Anarchy in the UK: Thatcherism Stillborn

Techdread

Techdread

maTXBI9.png

All credit to SargeantHawk for the title card​

Spitting Image - March 1984

[The screen transitions to the cabinet room where members of the cabinet are seated. The room itself is badly lit by candles; the wallpaper is beginning to flay in the background. At the centre of the room is the Prime Minister Michael Foot (who is portrayed as aged and senile - ending nearly every sentence with “Yes! Argh!.”) Elsewhere around the table are other members of the cabinet including the Chancellor, Peter Shore (portrayed as a spineless wimp, who frets over a financial crisis he has apparently just caused; his nose also grows in a Pinocchio fashion if he tells a lie, or randomly inflates from time to time), the Foreign Secretary/Deputy Prime Minister Denis Healey (portrayed with oversized eyebrows, who always seems to help Foot look foolish), the Home Secretary, Roy Hattersley (portrayed as spitting with every word because of his lisp), Brynmor John (portrayed as childish and with a lisp; he also has a schoolboy-esque obsession with the military - often brining toy soldiers and guns into cabinet; his puppet nearly always wore an oversized helmet); Transport Secretary, Albert Booth (portrayed as a rabid socialist with swivel eyes who wore a ushanka, who possessed not the faintest clue about transport. It was also a running joke that he was actually a Kim Philby-esqye Soviet spy - constantly trying to feed useless and basic information to Moscow - but constantly being interrupted, causing him to create outlandish cover stories) and the Education Secretary, Neil Kinnock (portrayed as the ‘Welsh Windbag’ who talks for ours about anything other than education - putting everyone else to sleep in the process.]

Michael Foot: Comrades! We - argh! - need to discuss the argh! yes! the argh! b-by-election result in argh! Chesterfield. Our great - socialist! campaign was sadly argh! not enough! We need more... better! campaigning and argh! advertising at the next b-by-election! Peter! How much money do we have in the argh! party argh! funds!

[Shore looks around at everyone at the table; gradually looking more and more panicky and flustered - as his puppet slowly turns a little red]

Peter Shore: Well... Prime Minister - I think we fought a great campaign in Chesterfield! [his nose grows a little bit] Our candidate there was an excellent candidate [his nose grows some more] and will surely win the seat back at the next election... [his nose grows some more]

Roy Hattersley: [Characters seated between Shore and Hattersley hurriedly put up umbrellas to avoid Hattersley’s rivers of spit which begin to rain down upon them as he speaks] But what about the party finances Peter?

[Shore begins to rub his forehead as if to dispel some sweat forming on his forehead - he gets redder and redder as he stutters]

Peter Shore: Uh... Uh... Well... I’ve got the party finances here. [lifts out a charity fundraising container with the clearly misspelt ‘LABUOR’ written on it. He proceeds to shake it upside down as some coins fall out] Uh... let me see here. We’ve got twenty-five pounds, nineteen drachmas, a piece of string with a knot tied in it and a half sucked mint.

Denis Healey: [Taking the mint and putting it in his mouth] That’ll be mine.

[Mutters of ‘rhubarb, rhubarb’ begin around the table. Some ask ‘where’s the rest?’]

Peter Shore: We... uh... spent the rest on our Chesterfield party publicity campaign.

Michael Foot: Hmm... Comrade - that is argh! better than I was expecting. What is this argh! yes! publicity campaign you argh! speak of - argh! yes!?

Peter Shore: Don’t you remember Prime Minister? It was in every newspaper, shop window and lamppost in Chesterfield.

Michael Foot: Right then - Comrade. We should then yes! argh! crack open our secret emergency funds. argh!

[Shore goes redder and redder as he sinks down in his seat]

Peter Shore: Uh... We blew that...

Michael Foot: yes! What argh! Comrade - how did that argh! yes! happen?

Peter Shore: We uh... spent it on this fundraising container... [lifts up the charity fundraising container] It is a nice container however.

Michael Foot: Comrade - have you tried looking argh! down argh! the back of the settee?

Peter Shore: Yes, Prime Minister - we tried that first - we didn’t find anything but the mint. We’ve had to sell both the biros... and the box...

Roy Hattersley: Not the box! [A large piece of spit flies off and hits Brynmor John in the face; proceeding to have him fly out of his chair and onto the ground]

Denis Healey: Not the box!

[Camera cuts to Albert Booth seated at the right end of the table - holding a candlestick telephone which he is talking into:]

Albert Booth: This is Tailor - Tailor to Moscow - I repeat, the capitalist imperialists have had to sell the box - over. The capitalist imperialists have had to sell the box!

[Camera cuts back to the rest of the cabinet]

Peter Shore: We’ve still got the pink comb with fur in it.

Michael Foot: Well - Comrade - that is argh! very good - that is argh! yes! good news indeed! Though what sort of PR company could we hire for twenty-five pounds, nineteen yes! drachmas, a half chewed mint, [Healey spits the mint out - which proceeds to hit Brynmor John in the head - just as he has gotten himself back into his seat - after falling before] a piece of string with a knot tied in it and the pink comb with fur in it? argh! yes!

Peter Shore: There’s only one company that’ll do it for that sort of money.

Michael Foot: argh! yes! And that is?

Peter Shore: The one we’ve got already.

[Moans and audible sighs start up across the table]

Michael Foot: That argh! yes! Comrades - that brings us onto the next argh! item of the agenda.

Denis Healey: [His eyebrows momentarily move several inches up his face revealing his eyes] Which is?

Michael Foot: We have - Comrades! found a suitable replacement for the nuclear argh! yes! warheads that we are removing argh! yes!

Roy Hattersley: Which is?

Michael Foot: argh! yes! Tell them Comrade Brymor!

[Camera pans to Brynmor John’s seat which empty. A hand then appears from below the desk - and then another. John proceeds to eventually work his way up from under the table]

Brynmor John: [Panting] Wes. We w-have fwond a perfwect repwacewent fwor the Pwoaris wuwclear warheads.

Peter Shore: [Sighing] Which is?

Brynmor John: Hwere wit wis. [Proceeds to lift up a wooden toy gun and make childish shooting noises - 'pew' 'pew' 'pew' etc]

Michael Foot: Ah yes! marvelous Comrade - it is perfect for our argh! yes! national yes! the national defence of this great argh! land of ours!

Peter Shore: [From behind his hands] And how will that stop the Soviets?

Michael Foot: Oh no Comrade argh! yes! It is for a much more serious foe indeed!

Peter Shore: [Again from behind his hands] Which is?

Michael Foot: The argh! the argh! yes! Tories!

Neil Kinnock: I thought that they were the reason why we had nuclear weapons. [Peter Shore audibly sighs and burrows his head in his hands once again as he audibly sobs]

----​

Wait – what the hell is this?

It was cold day in April and clocks were striking seven-thirty.

Hold up-

Alex nuzzled his chin into the crimson scarf he wore returning home from, only to be greeted by a pile of political leaflets nestled at the foot of his door.

I said hold-

Amongst the leaflets of promises from all the parties was one that stood out to him. It rekindled an old memory for him – of neoliberalism at an end, of the 1980s never truly ending as they did.

We’ve been here before, haven’t we?

The ‘80s? No, I’m a ‘90s child – you know that.

Not what I meant and you know it.

Probably.

You’ve done this before.

Yes, many times. It’s the typical internal monologue.

I mean this – ‘Thatcherism Stillborn’.

Also correct.

But you’re doing it again?

I had the idea of returning to my first foray with a renewed and more experience mind to retry it.

Well, this will be brilliant, won’t it?

With my partner it well.

I’m sure it- Wait…partner?

Uh - hi there?

Hi Gonzo!

Oh it’s you Gonzo - what are you doing here?

Probably turning it into a dystopia alongside the other one...

I guess I’m here to cancel out any political bias in the writing that may or may not be present.

But this is a British TL not an American!

I am British!

Could have fooled me...

Then why do you spend your time doing US political TLs then?

I have an interest in both nations’ politics and,-... they get more views…

So from past experiences what are we to expect with this TL? A borderline fascist UK like in No Southern Strategy?

Or a radical socialist-borderline communist UK like Techdread dreams of?

It will be very different from the previous version, whilst putting our own slant on things.

I’m not promising anything either. It won’t be a bed of roses, nor will it be a left-wing screw (more like a David Owen screw.) I can reveal that it involves an early death of Thatcherism.

No shit. So how often do you expect to update it?

I guess when we finish each update and feel they’re of a good enough standard to post.

Fine, whatever. Just get this over and done with already!

Okay!
 
Comisario

Comisario

I didn't spot him at first, but it's ALBERT BOOTH.

[PRESIDENT SHRIVER RIDES MERLYN REES INTO A COOPERATIVELY OWNED FACTORY]
 

Statesman

Well let's see where this goes. For the largely uninitiated in British Politics*, would you care to explain what the POD is?

*I'm friends with both you guys, so how is it I'm still rather clueless about UK politics?
 
Techdread

Techdread

Statesman said:
Well let's see where this goes. For the largely uninitiated in British Politics*, would you care to explain what the POD is?
Click to expand...

Well, there's a minor PoD and a major PoD - should be explained shortly, but the major one is the same as the one I used in the original version of this TL. Thatcher calling an election in 1981 following pressure that her economic measures were unsuccessful and she should resign. Rather than resign, she sought a public mandate that quite strongly went against her leading to... ;)

*I'm friends with both you guys, so how is it I'm still rather clueless about UK politics?
Click to expand...

It's mad world all on its own, believe me pal. :p
 
RyanF

RyanF

Banned
Techdread said:
Well, there's a minor PoD and a major PoD - should be explained shortly, but the major one is the same as the one I used in the original version of this TL. Thatcher calling an election in 1981 following pressure that her economic measures were unsuccessful and she should resign. Rather than resign, she sought a public mandate that quite strongly went against her leading to... ;)
Click to expand...

After Limehouse? After unfortunately missing your previous efforts very interested to see how this plays out. Labour minority government?
 
Techdread

Techdread

stupid_boy said:
After Limehouse? After unfortunately missing your previous efforts very interested to see how this plays out. Labour minority government?
Click to expand...

Almost immediately after actually, so the SDP doesn't have much time at all to prepare itself for an election either.

And here's the original *Warning: May contain blatant leftism & AH clichés.* :p This version will be radically different though. ;)
 
Gonzo

Gonzo

Statesman said:
Well let's see where this goes. For the largely uninitiated in British Politics*, would you care to explain what the POD is?

*I'm friends with both you guys, so how is it I'm still rather clueless about UK politics?
Click to expand...

:D

Here's a clue - the minor one is in 1979 and just around the time the election is called. The second is in 1981.
 
Gonzo

Gonzo

2:55 P.M Westminster, London, United Kingdom, 30th March 1979

“Start you damn thing!”

Airey Neave, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition, slammed the dashboard of his Vauxhall Cavalier with a growl. He had had barely any sleep the night before; he’d spent most of the night putting together the final touches to the Conservative Party’s Northern Ireland section of the Manifesto. What he was proposing was radical and was surely something that would ensure that the Paddies would think twice before decided to pull the switch again. He was going to have the party advocate the maintenance of Roy Mason’s Ulsterisation policy. He was also proposing that the party abandon it’s petty drive towards devolution in Northern Ireland in the event of no early progress; and instead sought to focus on local government reform in the province instead. Integration was the way forward - no longer would the party maintain it’s petty attempts to try to restore the failed Stormont devolved Government that had in effect collapsed twice in the last decade.

“God dammit!”

Harold Wilson was right for once when he said ‘a week is a long time in politics.’ This week certainly had been a tumultuous and dramatic one. On Wednesday evening the Government of Jim Callaghan had finally collapsed after losing an SNP-proposed motion of No Confidence. A Parliamentary Coup indeed. Who would have thought that the Government would have fallen by a single vote; and made Last Thursday, the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to the Netherlands, Sir Richard Sykes was shot dead by the Provisional IRA in The Hague. Was nowhere safe now? If not overseas then how long was it till they finally struck here?

“Bloody thing!”

This was all that he needed. The bloody car had decided now of all times to stop working. He jingled the keys around in the ignition several more times, each time the engine stuttered and stopped as it had the time before. It seemed the traditional British method of turning things on and off again was not working for this instance. The Cavalier was well and truly buggered and probably not in any mood to start working.

“Sod it!”

Neave banged the dashboard a few more times and tried once again with the key in the ignition - once again it would not budge.

“I should probably have someone get it moved and off to get repaired. Bloody salesman - probably sold me a dud.”

Neave cursed to himself as he reached into the doorside drawer and lifted out the day’s edition of ‘The Daily Telegraph’ and his reading glasses in the case as he got out of the unyielding Cavalier and slammed the door. He considered going out and getting a branch from somewhere and giving the car a good birching a la Basil Fawtly - but then again it would look rather strange that the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was giving his car a walloping with a branch in the car park of the Palace of Westminster.

Neave sauntered away from the vehicle and gradually made his way through the vast and grand Palace of Westminster towards his office. As he sat down at his desk (which he had specifically made to be a long distance from the door so as to allow people to walk a great distance before they were before him - very Mussolini like.) He reclined back in his chair as he dialed up for the Cavalier to be moved. He wondered if the relevant services would be up and running, or if they were one of the numerous services from National Health Service workers to gravediggers who were on strike. Then again it wasn’t one of the services that the next Conservative Government was going to denationalise and privatise.

‘Sod the strikes - they can have their fun like the IRA bastards while Labour limps on for the next month.’

He unfolded the newspaper dated Friday, 30th March, 1979. The election date had finally be decided and called for the Third of May; that would provide ample time for Margaret to get to the nation and to spread the Conservative alternative to the industrial anarchy and malaise of the Labour Government. Neave was sure that Margaret would prove the naysayers wrong and would win a good majority come May and become the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Elsewhere it seemed the Yanks were coming to the realisation that nuclear power may not be the safest energy source, especially after the events on Wednesday in Three Mile Island or wherever in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile it seemed that several Republican and even Democratic Senators over there were decrying the Peace Treaty deal between Sadat and Begin at the White House. The Middle East quagmire was probably going to continue for sometime - especially after the events in Iran. Though as William F. Buckley, Jr. said - the Arabs will eventually get around to finally recognising that Israel is going to be around for some time - and by then salubrious juices will begin to flow…

Further inside the ‘Telegraph’ there was a strange array of other foreign affairs stories - the King of Malaysia, Yahya Petra had died the day before and was due to be replaced by yet another Royal with an unpronounced name.

“Airey.”

Neave looked up from the story concerning the death of the now former Malaysian monarch due to an apparent heart attack in his sleep; to see who had rather startled him by blurting out his name. In front of him was his number two of sorts - Ian Gow. Gow was panting somewhat, having clearly been running to Neave’s office at a hurry. He readjusted his tie while Neave responded to him.

“Yes Ian?”

Gow bit his lips as his eyes darted around the room too and fro Neave.

“There’s been a car bomb.”

Neave looked up and directly at Gow. He readjusted his glasses so that they were resting on the very tip of his nose.

“That’s awful… Was anyone… killed…, injured...?”

Gow shook his head but the blood still continued to drain from his face.

“Where exactly was it Ian?”

“The exit from the Palace car park as it was being moved.”

Neave’s brown began to wrinkle into a frown of some sort. He placed his hand over his mouth as he folded the newspaper in half and set it down on the old oak table in front of him. The blood on his face began to drain as he remember how his Cavalier had been acting up,

“Anyone’s car in particular...? Was it a Vauxhall Cavalier.”

Gow looked up at Neave with a look of morbid curiosity across his face.

“As a matter of fact, it was… yes it was... How did you know?”

Neave shut his eyes tight as he cup his hands over his face and he gave a large sigh. Thank the Lord that he had had such a lucky escape from certain death. Perhaps his car messing up was a blessing in disguise from God?
 
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