (1996-98); Baron Young of Graffham (1998-2001)
Presidents of the Federal Republic of India 1925 - 1935: Chittaranjan Das (Indian National Congress) 1935 - 1938: Subhash Chandra Bose (Indian National Congress) 1935 def. Madan Mohan Malaviya (Nationalist faction) and Rajendra Prasad (Gandhian faction)
Presidents of the Federal Socialist Republic of India
I kind of came up with this scenario at a whim while bored in a class. Indian independence in 1925 follows a British loss in World War I - this results in the earlier decolonisation of India in 1919 as a "federal" government similar to the 1935 proposal of the constitution (thanks to @Indicus and a friend not on this forum for spawning this idea in my head). A Kaiserreich-style scenario emerges in Europe with a red Britain (France and Italy already red, Austria-Hungary in civil war, Russia under a Sanacja-style para-fascistic dictatorship and Germany democratising* leading to a Congress and mass-party led revolution in India of a peasant nature.
What of Gandhi? Gandhi launches an indefinite fast the year of the revolution to protest British brutalities against the peasantry. He did not live to see total independence, though his followers survived. Bose moulds India into a socialistic, KMT-style party-state. For him, I took inspiration from leaders ranging from Stalin to Ataturk, Peron, Sukarno and countless others.
*When it came to world affairs, I really was working backwards frankly to justify the scenario in India that I had thought of in my head. I can't think of what you would imagine happened, I really only thought about general trends that I either found interesting or existed to justify my scenario. This was meant to be very self-contained.
* For those curious about the nomenclature of factions - the Old Guard are mostly non-existent but, when they did exist, were made up of Bose's loyalists and personal friends, as well as those who tagged along like Nambiar. Planists range from OTL Japan-affiliated bureaucrats to Nehruvian technocrats of OTL, vaguely inspired by (my probably insufficient reading of) the Administrator-Solidarity Maker dichotomy Herbert Feith used when talking about Sukarno. "Young Subhasists" are akin to the Red Guards, the fervently socialist young Turks who see in Bose a revolutionary helmsman. "Neo-Subhasists" I imagined to be like Menem in Argentina or more pointedly Deng.
William Jennings Bryan (D) - March 4, 1897 - March 4, 1901
'96 def. William McKinley (R), 236-211 EV / 48.1%-49.7% PV Theodore Roosevelt (R) - March 4, 1901 - March 4, 1909
'00 def. William Jennings Bryan (D), 230-217 EV / 49.5%-48.0% PV '04 def. Alton Parker (D), 389-87 EV / 63.1%-33.7% PV Charles Evans Hughes (R) - March 4, 1909 - March 4, 1913
'08 def. Alton Parker (D), 409-74 EV / 62.0%-35.7% PV Thomas Watson (D) - March 4, 1913 - January 27, 1919
'12 def. Charles Evans Hughes (R), Henry Ford (C), 276-234-21 EV / 43.1%-45.0%-10.7% PV '16 def. William Taft (R), 371-160 EV / 53.8%-44.5% PV Nellie Tayloe Ross (D) - January 27, 1919 - March 4, 1921 George Shima (R) - March 4, 1921 - March 4, 1925
'20 def. Woodrow Wilson (D), 294-237 EV / 50.5%-47.9% PV Alfred Smith (D) - March 4, 1925 - March 4, 1933
'24 def. Warren Harding (R), 267-264 EV / 47.3%-49.8% PV '28 def. Herbert Hoover (R), 291-240 EV / 48.8%-48.0% PV Floyd Olson (R) - March 4, 1933 - October 9, 1936
'32 def. Royal Copeland (D), 354-177 EV / 52.0%-46.5% PV Frank Lloyd Wright (R) - October 9, 1936 - March 4, 1937 A. Philip Randolph (R) - March 4, 1937 - March 4, 1945 '36 def. Arthur Vandenberg (D), 422-109 EV / 55.9%-41.7% PV '40 def. Robert Taft (D), 437-94 EV / 57.0%-41.4% PV Upton Sinclair (R) - March 4, 1945 - March 4, 1949
'44 def. Robert Taft (D), 463-68 EV / 56.4%-42.0% PV John Winant (D) - March 4, 1949 - September 15, 1950
'48 def. Upton Sinclair (R), 270-261 EV / 48.7%-48.3% PV Earl Warren (D) - September 15, 1950 - March 4, 1953 Mary McLeod Bethune (R) - March 4, 1953 - March 4, 1957
'52 def. Earl Warren (D), 334-197 EV / 51.2%-47.5% PV Hubert Humphrey (R) - March 4, 1957 - March 4, 1965
'56 def. Dick Nixon (D), 413-118 EV / 54.1%-44.3% PV '60 def. Margaret Chase (D), 489-42 EV / 57.9%-38.5% PV Daniel Inouye (R) - March 4, 1965 - March 4, 1973
'64 def. William Miller (D), 340-198 EV / 52.1%-47.3% PV '68 def. Nelson Rockefeller (D), 449-89 EV / 55.5%-43.0% PV Maurine Neuberger (R) - March 4, 1973 - March 4, 1977
'72 def. Ted Agnew (D), 354-184 EV / 51.6%-46.8% PV Larry Hogan Sr. (D) - March 4, 1977 - March 4, 1981
'76 def. Bella Abzug (R), 282-256 EV / 47.4%-48.0% PV Bayard Rustin (R) - March 4, 1981 - April 15, 1987
'80 def. Larry Hogan (D), 288-250 EV / 50.3%-46.9% PV '84 def. Ronald Reagan (D), 538-0 EV / 71.5%-27.5% PV Gloria Steinem (R) - April 15, 1987 - March 4, 1993
'88 def. Bob Dole (D), 516-22 EV / 63.8%-34.7% PV Elizabeth Holtzman (R) - March 4, 1993 - March 4, 2001
'92 def. Terry Branstad (D), 450-88 EV / 57.0%-41.1% PV '96 def. Pat Robertson (D), Charles Percy (I), 524-14-0 EV / 58.2%-22.1%-18.6% PV Barbara Jordan (R) - March 4, 2001 - December 1, 2002
'00 def. John McCain (D), 411-127 EV / 54.0%-44.0% PV Al Gore (R) - December 1, 2002 - March 4, 2005 Bill Weld (D) - March 4, 2005 - March 4, 2009
'04 def. Al Gore (R), 270-268 EV / 48.4%-49.7% PV Bernie Sanders (R) - March 4, 2009 - March 4, 2017
'08 def. Rick Santorum (D), 429-109 EV / 56.3%-40.7% PV '12 def. David Kustoff (D), 515-23 EV / 59.8%-37.1% PV Joe Biden (D) - March 4, 2017 - March 4, 2021
'16 def. Barbara Lee (R), 271-267 EV / 48.0%-49.0% PV Bakari Sellers (R) - March 4, 2021 - Incumbent
'20 def. Joe Biden (D), 334-204 EV / 49.7%-47.1% PV
1990 - 1993: John Major (Conservative) 1991 (Minority) def. Neil Kinnock (Labour), Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrat) 1993 - 1996: John Smith (Labour) 1993 (Majority) def. John Major (Conservative), Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrat) 1996 - : Margaret Beckett (Labour Majority, Acting)
1996 - 1999: Jack Straw (Labour) 1997 (Majority) def. Michael Howard (Conservative), Malcolm Bruce (Liberal Democrat) 1999 - : Michael Howard (Conservative) 1999 (Majority) def. Jack Straw (Labour), Malcolm Bruce (Liberal Democrat), Alex Salmond (Scottish National)
“The Steady as She Goes philosophy of the Smith Government seemed to have been validated by the emergence of Straw. With Blair reputation somewhat tarnished and Brown working as the Managing Director of the IMF, it seemed that only Straw could successfully run as the moderniser candidate in any successful capacity in the wake of Smith’s abrupt resignation.
Narrowly beating Prescott and Beckett who seemed to represent the two different sides of the John Smith coin, Straw would quickly plunge into the murky depths of Government.
Almost immediately there were problems, the Peace Process in Northern Ireland was ongoing and the ceasefire between the IRA and the British Government broke. Straw, Taoiseach Noonan and Senator Mitchell would race to establish a renewed ceasefire and agreement. Whilst it certainly worked, the effect the continued bombings and attacks had on the Labour Government would be grime, with Straw and Clark introducing new Anti-terrorist legislation that was attacked by the Liberal Democrat’s and the Left of the Labour Party with Michael Meacher resigning from the government in response.
Still when elections were called, it seemed that Labour win a majority again, with polls indicating such a result, with many finding Michael Howard awkward and poor leader of the opposition and the lingering doubts of the Conservative competence Post Major. What they hadn’t anticipated was the possibility of disgruntlement towards Straw. With Labour voters staying at home or voting for alternate parties (the Green Left, Scottish Socialist, Socialist Labour, Anti-Federalist) suddenly found themselves going from a sure majority of twenty to one of around five.
Still it seemed that Straw would be able to keep things on track and after a couple of years, call a snap election to regain the momentum.
The Economic Crisis of 1998 very much shredded any plans that Straw had. The eventual austerity package that would occur under the responsibility of Chancellor Beckett despite including some protections for social services, shattered her reputation but also lead to a decline in support for Labour, though the City kept stable despite fears of a fall in the pound.
In the Winter of 1998 Ron Davies, Secretary for Wales would dramatically leave the cabinet taking a few supporters with him and briefly make himself a champion of the Left as a result. The majority shrank following a couple of by-elections. Straw’s attempt to gain further support from the Liberal Democrat’s went nowhere, Malcolm Bruce was an outspoken critic of the Labour Government’s particularly the Straw’s Government.
In the Spring of 1999, it seemed that Labour could once more regain the lead, even gain a majority as the economy began to improve. Indeed, leadership arguments within the Conservative Party seemed to help Straw’s ailing leadership. But as the election campaign began Labour lead turned out to be wobblier than thought. Not helping matters was the surprise surge in Scotland for the Scottish National Party which ran on a Populist campaign against the austerity measures.
In the end, the Conservatives would stumble into office again, on a somewhat slim majority of ten, much to the dismay of Straw. With Howard in power, the Conservatives would be in for a rough few years, as his leadership, never secure would constantly be called into question.
Meanwhile in Labour, recriminations would occur, for many, Straw had been a betrayal of the Social Democratic consensus his predecessor had promised. As Straw resigned following the defeat, a battle for the soul of the party would occur it seemed as Harman, Hain, Prescott and Robertson questioned what would be needed for the future of the party…”
Presidents of the United States in the Sorkinverse
1974-1982: Ronald Reagan (SPA/SDPA-IL) [1]
1982-1985: John Jonah Everett (SDPA-NY) [2]
1985-1990: Michael Chernenko (SDPA-MI) [3]
1990-1998: Arthur Fairweather (SDPA-OK) [4]
1998-2006: Walter W. Flanagan (SDPA-MA) [5]
(acting 2001: Chairman of the Cabinet and Secretary of the Interior Arthur Fairweather, SDPA-OK)
(acting 2003: Chairman of the Cabinet and Secretary-Chairman of War Gerald Solomon, SDPA-NJ) [6]
(acting 2006: Chairman of the Cabinet and Secretary-Chairman of the Judiciary Pamela Ramirez, SDPA-CA)
2006-2009: Pamela Ramirez (SDPA-CA) [7]
2009-2012: Peter Clark (SDPA-OH) [8]
2012-2016: Carl Strauss (SDPA-NY) [9]
2016-: Amelia Robinson (SDPA-OR) [10]
'16 def. Harry Smith (YAS-NY), J. Ford Campbell (CPI-SC)
[1] Reagan is the last OTL President mentioned as being President (Larry Summers appears in a cameo in S2E17 "Fear of Falling", but it's not clear whether he's playing himself or an unnamed economist, and in any case he's not President there... there are also some brief shots of Iacocca and Carville in the montage of past presidents at the 2006 convention, but I'm ignoring that). We can assume from the off-year election cycle that he didn't call a special election for the bicentennial/SDPA convention, but we can also assume from the fact that the party is the SDPA that the convention still happened ITTL. It is possible to have him as President as late as 1986 but that would make things difficult.
[2] Here's where things get tricky. We know that Everett was President at some point because they keep referring to Eleanor Everett as a former First Lady all through the series, so we have to put him in somewhere. We don't 100% know his first name because he gets mentioned as John the first few times (S1E4 "Red Hook", S1E7 "The Long Watch"), but that's resolvable. We could have Chernenko serve two full terms (or one full term 1986-90) and have him serve for one term before or after Fairweather, but neither of them give off one-termer vibes, we know that Everett died before Flanagan was elected, and we know that Fairweather and Flanagan were elected to their first terms in office (S3E19 "The Fleshpots Of Egypt"). So I'm unhappily pencilling Everett in as dying in office and elevating Chernenko to the presidency, which explains a lot of Chernenko's doubts in himself. We don't know where he's from exactly, but we know he's not from the West because Fairweather complains about "three decades of Easterners before me" (S5E2 "The Mighty Owl"), Eleanor has a lot of contempt for Southerners so he's probably not from there, and Eleanor explicitly mentions moving from Pennsylvania to live with him. I'm pencilling in New York even though I don't think that's right, just because of regional balance and the fact that if he were from New England it probably would have come up.
[3] Played by Tom Skerritt in The American President and one (1) episode of 1600 Pennsylvania. Even though The American President was released in 1993 I'm making the decision to have it set in 1989, and there's nothing in dialogue to stop me. We know from dialogue that Chernenko is in his second term and from Grand Rapids; we know that, as of the end of the film, he isn't running for re-election. I would be tempted to just shelve his Presidency if he didn't show up for five minutes in S6E36 "Old Men". However, he does.
[4] Played by Ron Beckenholdt as a recurring character on 1600 Pennsylvania. We know that he gets into office by election rather than elevation (see above). We know that he's from Oklahoma because he talks about it constantly. We know that he left office because he was pushed out from a couple of episodes, but he seems more prominent than a one-term President would ordinarily be so I'm going to pencil him in as serving two full terms. We know that Congress votes him in as Cabinet Chairman during Flanagan's MS investigation, which implies that he's in the Cabinet in 2001 at least, though he might have been appointed specifically to serve as CabChair; it's implied that it's either Agriculture or the Interior but I'm going with the latter because he mostly talks about oil and mineral leasing in his later appearances.
[5] Played by Raymond Sheen in 1600 Pennsylvania and Morning in America. I think all of this is confirmed in Morning In America S1E18 "What Kind Of Day Has It Been".
[6] Played by Oliver Platt in 1600 Pennsylvania, most notably in mid-Season 5, and Morning In America. We don't actually know his home state but I'm putting in New Jersey because he talks about not being from New York in S5E20 "States of Emergency" the way people from Hudson City talk about it.
[7] Played by Salma Hayek in 1600 Pennsylvania. Technically the assassination attempt could have been in 2008, the timeline around the time-skip is fuzzy enough for that, but eh.
[8] Played by Ted Danson in 1600 Pennsylvania and Morning In America. We don't know when he leaves office, but based on the later timeline I think it makes the most sense for him to call an early election in 2012 and not run in it.
[9] Played by Jeffrey Tambor in The Best Man.
[10] Played by Robin Wright in The Best Man and Morning In America. The 2016 candidates are mentioned in The Best Man, but their home states are not except that Campbell is Southern.
The Long, Long Death of Liberal New Zealand
1891-1983: John Ballance (Liberal) 1893-1906: Richard Seddon (Liberal) 1906: William Hall-Jones (Liberal) 1906-1912: Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal) 1908 def: William Massey (Opposition), David McLaren (Independent Political Labour League)
1911 def: William Massey (Reform), Alfred Hindmarsh (Labour) 1912: Sir Thomas Mackenzie (Liberal minority) 1912-1914: John A. Millar (Liberal minority) 1914 def: William Massey (Reform), Alfred Hindmarsh (United Labour), James McCombs (Social Democratic) 1914: George Warren Russell (Liberal minority with Labour support)
1914-1919: Sir Joseph Ward (National Government:Liberal and Reform)
1919-1920: Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal minority) 1919 def: James Allen (National), James McCombs (Labour), Bob Semple (Sinn Fein) 1920: William MacDonald (Liberal minority with Labour support)
1920-1924: Josiah Hanan (Liberal minority withLabour support) 1922 def: Gen. Andrew Hamilton Russell (National), James McCombs (Labour), Charles Statham (Moderate) 1924-1925: Sir Thomas Wilford (Liberal-National coalition) 1925 def: Gordon Coates (National), James McCombs (Labour) 1925-1928: Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal) 1928-1930: Sir Joseph Ward (Liberal minority withLabour support) 1928 def: Clutha Mackenzie (National), Rex Mason (Labour) 1930-1931: Harry Atmore (Liberal-Labour coalition)
1931-1934: Sir Alfred Ransom (Liberal-National coalition) 1931 def: William Downie Stewart (National), Rex Mason (Labour), Arthur Nelson Field (Citizens'), Jim Edwards (Communist)
