Alternate Wikipedia Infoboxes V (Do Not Post Current Politics Here)

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Citizens in Rage sounds like an interesting party. I assume it's some kind of populist movement similar to M5S?
Yep. At least the OTL CiR. It's like AfD-lite, it seems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_in_Rage
You're both right, I envisioned them as somewhere between OTL's BiW and the M5S: populist but not extremist, broadly right-wing overall but all-over-the-place on individual issues, not racist but of a "let's just stop talking about it" variety, and so on.
 
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Basic POD: as-per Thomas Jefferson's preference, electors are allotted proportionately by the states. The result is in 1860 a five-way election with different candidates. Both the Whig and the Democratic Party fall apart and split into multiple parties, leading to a 5-way clusterfuck of an election where the outgoing House selects Unionist candidate James Pearce as President and the Senate chooses Constitutionalist Vice Presidential candidate William Lowndes Yancey. The South still secedes because a coalition of Free Soil and anti-slavery parties gains control of the House, and things become even more messy than OTL.

Oh, this is very interesting. I'd love to see it fleshed out into a proper TL.
 

Comrade TruthTeller

Gone Fishin'
I return with my earliest offering yet. I was listening to the genius that is Stephen Fry giving an Oxford Union address on YouTube, where I was alterted to the fact that Oscar Wilde, on leaving University, was considered very likely to enter Parliament. Considered one of the best speakers of all time, so here's a little something. It does require that the insidious Marquess of Queensberry fails to slander him in 1900, leading to his fall from grace IOTL. I might do my first timeline based on this if I get enough further ideas.




Oscar Wilde was a writer, orator, and British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1906 to 1912. He was the founder of the Labour Party along with Keir Hardie, who would serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Wilde's administration. He would be remembered as the first LGBT Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the last until Chris Smith took office in 2006, 100 years after Wilde came to power.

He was first elected Member of Parliament in 1896, against an extremely strong Irish Parliamentary Party in the Dublin College Green constituency, close to where he was born. He was amongst the first Labour MPs elected, and gained a substantial minority of seats particularly in Ireland. Just four years later, in 1900, the Conservative Party practically collapses, along with the Irish Parliamentary Party, leading to Labour coming second, and Wilde becoming Leader of the Opposition. 19 years of leadership under the Marquess of Salisbury had taken its toll. Robert Gascoyne-Cecil would be referred to as the man who destroyed the Conservative Party, who had been pushed into a distant third place. The 1900 election allowed Henry Campbell-Bannerman to become Prime Minister. Before the shocking results of the 1900 election, Bannerman had considered an electoral pact with the Labour Party. Now knowing that they would be their main opponents in the election, they opted for a pact with the Conservatives, who would be practically fighting for survival. Shortly after becoming the Leader of the Opposition, the Marquess of Queensberry attempted to have him arrested for sodomy, due to the private relationship that Wilde had with Queensberry's son, Lord Douglas. Wilde, knowing that this would mean the end of his electoral chances at this time, had a gagging order put in place, to make sure that no further substantial accusations were made. Queensberry was regarded as completely crazy at the time for the suggestions, however Wilde indeed was privately involved with Douglas. It was, however, rumoured that he convinced him not to marry Olive Custance in 1902.

The frightening oratory skills that Wilde possessed was easy to see; both for Members of Parliament who heard him speak from the opposition box, and for those who clambered to hear his speeches wherever he went. Reports of his speeches would regularly be put in newspapers. This served to dramatically increase the popularity of the Labour Party and Wilde himself. Throughout his parliamentary career, Wilde continued his writings, which were of course extremely famous in their own right. Wilde was instrumental in changing the bigoted opinions of the British people during his time in major office (1900-1912) and his Labour Party manifesto for the 1906 election would promise radical rights reforms for what would now be called the LGBT community, including the legalisation of homosexuality, via the repeal of so called 'indecent exposure' and sodomy laws. One would expect, with the largely bigoted views of practically all peoples at the time, that this would be the longest suicide note in history, but Wilde's outspoken views on these reforms in the prior six years had changed this, at least to a large degree.

In the 1906 General Election, Labour received a landslide majority, with the Liberals losing under the leadership of Henry Bannerman, who would be relegated to the position of Leader of the Opposition for the second time. The Conservatives, who had elected Joseph Chamberlain (father to Neville and Austen) as their new leader, suffered even more losses, only managing to hold 87 seats. The Labour Party, which had only been in existence for eleven years, had managed a landslide majority. Bannerman conceded defeat, and headed for Buckingham Palace where he advised the King to send for Oscar Wilde to form a new administration. Oscar Wilde was then declared the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, where he composed the first socialist cabinet in the history of the country, or its predecessors. Keir Hardie was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Arthur Henderson was Foreign Secretary, and William Abraham, former Liberal-Unionist, was the new Home Secretary. Once in the Commons, he reiterated his commitment to reform for what is now called the LGBT community.

Thanks to the landslide majority, these reforms and repeals were done with ease. 7th June 1907 is remembered as the day that homosexuality was legalised for all people. It was on this day, that Oscar Wilde came out himself as a bisexual (although the phrase didn't exist at the time, Wilde admitted on that day to being attracted to both men and women), causing a political shockwave of both criticism and support, support mainly from the government benches at this time. Wilde eventually passed the Legal Union Act in 1908, which allowed gay men to enter partnerships, similar to marriage, but different to today's Civil Partnerships. On the day that this law was enacted, he entered a Legal Union with Alfred Douglas, who renounced his peerage after converting to socialism due to the influence of his partner. He also reduced the powers of the House of Lords immensely. He spoke of his long term commitment to completely abolishing it. He announced an election to be held in 1910, and once again announced further reforms for the LGBT community, including extending Legal Unions to same-sex women couples in the new manifesto. However, most pertinently, he included in the manifesto the pledge to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a High Senate, with senators instead of lords. This once again started the Labour election machine.

In the 1910 general election, Labour amazingly increased their landslide majority. This was due to the continuing destruction of the Conservative party, which lost half of its seats and was left with just 48 seats. Joseph Chamberlain resigned the Conservative leadership, and was replaced by the final Conservative leader, Andrew Bonar Law. The Conservative Party would be dissolved in 1913, replaced by the Reactionary Party. With the staggering majority achieved by Labour, and the reduced powers of the second chamber, the House of Lords was abolished on 11th August 1911, immediately replaced by the High Senate of the United Kingdom with senate elections held on that day, and every five years after that. The leader of the largest party in the High Senate was referred to as the Leader of the Senate, and the first to hold this title was 28-year-old Clement Attlee, to date the youngest Leader of the Senate.

The Liberal party actually made gains in this election, despite the increase in Labour majority. Despite this, Bannerman decided to call time on his premiership of the party, and would be replaced by Winston Churchill. This paved the way to some of the most interesting debates that the Commons have ever seen; debates between Prime Minister Wilde and Leader of the Opposition Churchill were very empassioned, and at some points very loud. This, however, only lasted two years. Having successfully made further reforms to rights for LGBT people, Oscar Wilde announced his coming resignation as party leader and Prime Minister in June 1912, pending a leadership election; Wilde had made sure that the party leadership would be decided by Labour Party-affiliated trade unions, Labour Party members and MPs. Wilde wanted to put more focus into his writings, which he found more enjoyable than his career in politics, though he kept that part only to his partner Alfred. The leadership election produced Arthur Henderson as his replacement as Party Leader and Prime Minister, and on 5th August 1912, Oscar Wilde handed his resignation into the King, and recommended he send for Arthur Henderson to form a new administration. Arthur Henderson introduced more reforms for trade unions, with less focus on LGBT rights. However, his eventual pledge to introduce gay marriage in the 1914 manifesto may have been a step too far, as the result produced a Hung Parliament with the Liberals as the largest party. Winston Churchill formed a coalition with the Reactionaries, lead by Stanley Baldwin, and became the new Prime Minister.

Oscar Wilde remained in Parliament until 1918, when he left the Commons to completely focus on his writing career. He was replaced as MP for Dublin College Green by his party colleague, Thomas Farren. Oscar stayed with Alfred Douglas until Alfred's death in 1945 at the age of 74. Two years later, at the age of 92, Wilde himself passed away. Historians often consider him one of the best Prime Ministers in history. He is also regarded as the main cause of the major decline in the Irish independence movement; some say that if he was never Prime Minister, that most, if not all of Ireland, would have declared independence.

(Cor, blimey, I loved writing this one! Comments and thoughts would be greatly appreciated!)

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WI a certain Moldovan musician decided to follow in his father's footsteps and go into politics, and then in 2019 Moldovans elected a different kind of "Maia" compared to OTL...

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You know, I was thinking the other day of just how much of a shock the Orange Wave was, even to the people involved in it, and of how the surge happened entirely during the campaign. This led me to wonder what could have happened had the campaign gone differently. And then I found a very interesting graphic of monthly federal polling which showed the Liberals only just behind the Bloc in Quebec when Ignatieff became the leader in 2009, which led me to make this:

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Oscar Wilde was a writer, orator, and British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1906 to 1912.
Intriguing.
His tenure seems far too optimistic though.
I can see perhaps Ireland staying and minor reforms but full civil rights for both gay men and women? And House of Lords abolished? In the early 1900s?
 

Comrade TruthTeller

Gone Fishin'
I can see perhaps Ireland staying and minor reforms but full civil rights for both gay men and women? And House of Lords abolished? In the early 1900s?

Apologies, I did go way overboard on this one :p. I will make a realistic version soon. I felt like making a basically bogus story that gives justice to what actually happened to him. I have an idea on how things will turn out if I make it realistic.
 
Apologies, I did go way overboard on this one :p. I will make a realistic version soon. I felt like making a basically bogus story that gives justice to what actually happened to him. I have an idea on how things will turn out if I make it realistic.
No worries.
I liked it anyway.
If you're going to do a realistic one, perhaps round the trilogy with a pessimistic one too? :winkytongue:
 
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