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

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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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Sorry HHF1968 but Iggymania was back in January. (Seriously though, good job.)
 
The passenger pigeon going extinct mystified me. It's pretty horrific that, if I remember correctly, we managed to extinct a species that quickly.
I might have weird butterflies result in some farmer coming across a nest of passenger pigeons in a secluded location in 1917-ish, resulting in the species being saved from extinction due to a stroke of luck. It's not too ASB, right?
 
Part of a timeline I've been preparing to launch
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POD is David Smith not going to the police immediately when Ian Brady kills someone in front of him and drifting further into Brady's incoherent and self-pitying world, culminating in them collectively deciding to go out like Bonnie and Clyde (with markedly lower levels of success, naturally).

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Comrade TruthTeller

Gone Fishin'
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A Wilde Time: Realistic Edition

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Oscar Wilde
was a writer, orator, and British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1906 until his forced resignation in 1911. He was the founder of the Labour Party in 1892, aaalong with Keir Hardie, who would serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Wilde's administration. In 1911, former lover and now-Catholic, Alfred Douglas, outed Wilde as a homosexual, ending his political career in disgrace at the time. He was the first LGBT Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the last until the election of Anthony Crosland, the first bisexual, and first publically LGBT prime minister of the United Kingdom.

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. Thinking Wilde's ideas wild, this would later formulate into the Liberal-Conservative Pact.

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, Alfred 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's accusations were given some small attention, but they were considered part of the usual party political slander that would be thrown across the government and opposition benches.

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 starting the LGBT rights movement in 1905, by calling for some reforms to the way gay people were treated. Wilde had to tread carefully, in order to not face the wrath of the country and government benches. He announced that, if elected, a Labour government would reform the law so that homosexuals could privately conduct their business within their homes, but stated that bans elsewhere would stay in place. He also pledged to end chemical castration as a 'treatment', and said that an increase in the minimum sentence for sodomy and gross indecency would compensate for this. Wilde would later write in his journals that it severely pained him to do this, but his party colleagues sternly told him that going gung-ho with the reforms would sadly not end well for him or the Party and would have to make compensations such as increasing sentences. He also committed to decrease the powers of the House of Lords, and replace the judicial functions of the Lords with a supreme court.

In the 1906 General Election, Labour received an overall majority of 23 seats, with the Liberals losing under the leadership of Campbell-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 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.

The reforms that Wilde promised were eventually passed, with severe backlash from the opposition and some even from his parliamentary colleagues. The reforms to the Lords passed much easier, making it harder for the Lords to undermine the decisions of the Commons. The judiciary and setting up the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, with ten Justices appointed at the time. They agreed, for the starting ten, to have five justices from the Labour Party, four from the Liberal Party, and one from the Conservatives. Whenever a justice resigned or died, they would be replaced by someone at the discretion of the Prime Minister of the time. Notable justices appointed included Justice Primrose, former Prime Minister, Justice Asquith, the former Home Secretary, and the sole Conservative, Justice Giffard, twice Lord High Chancellor. They would all, of course, technically renounce their parties. It would become a trend for statesmen to regularly be made justices, a trend that is still seen today.

Although Wilde wanted to commit to further reforms to LGBT rights, he was pressured by his cabinet into not doing so, as they saw that it would severely hurt their chances at winning the next election against the Liberals. The reforms to LGBT rights that they already had enacted had caused damage to their popularity, alienating some support. The reforms to the Lords had proved somewhat controversial as well, but was eventually accepted by-and-large by the opposition. His main pledge in this election was for worker reforms and more power for trade unions. In the 1910 general election, Labour managed to hold on to power with a slim majority of 4. The Liberals won all of the seats Labour lost, while the continuing destruction of the Conservative party had a mix of gains from Labour and the Liberals. The Tories had 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. Bonar Law did not last even a year before the vast majority of Conservative MPs, spearheaded by Stanley Baldwin, defected to the newly formed Reactionary Parliamentary Group. Soon after this, the remaining Conservative Party voted to dissolve itself and bring about the final end of an era in British politics. This happened on Boxing Day 1910. The Reactionary Parliamentary Group reorganised itself into the Reactionary Party, taking the Conservatives place as the voice of the right wing.

Bannerman decided to call time on his premiership of the party, and was 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 just over a year. Oscar Wilde's former lover, Alfred Douglas, converted to Catholicism in 1911, and followed in his father's political footsteps, becoming a Reactionary (successor to the Conservatives). Embodying his father the Marquess of Queensberry's hatred of Wilde, he confirmed the reports of his homosexuality by revealing what he and Wilde had once done in the private company of one another. This caused a ruptuous outroar in the House of Commons. It was expected that Winston Churchill would table a confidence motion in the Government, but did not do so. The Leader of the Reactionary Party, Stanley Baldwin, called for one eventually. Winston Churchill did not table a confidence motion as he himself did not think homosexuality was much of a moral problem, and not something to get into a fuss about. In later life, Churchill would be noted for his friendship with Noel Coward. The no-confidence motion was blocked in favour of the government, with the Ayes to the right, 315, and the Noes to the left, 314. Some of his own party voted against him due to the revelation, and his own party told him that if he does not resign, they would force him out.

Wilde did not want to rupture the party he helped start, and agreed to move aside quietly. Due to a matter of just his own orientation, the founder of the Labour Party was forced out of his own leadership and premiership of the party. In the leadership election that followed, Arthur Henderson was the frontrunner, but he was surprisingly toppled by the Chancellor, Keir Hardie. Privately, Wilde was pleased that his co-founder took the top job instead of Henderson, due to his perception that he had more experience than Arthur. Oscar Wilde resigned as Party Leader on 9th September 1911, before leaving Downing Street for the final time, heading for Buckingham Palace, and asking the new King, George V, who had been coronated only months prior, to send for Keir Hardie to form a new administration. After this, Wilde retired to the backbenches, but would not be seen very much. He would make the occasional speech, but not anything that received much media attention. Keir Hardie attempted to make radical reforms to trade unions, but Churchill put forward his own confidence motion in the Government, which confirmed that this time the House did NOT have confidence in the Her Majesty's Government. This was barely four months into Hardie's administration. Rather than try to form an agreement, Hardie decided to call an election. The Liberals would win with a landslide majority, with the Reactionaries under Stanley Baldwin recovering to just over a hundred seats again. Hardie would then resign himself, and he was replaced by former Home Secretary William Abraham. Hardie served for eight months; he was the fourth shortest serving Prime Minister in history. He would also live for one of the shortest times after leaving office; the Liberal landslide was in May 1912 and Hardie died three years later in September 1915.

Oscar Wilde remained in Parliament until 1914, when he left the Commons to completely focus on his now-damaged writing career. He was replaced as MP for Dublin College Green by his party colleague, Thomas Farren. His forced resignation, and especially Alfred's betrayal, had an extremely noticable effect on his health, and he was never truly the same again after that. He would fall into a deep depression from which he would not ever truly recover from. His private writings suggested that he was likely to resign in the new year (1912) anyway, but he repeatedly wrote of his shock at Alfred's betrayal of him. Despite the fact that Alfred had singlehandedly destroyed Wilde's career, Wilde often wrote of how he still loved Douglas. Oscar Wilde would go on to die relatively young at the age of 66 on 12 April 1921; certainly brought about because of the declining health after his downfall. Ramsay MacDonald would come to power the year after he died, and Ramsay, as Leader of the Opposition, stated that he would have invited Wilde to become a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom had he not died. Wilde had written of his possible interest in taking up such a role. 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.

(Once again, I have enjoyed writing this one. The final version, the Pessimist's Edition, will hopefully be completed tomorrow. It's going to get really, really depressing, and really, really quickly. More feedback before the final version would be greatly appreciated!)

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