Thatcher never rules Britain
- Thread starter nova2010
- Start date
yourworstnightmare
Banned
I know she's kind a dividing force among Britons. Fetching Popcorn and hoping for flames.
So is the criteria just that its not Thatcher?
A different Conservative leader wins in '79?
Maybe if Keith Joseph doesn't stick his foot in his mouth in his Edgbaston speech in 1974?
A different Conservative leader wins in '79?
Maybe if Keith Joseph doesn't stick his foot in his mouth in his Edgbaston speech in 1974?
It really depends on how.
Do we get to be rid of Heath too? Does Callaghan call the election at the best time for him? Does Thatcher decide politics isn't for her and its another tory in her stead?- is s/he better or worse?
Going with a unspectatcular PM in the 80s though then good times. Society remains functional, the economy grows hugely, no Falklands War, Britain of today comes ranked second only to the Scandinavians in those best places to live lists.
Unless you belive those theories that the Falklands War showed the west had balls to the Soviets and stopped WW3....
Do we get to be rid of Heath too? Does Callaghan call the election at the best time for him? Does Thatcher decide politics isn't for her and its another tory in her stead?- is s/he better or worse?
Going with a unspectatcular PM in the 80s though then good times. Society remains functional, the economy grows hugely, no Falklands War, Britain of today comes ranked second only to the Scandinavians in those best places to live lists.
Unless you belive those theories that the Falklands War showed the west had balls to the Soviets and stopped WW3....
cumbria
Banned
It's not certain if Callaghan would have won in 1978.
Best bet would involve two what if's.
Denis Healey wins the Labour leadership in 1980.
The SDP would then not likely break away.
Then if we have no Falklands war there is a good chance that the Labour party would win an election in 1984 (Thatcher would wait another year because of being so far behind in the polls).
What happens after than would take some working out.
There could abe a few different reasons fro this proposition:
In the second, if she survives the post election bloodbath that would follow, ("see, this is what happens when you elect a woman to be party leader"), then she would win the next election with a firmer mandate. It would be a slightly less worse version of the last option, due to Thatcher being an effective opposition leader.
The last, and worst option, is No Thatcher and Labour winning the election.
I just about remember the late 70's before Thatcher got in and how bad that was.so I'd expect strikes at the drop of a hat, runaway inflation and Britain in depression, (not just recession), and bankrupt as a nation by 1982. Oh, and the Falkland Islands no longer exist, unlike Las Malvinas...
- Margaret Thatcher not elected Leader of the Conservative Party - everything else the same
- Margaret Thatcher Elected leader of the conservatives, but loses the 1979 election to labour.
- Margaret Thatcher not elected leader of the Conservative Party and Labour win the 1979 election
In the second, if she survives the post election bloodbath that would follow, ("see, this is what happens when you elect a woman to be party leader"), then she would win the next election with a firmer mandate. It would be a slightly less worse version of the last option, due to Thatcher being an effective opposition leader.
The last, and worst option, is No Thatcher and Labour winning the election.
I just about remember the late 70's before Thatcher got in and how bad that was.so I'd expect strikes at the drop of a hat, runaway inflation and Britain in depression, (not just recession), and bankrupt as a nation by 1982. Oh, and the Falkland Islands no longer exist, unlike Las Malvinas...
cumbria
Banned
Thatcher did praise Labours economic reforms of the late 1970's.
Labour cut spending and halved inflation in 1978.
Is it a sure thing that no Thatcher = no Falklands War? Argentina's reasons for attacking the Falklands will stay the same regardless of internal British politics, and no government is going to take blatant aggression against their territory lying down. Granted, a different government might try something like working through the UN and/or getting more help from allies rather than Thatcher's approach, but I can't see even a Labour government just sitting back and letting British territory and citizens get conquered by a foreign power.
Also, if the British do basically take the invasion of the Falklands lying down, expect other bits of British overseas territory to face more pressure compared to OTL.
Also, if the British do basically take the invasion of the Falklands lying down, expect other bits of British overseas territory to face more pressure compared to OTL.
MrP
Banned
ISTR that the thing about the Falklands was that the Argentine government had considered invading them a few years earlier when Labour were in power. But they got wind of it and made a big point of having a submarine in the area, which, erm, torpedoed their plan. I forget why Thatcher's government didn't do the same - no intel or a refusal to consider it a serious threat? Perhaps, even if she had, it would not have dissuaded them a second time, the Junta being desperate by then. However, assuming that it would have worked, then Labour doesn't need to sit back and allow British subjects to be conquered, because the invaders won't have invaded.
Indeed! The UK would be just like France and Germany who didn't have a mass outpouring of neo-liberalism! Hence why they both have far lower living standards than Britain does!
Oh wait...
The most likely scenario would be for Callaghan to have called an Autumn election in 1978 before the unions ended the social contract and before the Lib-Lab pact ended. The incoming Labour government would still have the Winter of discontent but with a majority. Thatcher may well have been ditched and replaced by a more moderate conservative maybe Heseltine who would go on to win in 1982 or 83. The public would be fed up with strikes and inflation and the conservatives would attempt to bring in meaasures to restrict strikes but not in as abrasive a manner as Thatcher's government. There would be no Falklands invasion as there would be no drastic cuts in the navy giving to wrong signal. The British economy would continue to decline relative to other countries but slowly
Indeed! The UK would be just like France and Germany who didn't have a mass outpouring of neo-liberalism! Hence why they both have far lower living standards than Britain does!
Oh wait...
That, gentlemen, is what we call ownage.
'The North would be in better shape' is the most obvious call to make. The mines wouldn't have been closed so brutally and quickly, though without specifying who is in charge instead of Thatcher we could as has been said be going through a maniacal Joseph government or an idealistic Howe administration that still shits on the little guy (think Cameron 20 years earlier).
The 'best' hope for Britain in this TL is that a moderate Union-smasher (it was going to happen in 1979, let's face it) wins the election for the Tories, has a one-term government where they bring things back under control, and then the Tories get comprehensively rejected by the electorate and fuck off under a moss-covered rock to die under.
Mind you, the last part pretty much applies to any period of post-1945 Britain.
The UK in the 70s faced a fundamental crisis: investment was being crowded out and the UK fell ever further behind. There was a real risk of relative turnining into absolute decline.
Trade union power had, in the 70s specifically, become the main cause of this lack of investment. They got the workforce a bigger share of a sub-standard cake - clearly unsustainable.
Any leader would need to address this challenge, and I don't see why someone other than Thatcher necessarily couldn't have done.
They could even have done it in a left-wing way based on high government investment: although previous attempts to do so went awry.
Realistically though it is hard to imagine other leaders coming to grips with that challenge.
Comparisons to other European countries don't work: they didn't face the same investment death spiral.
Trade union power had, in the 70s specifically, become the main cause of this lack of investment. They got the workforce a bigger share of a sub-standard cake - clearly unsustainable.
Any leader would need to address this challenge, and I don't see why someone other than Thatcher necessarily couldn't have done.
They could even have done it in a left-wing way based on high government investment: although previous attempts to do so went awry.
Realistically though it is hard to imagine other leaders coming to grips with that challenge.
Comparisons to other European countries don't work: they didn't face the same investment death spiral.
I understand the official history argues that the Argentinians didn't actually know about Callaghan's task force...
Certainly Callaghan was more aware of this than Thatcher, but this may well be a result of changes at the foreign office Latin America desk - he seems to get clearer warnings. Perhaps if he had still been PM he would have reacted in time, but another leader - Healey - who was not so aware of the events of 1976. That seems doubtful.
Sorry, let me correct that for you.
Thatcher did praise the IMF's economic reforms of the late 1970's.
Labour was forced by the IMF cut spending and halved inflation in 1978, after entirely losing control of the economy and being forced to get the begging bowl out.