[deleted]

Grim as in good but dark or grim as in poorly written?

If the former then that's good, I was going for slightly dystopic.

If the latter well... :(

I was expecting Nadine Dorries rather than Theresa May, but whatever. If the Liberals split from the CLA would that get LSDC over the line?
 
I was expecting Nadine Dorries rather than Theresa May, but whatever. If the Liberals split from the CLA would that get LSDC over the line?

Dorries was considered, but I doubt she could get high in any party, or at least not leader of a major party... May seemed like A) the Most recognisable potential leader, and B) the most likely to actually make it.

And no, they'd need the lefty conservatives to break away as well (which is unlikely considering the party's harsh rhetoric on "traitors" since the collapse under heath) otherwise they'd be six or seven seats short. People like Dave might just do it out of fear of the Nationals, maybe Ken Clark and his lot too.

EDIT: Actually if ALL the Liberals and the SNP (unlikely in this world since they want the Nationals to wreck the country so they get a yes vote for leaving) or the Social Justice Alliance (very likely since they hate the Nationals) and the Greens join then Brown could get a majority of two. That would last him, I think, the whole five years but as the economy and wars get worse I imagine the Nationals will suck more votes from the CLA (or rather just C now) and win very narrow majority in 2020, or at least be the biggest party...
 
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I'd like a little more info on how the "Dictatorship" in the 80's came about.

What happened to the Queen for example?
 
If the CLA joins the nationalists I can see a situation where a lot of their socially liberal and centre-left leaning voter base might end up abandoning them in the next election, similar to what happened to the Lib Dems after the coalition government. Of course, this assumes that the country last long enough to have a next election.
 
I'd like a little more info on how the "Dictatorship" in the 80's came about.

What happened to the Queen for example?

The dictatorships origins actually arose on the early nineteen seventies. The basic POD is that the hard left causes more trouble for Hetah, but also alienates the centre of the Labour Party, which collapses into two factions (The Labour Party and Social Democratic Party (Later the reunited LSDC) ).

Heath meanwhile becomes more centrist and corporatist as politics become more radical and alienated. This puts off many of the more right wing members of the Tory Party who, after Margaret Thatcher leaves, break off to form the National Democrats. After the nineteen seventy four election there is a narrow Cinservative Minroity propped up by coalition with the Liberals. The perceived shift to the left by Heath sends more conservative voters to the Nationals under Thatcher.

Role around the nineteen seventies and the Hard Left and Hard Right are fighting on the streets, largely United under the two radical new parties (although the Hard Left is technically still the Labour Party). The Conservatives and Liberals form the CLA and run in the election as basically one party. The result is a strange one, and the Nationals get a majority of votes (based on a message of strong foreign policy, a crack down on the strikers that plague the Heath governments final years, and monetarism saving the economy) but the CLA and Social Democratic Party (The centre of the former Labour Party) form a coalition to keep them out.

The hard left is still displeased, and a General Strike is called. Three months after the general election a bomb explodes in an empty House of Commons chamber, destroying much of the palace. This is revealed years later to have been the work of the National Front. Seeing the country in turmoil and a mandate from the public Thatcher enlists the help of Mountbatten and the army to overthrow Heath's National Government and installs a Thatcher led National administrated military backed Junta in power. The queen tentatively supports this dictatorship.

The dictatorship is basically an even further right Thatcher government, and lasts a similar length. They privatise almost everything (with the NHS a major exception) and impose ridiculously tight immigration restrictions. Britain leaves the EEC, but only before it can be kicked out. Defence spending is increased and a police crackdown on dissent is made.

The dictatorship falls as the "Warsaw Spring" sweeps Europe during the (much bloodier) collapse of the USSR. Inspired by anti-communists in Eastern Europe, many Britons rise up and try to overthrow the dictatorship. Thatcher realises her days are numbered, and re-establishes Parliament (in a new building across from the Palace of Wrstminster) and requests the Queen dissolve her government.

The dictatorship is, after eleven years, over. Democratic elections are held later that year, and the LSDC wins a five year term. They win the next term in 1995, but lose to the CLA in 2005. Gordon Brown wins it back for Labour in 2010 and, in a controversial move, removes the ban Labour originally placed on the Nationals from re-organising as a party. And then in 2015 we get the mess shown in the vignette.
 
The dictatorships origins actually arose on the early nineteen seventies. The basic POD is that the hard left causes more trouble for Hetah, but also alienates the centre of the Labour Party, which collapses into two factions (The Labour Party and Social Democratic Party (Later the reunited LSDC) ).

Heath meanwhile becomes more centrist and corporatist as politics become more radical and alienated. This puts off many of the more right wing members of the Tory Party who, after Margaret Thatcher leaves, break off to form the National Democrats. After the nineteen seventy four election there is a narrow Cinservative Minroity propped up by coalition with the Liberals. The perceived shift to the left by Heath sends more conservative voters to the Nationals under Thatcher.

Role around the nineteen seventies and the Hard Left and Hard Right are fighting on the streets, largely United under the two radical new parties (although the Hard Left is technically still the Labour Party). The Conservatives and Liberals form the CLA and run in the election as basically one party. The result is a strange one, and the Nationals get a majority of votes (based on a message of strong foreign policy, a crack down on the strikers that plague the Heath governments final years, and monetarism saving the economy) but the CLA and Social Democratic Party (The centre of the former Labour Party) form a coalition to keep them out.

The hard left is still displeased, and a General Strike is called. Three months after the general election a bomb explodes in an empty House of Commons chamber, destroying much of the palace. This is revealed years later to have been the work of the National Front. Seeing the country in turmoil and a mandate from the public Thatcher enlists the help of Mountbatten and the army to overthrow Heath's National Government and installs a Thatcher led National administrated military backed Junta in power. The queen tentatively supports this dictatorship.

The dictatorship is basically an even further right Thatcher government, and lasts a similar length. They privatise almost everything (with the NHS a major exception) and impose ridiculously tight immigration restrictions. Britain leaves the EEC, but only before it can be kicked out. Defence spending is increased and a police crackdown on dissent is made.

The dictatorship falls as the "Warsaw Spring" sweeps Europe during the (much bloodier) collapse of the USSR. Inspired by anti-communists in Eastern Europe, many Britons rise up and try to overthrow the dictatorship. Thatcher realises her days are numbered, and re-establishes Parliament (in a new building across from the Palace of Wrstminster) and requests the Queen dissolve her government.

The dictatorship is, after eleven years, over. Democratic elections are held later that year, and the LSDC wins a five year term. They win the next term in 1995, but lose to the CLA in 2005. Gordon Brown wins it back for Labour in 2010 and, in a controversial move, removes the ban Labour originally placed on the Nationals from re-organising as a party. And then in 2015 we get the mess shown in the vignette.

It strikes me that this may have been a mistake
 
So what's going on in Iran?

The USA, Britain, and France invaded in the early 2000s after the People's Republic of Iran had seize drew power from a weaker Islamic Republic in the 1990s. They tried making nuclear weapons, which the US saw as unacceptable, so an expeditionary force was sent to stop them. This force was destroyed using remarkable guerilla tactics, and war declared. Right now they're clearing up to leave, but a huge Islamist-Socilaist hybrid movement is taking off.

It strikes me that this may have been a mistake

It was. Brown saw that the Nationals's successors (The Second National Front, The British Democratic Nationalist Party, and The Corporatist Party) were circumventing the ban and just using different names, so he removed what he saw as a silly and illiberal law. Turned out to spur the Nationals into reforming, as they could make a party without having to abandon their zealously legalistic principles. Not what Brown had wanted.
 

Tovarich

Banned
I'm guessing that TTL, when Thatcher popped her clogs, there were no invites to tea from Labour PMs and people who should've known better* weeping & wailing & gnashing teeth at her passing?

BTW, how come the Nationals agree with the CLA economic policies if, as Cameron worries, the Liberals took the CLA economically leftward?
Or did the laissez faire side of Thatcherism get dumped TTL to make room for more emphasis on Rightist social policy?

*(not saying that because I was one of the gravedancers, but because all things considered she had a good long & happy life)


 
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I'm guessing that TTL, when Thatcher popped her clogs, there were no invites to tea from Labour PMs and people who should've known better* weeping & wailing & gnashing teeth at her passing?

*(not saying that because I was one of the gravedancers, but because all things considered she had a good long & happy life)

The grave dancing was government sanctioned here. Thatcher spent the years between 1990 and her death with her friend Ronnie in the USA, she fled the UK almost immediately after dissolving her government, and left her allies to hang alone.
 
Would anyone be interested in more vignettes set in this universe? Or maybe even a string of vignettes making up a wider story?
 
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