Building Jerusalem Mk2.0

[Incognitia]

Excellent work.

I second EdT in beign sorry that I don't have any particularly interesting questions, but I look forward to seeing this continue.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Here's a quick question- wasn't John Smith quite a homophobic? Could this plausibly come back to bite him? I doubt it will in 1997 since this is still the unreconstructed Tory party, but maybe if the Conservatives learn lessons from defeat in 97 more quickly ITTL, they'll be able to nail Smith on issues like homosexuality and abortion?

 

[Fletch]

Here's a quick question- wasn't John Smith quite a homophobic? Could this plausibly come back to bite him? I doubt it will in 1997 since this is still the unreconstructed Tory party, but maybe if the Conservatives learn lessons from defeat in 97 more quickly ITTL, they'll be able to nail Smith on issues like homosexuality and abortion?

I've not heard of this before. Where did you hear of it?

 

[ljofa]

Here's a quick question- wasn't John Smith quite a homophobic? Could this plausibly come back to bite him? I doubt it will in 1997 since this is still the unreconstructed Tory party, but maybe if the Conservatives learn lessons from defeat in 97 more quickly ITTL, they'll be able to nail Smith on issues like homosexuality and abortion?

I know Smith was from a religiously-inclined background (I want to say Presbyterian but might be something else) and "moral" issues caused him consternation and discomfort rather than outright 'phobia'. He wasn't au fait with gay rights issues but probably would have tasked the gay lobby to Chris Smith or Nick Brown as in OTL. Or perhaps even Mandelson. Given as Section 28 and the equal age of consent issues are hot potatoes, there will be a role for Labour to garner the pink vote, particularly as some 40% of LGB people in the UK were Tory voters around that time (There was a Gay Times poll in 1995 which I vividly recall - first issue I bought).

 

[Fletch]

I know Smith was from a religiously-inclined background (I want to say Presbyterian but might be something else) and "moral" issues caused him consternation and discomfort rather than outright 'phobia'. He wasn't au fait with gay rights issues but probably would have tasked the gay lobby to Chris Smith or Nick Brown as in OTL. Or perhaps even Mandelson. Given as Section 28 and the equal age of consent issues are hot potatoes, there will be a role for Labour to garner the pink vote, particularly as some 40% of LGB people in the UK were Tory voters around that time (There was a Gay Times poll in 1995 which I vividly recall - first issue I bought).

He was in the Church of Scotland, so Presbyterian is correct. I speak as someone who has visited his grave on Iona. That sounds correct. I was under the impression that Smith backed the repeal of section 28 and an equal age of consent?

 

[ljofa]

He was in the Church of Scotland, so Presbyterian is correct. I speak as someone who has visited his grave on Iona. That sounds correct. I was under the impression that Smith backed the repeal of section 28 and an equal age of consent?

IIRC, definitely the repeal of S28 but I'm not sure about the equal age of consent. In OTL, Labour did fight the challenge by Euan Sutherland and Chris Morris in the European Court and lost hence why they had to equalise the age of consent and even though the Lords threw out the proposed legislation, the 1911 Parliament Act was invoked to pass the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000.

I'd imagine a similar situation in this TL irrespective of who is the leader in the Commons. The Lords, led by that old bag Baroness Young, would oppose equality legislation (she also wrecked the Disability Rights Bill - apparently on orders from the Home Office in 1994/1995) so the 1911 Parliamentary Act would have to be used.

Would Smith appoint openly gay people to his first cabinet? Pass. Nick Brown, Peter Mandelson and Chris Smith were in Blair's first cabinet although the first two were dumped and Chris Smith stepped down. But more importantly, would there be a Brown/Mandelson split owing to his defection to the Blairite camp? Unlikely in this scenario. Some accounts have Mandelson acting behind the scenes briefing people that Brown was gay because he had no significant relationship at the time whereas Blair was the family man from a good C of E background.

 

[V-J]

This is brilliant stuff- and the fact you spent a lot of time over it really shows in the details.

I always feel guilty not thinking of any probing questions to ask, but with that said, more please! The election will be very interesting.

Thanks for the high praise - and from a master too. Very gratifying!

Excellent work.

I second EdT in beign sorry that I don't have any particularly interesting questions, but I look forward to seeing this continue.

Thanks again. The next section will be absolutely virginal, so perhaps people will be able to nitpick a little more.

Here's a quick question- wasn't John Smith quite a homophobic? Could this plausibly come back to bite him? I doubt it will in 1997 since this is still the unreconstructed Tory party, but maybe if the Conservatives learn lessons from defeat in 97 more quickly ITTL, they'll be able to nail Smith on issues like homosexuality and abortion?

No, Smith wasn’t homophobic, as Fletcher and ljofa have touched on; there may be some confusion here based on the fact that Smith had a religious background and a bit of a feud with Peter Mandelson. As in OTL, Davies' resignation is prompted not by his sexuality, but because his behaviour is so bizzare and raises a lot of potentially damaging questions.

Smith voted consistently in favour of equalising the age of gay consent, bearing in mind that votes on that issue were ‘free’ and did not follow party lines. Smith also had an excellent relationship with Chris Smith, who worked under him on Labour’s treasury team, and eventually joined Smith’s shadow cabinet, possibly largely due to Smith’s influence. I could go on; Smith acted as the defence in a murder trial involving a gay man who had killed his partner in a fit of jealous rage (he had found him in bed with another man at the time) in the early eighties, and this also at a time when provocation in that kind of case was believed only to legally apply to heterosexuals - and actually got the sentenced reduced to culpable homicide, despite the judge directing the jury they had no right to do that.

Gay rights will be different ITTL, although not necessarily in a negative way - I’ll deal with their development en bloc much later.

As I haven’t yet touched on this directly and probably won’t at any future point in the TL, I may as well say in addition that Smith seems to have had an extremely private, Presbyterian view of religion - that it was almost solely a matter between an individual and God. Although it’s fair to say religion had a big impact on Smith’s life, I can’t find any instance on which it ever explicitly and directly influenced his judgement on a political, or even conscience matter. The only possible candidate here are his views on another free vote issue, abortion, which were moderately conservative. But of course, you can be moderately conservative on abortion without coming to the issue from a religious perspective.

Would Smith appoint openly gay people to his first cabinet?

Well, Smith of course has to work broadly within the framework of shadow cabinet elections to begin with, so his first cabinet won't be massively different in terms of people than Blairs, although the portfolios will.

Nick Brown will certainly get something big at minister of state level, although I can't remember what he shadowed during Smith's time as leader. Chris Smith will be right in there though, although not at a big brief to begin with, but entirely open to promotion. Mandelson won't be - his frontbench career only took off in OTL when Blair made him a whip on becoming leader. I'm guessing he'll go to the whips office in 1995 here, and stay there at least until the election.

 

[ljofa]

Nick Brown will certainly get something big at minister of state level, although I can't remember what he shadowed during Smith's time as leader. Chris Smith will be right in there though, although not at a big brief to begin with, but entirely open to promotion. Mandelson won't be - his frontbench career only took off in OTL when Blair made him a whip on becoming leader. I'm guessing he'll go to the whips office in 1995 here, and stay there at least until the election.

Didn't Nick Brown shadow MAFF?

 

[V-J]

Didn't Nick Brown shadow MAFF?

No. He only got that in 1998 in Blair's first cabinet reshuffle. From 1992 he was Beckett's deputy as shadow leader of the commons - I'd imagine he's moved on from that now, maybe back into the whips office, maybe into a shadow spokesmanship.



Well, here comes the first part of 1997 - one of three. (one dealing with the run up to the election, a second the result, a third the immediate impacts) A bit of a cliff-hanger for you at the end there, but plenty to chew on in the meantime.

 

[V-J]

1997​

Taken from Alan Clark - The Last Diaries 1993 - 1999, (Phoenix, 2003) 6th of January, 1997

Talked to DD [42] on the phone last night. He is very depressed. Said morale in the middle and junior ranks was ‘very low’. Had apparently seriously considered resigning last year when the beef thing was in full flow. I reminded him not to do that. Pointless at this stage in the Parliament anyway. It’s a symptom of malaise, I suppose. He, like me, is making his way towards his goal, slowly. But, also like me, he can’t see his way.

DD, with no prompting, gratifyingly began weighing in against Mates. Said he barely turned up, implied he was ‘dining well’. [43] He was relieved little Hague had been moved last year. [44] Mates had, according to DD, completely intimidated him. [Hague] H, I suggested, was probably in the same vein as Lilley, etc - ‘Thatcherite’ but useless. Interestingly DD didn’t dissent. He said that just before H was moved he was apparently in the middle of ‘negotiating’ (uh?) some kind of arrangement with the FCO about hypothetical future deployments, but according to DD he had spastically ballsed it up. Said that Sackville [45] was ‘a bit better.’ (Suspected balls, I thought, but said nothing) Why was Hague at Armed Forces anyway? HAGUE. Of all people. And yet they would never have had me simply because of The Donkeys. Wankers.

Ah, but it would all have been so different if TK [46] had died (‘suddenly’) in the lead up to the Gulf and I had been ‘drafted’ as SoS by the Lady. But like L-G [47] in 1940, ‘the call never came.’ If (Pull yourself together Clark, you mean ‘when’) I enter the next Parliament I am sure I will become hopelessly infirm, or decrepit in a harness. Certainly pre-cancerous. A ‘guru’ perhaps. But, ‘never again was he allowed access to the levers of power’. And I am sure now, more so than ever, that it’s my fault.

Taken from Conservatives in Crisis - the Conservative Party Since Thatcher by John Schulzberger (Penguin, 2008)

… The seriousness of these ‘splits’ might seem questionable when framed against what we know of the well-established image of the entire post-Thatcher period as being one of serious division within the Conservatives. But Major’s ‘bastards’ [48] were only of junior or middle rank within his Cabinet, and he had been well inured against more serious problems by the attendance of the heavyweight figures around him, such as Hurd, Clarke, and Heseltine, who were all pro-European in their outlook, and loyal in their support of the Prime Minister. That situation had now been cracked open, with Hurd’s retirement from the government, Major’s departure, and the equal weighting in the highest levels of government between those of strong European convictions and those of a pure, Thatcherite blend of eurosceptic determination. Major had always given the impression that he agreed with anyone he was dealing with at the time; people on both sides of the argument could believe that Major was really on ‘their side’, and that any evidence to the contrary was purely tactical on the Prime Minister’s part. Through this, Major had maintained a uneasy balance between the competing factions in his Cabinet. When Major departed, so did this approach to government. To be blunt, for both sides, the gloves were off. Some have characterised the period between Major’s resignation and the election as being split into two roughly equal periods - the first year, being one of reasonable, but declining stability; the second as being an unstable or ‘decadent’ phase. Certainly these are convenient labels, but the real difference was in the bitterness and intensity with which the various factions pursued their goals; Leaks to the press were normal throughout this entire period, but the vitriol which was deployed in the later stages of the government went some way past normal policy differences…

…At the Conservative Conference in November of the previous year, the Chancellor, Michael Portillo, had gone out of his way to twang the strings of Thatcherism in his main conference speech, an approach which, while not going beyond official party policy, certainly struck a distinctly robust tone. Portillo returned to his established belief that “clear blue water” should separate the parties, and talked of the “crusading spirit” of Mrs Thatcher. “You know the two words which Labour still dread?” The Chancellor would rhetorically ask conference. “Mrs T”, he expanded. [49] Considering the personal history of the current Prime Minister, this was a blatant and tactless move, one which was designed to reinforce the popular assumption in the media that Portillo was the clear heir to Thatcher, and likely the next leader of the party. It hardly helped matters that conference were so clearly delighted by the remarks. The Prime Minister, also present on the platform, contented himself with a wry smirk. The rubber chicken circuit had a new king.

Relations between both men were already at a very low ebb. In September a report had appeared in The Times, reportedly based on conversations with ‘friends’ of the Chancellor, which stated that Portillo would never consent to a goal of entry into the single currency, and that therefore the whole debate on the issue was moot, which managed to offend both pro-Europeans and some eurosceptics. This would be followed by counter-briefing on the part of the Heseltine camp, and the process would continue more or less unabated until March of the new year. [50] Nor was it helped by the intervention of the Foreign Secretary, who in December had advised that it’s critics should “shut up and get behind” the government; at the same time, reports continued about the alleged tendency of the Chancellor to stifle funds for projects run by ministers he was not in concord with - the DTI, which had many Heseltine lieutenants serving as ministers in it, was reportedly a particular victim of this sort of approach. [51] Although Malcolm Rifkind frequently served as a skilled ‘crisis manager’ between the two sides behind the scenes, the efforts of the Deputy Prime Minister could not quell the media’s thirst for pursuing such stories. The overall appearance was one of competing personalities in a government which was rapidly becoming incapable of governing itself, let alone the country. A quip at the time held that although the media had lost out on a two week contest between the ‘two Michaels‘, it had got a two year contest instead.

These impressions of a government losing control were reinforced when the Prime Minister addressed a meeting of the backbench 1922 Committee in late February. Normally, Conservative deference would ensure that even unpopular Prime Ministers had a reasonably cordial hearing, and Heseltine had gone some way to pre-empt potential right-wing backbench critics, bringing in individuals such as Alan Lennox-Boyd and Edward Leigh into the government, while promoting the arch-Thatcherite Michael Forsyth to Scottish Secretary. [52] Others, however, such as the former Education Minister Eric Forth, [53] were beyond persuasion, and they had set themselves up on the backbenches to criticise the government, particularly on the European issue, which Forth had been pursuing with some vigour; as Heseltine had shown no loyalty to Thatcher, so they felt under no moral obligation to be loyal to the man who had ‘got’ their heroine. [54] The background to the meeting too, was not favourable. On the very day before, the Conservatives had lost Wirral South, a seat which in 1992 had returned a Conservative by over eight thousand votes - and therefore statistically a ‘safe’ seat - on an extensive swing. It is reasonable to suppose that this, combined with the imminence of the general election, played a part in the breakdown of mood at this meeting. The discussion would later be described as “full and frank” - political code for highly intemperate. Some of the most colourful descriptions of the meeting actually reported the Prime Minister storming out, only to be convinced to return after many minutes. Others suggested that some of the members had, charged with the political adrenaline of their previous extraction of a referendum guarantee from the government, physically ‘rounded’ on the Prime Minister, in a bid to extract a promise not to negotiate in favour of British entry to the Euro. Certainly, at the very least, there were very strong words said between Heseltine and many of those present. The meeting was extensively reported in the press as symbolic of the total breakdown between Heseltine and the parliamentary party; the triangle of rancour now spanned backbenchers, the Prime Minister, and other members of the government. Not even the Chairman of the 1922 Committee himself would be spared from the fallout; Sir Marcus Fox would be deposed from that position after the election. [55]

By the time that the party began to gear up for the election in March, the relations between the various strands of opinion, already strained, had almost collapsed. There was now very little hint of discipline within the party, and the dénouement would come during the campaign itself, when over a hundred prospective Conservative candidates would follow in the footsteps of several current MPs and issue their own declarations against the single currency, leading to an angry denunciation from the Prime Minister… [56]

Taken from John Smith - A Life by Mark Stuart (Politicos, 2005)

… The Social Justice Commission Report had provided a solid basis on which Smith could build the future policy framework of Labour, but although the SJC provided a detailed analysis of the socio-economics problems which Britain faced, the report by it’s nature avoided the extent to which it’s recommendations, and Labour policy more generally, would be easy to implement; and the fight which Smith would have to face within the Shadow Cabinet over many of his beliefs on what should and should not be brought forward by Labour in it’s manifesto.

On economic policy, the debate was always going to feature Smith and Brown as it’s two main antagonists, albeit with Robin Cook playing a secondary role - unsurprisingly, almost always in favour of Smith‘s proposed course. Aside from his position as leader, Smith had a direct interest in economic questions as a former Shadow Chancellor of five years’ standing, and took a particular interest in his former brief. So while Brown headed the brief, and chaired the Economic Policy Committee - a joint committee consisting of the NEC and relevant shadow cabinet members - Smith still hung over the process of ultimate policy formulation. The divide was also ideological; while Brown had been determined to reform Labour’s 1992 economic and tax proposals, Smith was still stating in interviews early in his leadership that he “didn’t retreat an inch from them”. This was anathema to Brown, who believed that the lesson of 1992 was that Labour could not be too forthright about what it would do specifically in respect of tax and spending commitments, and that the case had to be built gradually so that the Conservatives were not given easy fodder for attacks, while taking a gradualist, relatively surreptitious approach to taxation. Smith equally strongly believed, on moral grounds, that the wealthy should shoulder more of the burden of taxation than the poor, and that indirect taxation, falling disproportionately onto the poor, with their greater consumption of excise goods, was unjust. Smith also believed strongly that Labour should state it’s principles openly, and that avoiding the tax issue was both risking a charge of extreme duplicity and would serve to undermine party confidence and self-belief.

Compromise between these two opposing personalities and their views was never going to be easy, but political reality demanded precisely that. As Labour developed it’s new policies from 1994 onwards, Brown insisted that the party take a fresh look at how it would frame it’s spending commitments. Brown had already, in Hillary Armstrong’s words, become “frustrated that John was too slow” during the early part of the Parliament, although this measured ‘frustration’ seems relatively quaint in retrospect. From the time of the SJC report onwards, after which time Labour and the EPC began to more seriously formulate it’s policies for the next election, Smith and Brown would begin to fight “tooth and nail” over the main economic issues. A Brown supporter believes that Brown “had to wage a sort of guerrilla war” against the way both Smith and some Labour shadow ministers wanted to begin setting out how they would tax and spend. According to Murray Elder [57] “There were some terrible rows in those last two years [of opposition]. A lot of the time John was cut up a bit after rowing with Brown, or was seeing the prospect of a big fight on the horizon … I didn’t find Brown very easy to deal with over the economy”. Some Brown supporters believe that the feeling was mutual: “John was quite obstructionist. I think a lot of it had to do with personal pride - the Shadow Budget was his baby and it took him a while to grasp that he wasn’t still running the show as far as economic policy was concerned.” Murray Elder believes that the process “brought a definite hardening of relations. I don’t think you can deny it. A lot of what later said in the press was silly, but I don’t think Brown and John were great pals after the whole thing had ended, and that sort of set the background for them.” …

… The uneasy compromise produced after the whole process had gone through the NEC and the EPC represented a definite shift away from the shadow budget, but only partially. Smith achieved several notable victories: the 50% top rate of tax would remain, (Albeit shifted far, far higher than Smith had set it in 1992, with the new band starting at £115,349) and Brown’s suggestion that Conservative spending plans for the first two years of the new Parliament be adherered to was also roundly defeated. Brown, however, was able to re-enforce Labour’s commitment to ‘Beckett’s law’ - the commitment of Margaret Beckett, while she had been Shadow Chief Secretary under Neil Kinnock, to spend only as economic growth allowed, and not to commit to a ‘shopping list’ of detailed spending commitments, albeit after many months of argument and counter-argument in the NEC and the EPC; as this represented a major shift away from the shadow budget, Smith was one of the hardest to convince. Significantly, Brown also extracted the commitment that Labour would not raise the basic rate of income tax for the first two years of the new Parliament. Both men agreed on the introduction of a ‘windfall tax’ on the privatised utilities and a tough campaign against tax loopholes - one of the few areas of genuine consensus. Brown also re-established the tax bands which Smith had set out in 1992 at higher levels, and established a commitment to a 10% basic rate of tax, (when economic circumstances allowed) instead of the 20% starting rate which Smith had previously envisaged in 1992, together with a slight raise in personal allowance. In respect of reform of monetary policy, Labour would commit itself to the creation of a monetary policy committee, which would give non-binding, independent advice to the Chancellor on interest rates, overhauling the rather opaque structures that were then in place. [58]

Murray Elder believes that although neither Brown or Smith was satisfied with the eventual result, it represented a relatively impressive overall package: “I think it was good. I think you had enough that Labour could say to the voters ‘We’re going to keep this on the straight and narrow. We’re not going to murder middle earners, and we’re also going to make it easier for the poor‘, but then you could say to the party ‘yes, we also feel that the high rollers should pay their proper share‘,”. Many have credited the shift in policy with easing Labour towards victory in 1997, reducing the perceived weakness over tax which the Conservatives had hit at hard in 1992. Certainly, the prominence of that issue would be much lessened in 1997 compared to 1992, although whether this was due to an economy which was in better shape, a more inward-looking Tory campaign, or a genuine shift in Labour policy - or aspects of all three - has been much debated…

Taken from The Times, 16th of April, 1997, ‘Heseltine Battles Tory Collapse’

Michael Heseltine was battling to draw the Conservatives back from the political abyss and save his political career today, after chastising his own party for its unwillingness to adhere to government policy on Europe. On Monday more than a hundred Conservative prospective parliamentary candidates broke with their own party’s policy and stated that they would never vote in favour of joining a single European currency.

Yesterday the Prime Minister charged them with “totally undermining their party at a crucial moment through a calculated and deliberate act of disloyalty.” Mr Heseltine said that any such PPC who broke with the party would risk having the whip withdrawn after the election. “If we do not wake up, if we do not pull together, as one party, then we do not have a ghost of a chance in this election.” Mr Heseltine said. Mr Heseltine also accused Sir James Goldsmith of “toying with the British national interest” and of attempting to buy his way into British politics through his Referendum Party, provoking a furious reaction from eurosceptics…

Taken from John Smith - A Life by Mark Stuart (Politicos, 2005)

…. Smith relished the opportunity the campaign brought, not merely because by all measures Labour was on course to win convincingly, but because it would also allow him to ‘exorcise’ the demons of the 1992 election. Hillary Armstrong [59] recalls Smith being happy and enthusiastic: “I think John was the happiest I’ve ever seen him in those six weeks. Although he hated all the travelling, he loved putting the case across for Labour, he felt that we were completely ready for government. I remember him saying out of the blue, almost furtively, ‘We’re going to win this time, aren’t we?’ and I said ‘yes‘, I thought so … that was the only time he dared to venture that conviction to me.” Others, including Derry Irvine, recall Smith being more candid: “I don’t think John thought for a moment about the possibility of defeat. Who did? It would have been unbearable!” Despite this confidence, there were times when Smith felt deeply aggrieved at the Conservative attacks on him during the campaign, particularly surrounding Monklandsgate, tax and the Shadow Budget. That grievance, however, gave Smith more power in his denunciation of the Conservatives. As he told the Today programme on April 23rd, “We’re witnessing a government which is totally desperate, which is disintegrating, and which is dredging up a range of fabrications in order to do everything it can to cling on. ... I know the public looks on it with total contempt, and I can very easily understand that.”

… The circumstances for the election were, for Labour, much better than they had been in 1992. Although the economy was in much better shape than 1992, the Tories certainly were not. Michael Heseltine’s leadership of his party was in self-destruct mode, as he battled his own eurosceptic wing for much of the campaign, greatly easing the pressure on Labour and furthering the public impression of the Tories as hopelessly split. Labour had a clear lead running into the campaign, and it would run on a positive message of restoring public services and social justice. Many of the barbs which had been at work against Labour in 1992 had also been blunted - aside from Labour re-designing it’s own policies, the Conservatives had themselves raised taxes during the 1992 Parliament in order to combat the recession, so the charge of Labour as a tax-raising party was a much less easy one to make. The Conservative campaign would focus on Smith’s trustworthiness, tying in Monklandsgate to the shadow budget to portray Smith, somewhat ridiculously, as a menacing figure. Smith brushed aside such attacks, branding them as “desperate”. When challenged on tax, Smith would come out fighting, insisting that the idea Labour would “impose savage, swingeing tax rises aimed at middle earners” was “nonsense”. “There are certain people, and we are talking of the multi-millionaires and the billionaires, who have been handled with kid gloves by this government and who are paying too little tax.” Smith would insist. “That situation does not benefit middle earners or the working class of this country”. One of the perennial problems which plagued Neil Kinnock, most notably in 1992 - a deeply hostile press - was largely absent from the 1997 campaign, with the unwinding of the Conservative campaign being of more interest to the media, and the government too unpopular for it to be wise to be seen to prop it up too overtly. The Murdoch press’ bizarre range of endorsements (with the Sunday Times supporting the Conservatives, and the Times and the Sun supporting Eurosceptics of all parties, although with the Sun inviting it’s readers to “Give Labour a chance.” [60]) ensured that the Conservatives would be in much more serious trouble than Labour, particularly in their ongoing fight with the Referendum Party. Although Smith was privately contemptuous of the Murdoch press, the removal of more serious opposition from that quarter came as a relief to many in Walworth Road…[61]

… On election night, Mike Elrick [62] recalls sitting with John, Elizabeth, the Smith girls, and Derry Irvine (who as a peer didn’t have to submit himself to the voters), at John’s home in Morningside. “John came back from the count at Airdrie [63] where he’d got a huge majority and he was in a daze. He was constantly flitting between the kitchen, taking calls, and then coming back into the living room to see what had happened. It was enormous fun. John would occasionally see a big name from the Tories go down on the TV, and he’d do a little jig, [64] and run back into the kitchen to take the phone again. I remember saying to Elizabeth early on, “He’ll be handing out ministries in Number 10 come the morning”, and we were both absolutely certain of it by then. The warmth and the happiness was just absolutely huge. It was like Christmas or New Year come early. A fantastic night … When John was ready to go down to London - I think it must have been about four - we all got ready, John said goodbye to the family, and we rushed out into the car with our collars up, and got away to the airport. And the first thing I said to John was ‘Well, I think we can be pleased how it’s turned out’, and John looked at me with a huge grin, and he said ‘Pleased? F****** ecstatic, I should hope!’ [65] and we both laughed. It was a great night, John talked about it for weeks…”

END OF CHAPTER I​

Notes and Clarifications​

[42] David Davis MP, (Yes, that David Davis) an occasional confidant of Clark’s during the 1992-1997 Parliament. Since Heseltine took over, he has been Minister for Defence Procurement at the MoD, which just happens to be Clark’s old job.

[43] Michael Mates was something of a bete noire to Clark, and he’s not too happy about him becoming Defence Secretary.

[44] Wee Willy became Armed Forces Minister at the MoD after Heseltine became PM, only to be moved to become a Minister of State at the Department of Environment when Richards resigned the following year, necessitating a junior ministerial reshuffle. (See last instalment)

[45] Tom Sackville, MP for Bolton West, and the current Armed Forces Minister.

[46] Tom King, Clark’s boss when he was a Minister at the MoD under Thatcher. They had a mutual rivalry for power and influence in the department, particularly in their relations with Number 10.

[47] David Lloyd-George. Clark is referring to the suggestion (implausible, although probably taken quite seriously by Lloyd-George) that ‘L-G’ could head a ‘national’ government to seek peace with Germany in the early stages of the war, should Britain find herself sufficiently imperilled.

[48] This refers to a remark which Major made in 1993 in which he implicitly and indiscreetly referred to some middle-ranking members of his Cabinet (widely considered at the time to include Portillo) as “bastards”.

[49] With no ‘SAS speech’ ITTL, this speech sets a similar sort of tone.

[50] This is all similar in it’s overall form to the sort of things which went on under Hague-Portillo in the 2000-2001 period in OTL; nothing hugely significant, but a steady drip of poisonous briefing and counter-briefing to journalists which cumulatively adds up to a pretty big ball of political cack. Needless to say, this does nothing for the already fractured image of Tory unity.

[51] Sounds familiar…

[52] I think Leigh and Lennox-Boyd would be amenable to this; Leigh becomes Minister for Trade, and Lennox-Boyd becomes a Minister of State at the Foreign Office. Michael Forsyth, I think on balance would just stay in the government, provided he got the Scottish post.

[53] In OTL, Forth stayed on until the election as a minister at Education. ITTL, he refuses to serve under Heseltine.

[54] In OTL, Iain Duncan Smith suffered from a similar sort of problem with the left of the party, stemming from his behaviour during the passage of the Maastricht Treaty.

[55] This is actually a bit misleading, since Fox would probably have been deposed even without this meeting - he had taken a lot of flack from the backbenches for defending John Major during Maastricht, (Fox only narrowly won a confidence vote in 1994) and the same pattern has probably carried over here. In OTL he lost his seat, so it was a moot point. I can see him being a little more distant in his dealings with Heseltine, but not to the extent that he would be retained after the general election.

[56] This happened in OTL as well, although the fallout here is probably worse because of Heseltine’s reaction, as we shall see slightly later on.

[57] Murray Elder was Smith’s chief of staff as leader in OTL, and has carried over the function ITTL, and takes it into Number Ten.

[58] In OTL, Labour settled on a much more conservative platform of keeping to Conservative spending plans for the first two years of the parliament, a complete income tax freeze, and no 50% top rate. Brown also committed himself to closing loopholes, although went back on that in government. Labour’s proposals here are much more radical, and their endorsement by the voters will have something of an effect on political thinking as well.

In OTL Brown, with effectively total control over economic policy, simply fired off independence for the Bank of England once Labour were in government; with a more deliberative approach here, Labour settle for a half-way house between independence and the status quo before the election - Smith had a long history of supporting democratically accountable monetary policy, so Labour adopts a more tentative policy ITTL.

[59] Hillary Armstrong was Smith’s PPS during the time he was leader in OTL. Here, she continues in the role for the duration of the ‘92 parliament.

[60] In OTL, the Sun overtly supported Labour after Murdoch was courted by Blair - here the support given is much more tepid.

[61] Which remains the site of Labour HQ going into the election, albeit with more serious election-handling facilities tacked on.

[62] Mike Elrick was one of Smith’s media team in OTL; here he’s stayed on until the election.

[63] In OTL Smith did not live to see the 1995 boundary changes, which substantially changed the parliamentary constituencies of the entire UK. Smith gave evidence to the Boundary Commission for Scotland regarding Lanarkshire constituencies, a process which resulted in the abolition of his Monklands East seat and it’s replacement by the successor constituency of Airdrie and Shotts. ITTL, Smith is elected to the new Airdrie constituency at the election, and consequently it is the constituency he represents as Prime Minister.

[64] Impromptu dancing seems to have been something of a speciality of Smith’s at moments of high emotion.

[65] As was profanity.

 

[Fletch]

How did election night acually go(roughly) in terms of figures (or does that come in due course)? Does Jimmy Goldsmith do better what with the backing of the national press, or does this split the Tory vote to a greater extent than in otl? Do we see a Labour landslide?

 

[V-J]

All will be revealed in detail in the next update. Until then, you'll just have to wait.

 

[ljofa]

Has Spitting Image still been killed off in this TL?

 

[Al-Buraq]

All those familiar names--all those failed careers. Politics is cruel.

 

[alt_historian]

As a general note, I have to say, I had no idea the Shadow Cabinet was elected anyway! Which means I've managed to learn something about real history from stuff that never happened... arguably, the point of alternate history anyway (apart from being fun).

Good to see happy, dance-y John Smith on election night! Two thngs though:

a) is John generally healthier than OTL, and that's why he avoided the second heart attack? I think that's how you did it in 1.0.

b) When does this election actually take place, '96 or '97?

 

[V-J]

Has Spitting Image still been killed off in this TL?

Probably. I'm not sure though - it would depend on what reasons you supposed it was killed off for. My personal impression is that it was in a long decline and was bound to get the axe at some point - perhaps with a new Tory government ITTL under Heseltine, and without the irresistable early sheen of new Labour, it can carry on here until the election before departing.

All those familiar names--all those failed careers. Politics is cruel.

A cruel, unforgiving mistress indeed. A bit like writing timelines.

As a general note, I have to say, I had no idea the Shadow Cabinet was elected anyway!

Well, Labour elects it's shadow cabinet - when the Tories are in opposition their leader just appoints whoerver they want. I am not actually sure if Labour still has shadow cabinet elections in OTL - I'd put money on them having been abolished at some point over the last thirteen years.

Good to see happy, dance-y John Smith on election night!

Yeah, I'm surprised more people haven't touched on that actually!

a) is John generally healthier than OTL, and that's why he avoided the second heart attack? I think that's how you did it in 1.0.

Yeah, I ASBd away the second heart attack. So his overall health is still the same.

b) When does this election actually take place, '96 or '97?

Sorry for any confusion - it takes place on May 1st 1997, exactly as per OTL.

 

[V-J]

CHAPTER II​

NOONTIDE​

1997 ​

“Leading the party is like driving pigs to market.”
- Stanley Baldwin​

Taken from The Tories - Conservatives and the Nation State 1922-1997 by Alan Clark, (Phoenix, 1998)

… Ambitions had already been excited when the Prime Minister had what the press described as “a series of tests” in March. [66] Was this delicate euphemism? Speculation at the time certainly supposed that it was. But the image of bad health is, as Harold Macmillan and others have discovered, as much a liability politically as the reality. And the overall standing of the Prime Minister was now very low. Defeat seemed a certainty. Only it’s scope remained in the balance. Calculations were made accordingly. For the left, the clear preference was for the Prime Minister to stay on as leader after any defeat until the autumn. Surely, this would give them the chance to firmly establish themselves in the new world of opposition. The left could be brought to bear around the figure of the Foreign Secretary; the right could be further tasked with the charge of splitting the party. The party could, on the back of favourable opinion polls and a cool assessment of strength in the new Parliament, ‘recover it’s balance.’ It is unclear whether this scheme ever found favour with the upper reaches of the party. In the event, the path to the leadership would be a clearer one…

… the Prime Minister had every expectation that the result, while being bad, would be, in the basic sense, ‘manageable‘. That is, within expectations. But he was now exhausted. On the Thursday night, although he had been awake all through Wednesday and now for nigh-on thirty-six hours, and should have been replenishing his reserves, he barely slept at all. His right arm was sore, perhaps from over-expansive gestures at the hustings. When he returned to Number Ten early in the pre-dawn, instead of retiring for an hour or two to restore his adrenaline, the Prime Minister remained active and awake, as he attempted to establish the details of the defeat and plan how he would present his position to the party and the electorate in consequence. But as the scale of the rejection began to be more readily apparent, the Prime Minister began to feel dreadfully fatigued, and then, ill. The pain in his arm now seemed to be invading his rib-cage. It was a symptom of which he had been warned by his specialist, and, discretely, immediate medical attendance was sought.

When, many hours later, after doubtless being given appropriate medical advice and having time to converse with his wife, the Prime Minister emerged into Downing Street in the May sunshine under circumstances which had changed substantially. There was no longer any hint of ‘staying on’ as leader. The Prime Minister’s mind was now made up. Only the small formalities remained - addressing the assembled cameras and motoring to the Palace to offer his resignation. The assassin of Margaret Thatcher, once so formidable, had been brought to the ultimate low by a simultaneous convergence of the negatively electoral and the physical. And, once again, could be suspected intervention by those very household gods of the Conservative Party that had so often, so unpredictably, and - most usually at times of crisis - so undeservedly, attended on its fortunes.

Taken from The Times, May the 3rd, 1997 ‘Heseltine Stands Down as Smith Forms Government’

… Addressing the media outside Number 10 after returning from the Palace to formally tender his resignation as Prime Minister, Mr Heseltine said he had “no regrets” about his time in office, and was “extremely pleased indeed to have had the opportunity to serve the country over the past two years.” Mr Heseltine also announced he was stepping down as Leader of the Conservative Party, which will trigger an immediate leadership election. Kenneth Clarke, the former Foreign Secretary, has already declared his candidacy, and it looks likely that Michael Portillo, [67] the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, will convene a press conference tomorrow or later today to also announce his intentions.

Mr Heseltine stated that he hoped that the Conservatives could now “pause for a period of intelligent self-reflection” and that the party would need to “refresh the way it approaches political life in the years ahead.” In a sharp rebuke to his critics, Mr Heseltine stated that many of them had “drifted into complacency, and [had] become partially or wholly removed from the public reality”, and that the Conservative Party would have to “re-establish it’s commitment to public service.” “That”, declared Mr Heseltine, “can only come from a completely honest assessment of ourselves and our behaviour.”

Mr Heseltine has not yet confirmed whether he shall also be standing down as the Member for Henley…

Taken from The Sunday Times Pullout Guide to the Election, Sunday the 4th of May, 1997

… John Smith is the first Labour Prime Minister in eighteen years, and his is the first Labour government with a secure majority in nearly thirty years. Labour’s majority is sixty-three seats, a much smaller total than those achieved by Harold Wilson in 1966, and Clement Atlee in 1945, but still a clear win for Labour. [68]

Perhaps the biggest winners at this election have been the Liberal Democrats; Mr Ashdown has good reason to celebrate based on his party’s performance. It is the Liberals’ best result for nearly seventy years, since the 1929 General Election and the days of David Lloyd-George; the Liberal Democrats have more than tripled their 1992 representation in the Commons. [69] In addition to their general election gains, they retained the seats of Newbury, and Oldham East and Saddleworth. The Lib Dems won the two former Conservative seats in by-elections in the last parliament, although their main challenge in Oldham came from Labour in what turned out to be an extremely close two-way fight. However, the picture is not one of total success. Diana Maddock failed to hold Christchurch, the strongly Tory Dorset seat which she won for the Lib Dems in a by-election in 1993, which narrowly returns to the Conservatives. [70]

The Conservatives received their lowest share of the vote since 1832. In terms of seats, it is the second worst performance in their history this century, after the Liberal landslide of 1906. [71] Six members of the Cabinet have lost their seats, notably including the Deputy Prime Minister, Malcolm Rifkind…

Taken from A Basic Introduction to British Politics - British General Elections Since 1945 by Colin Harmer, (Oxford University Press, 2005)

Although many at the time were in some ways surprised by the outcome of the 1997 election, in actual fact the result had been little in doubt since Black Wednesday, when the Conservatives had lost their standing both in the general polls and in the polls of who the electorate viewed as the most economically competent party. But still, the shadow of 1992 cast itself a long way; many on both sides of the Commons had a tendency to disbelieve the polls, simply because in 1992 they had been a remarkably poor judge of the eventual result. In the event, Labour was surprised by the strength of it’s success, and the Conservatives surprised by their loss. The Liberal Democrats also made an unexpectedly strong impression.

Labour’s success was surprisingly diverse, with the party picking up seats which were not even close to being on it’s top fifty target list, on the strength of the national swing; Battersea, Scarborough and Whitby, Dartford, Crosby, and, perhaps the most symbolic prize of all, the formerly solid Tory seat of Birmingham Edgbaston, Neville Chamberlain’s old constituency, and held by the Conservatives continuously since 1950. Even the former seat of Enoch Powell, Wolverhampton South West, went to Labour, albeit, as in the case of most of these seats, by a very slim margin in relative terms. [72] The result in Dartford was so close (nine votes between Conservatives and Labour) that the result would be challenged by the Conservatives in the High Court, resulting in a legal ruling that the result be overturned and a by-election run, which in the event was easily won by Labour. [73]

The Conservatives faired much worse than some commentators had been previously predicting, despite Labour achieving no more than a comfortable majority. Partly this was due to the intensely strong tactical voting which allowed the Liberal Democrats to acquire a surprisingly high number of seats from the Conservatives, particularly in the South and South-West. In many two-way Labour-Conservative fights, the Lib Dem vote actually fell dramatically. Of the Lib Dem gains at this election, effectively the entirety were made at the expense of the Tories. Despite their share of the vote only increasing by a little over one-and-a half percent on the 1992 general election, the Liberal Democrats more than tripled their number of seats - a testament to the occasionally strange workings of the electoral system. [74] The SNP served a similar function in Highland Scotland, with the Conservative presence being completely removed from that particular region altogether, and in the rest of Scotland it was little better for the Conservatives, with them narrowly retaining only their safest Scottish seat, the semi-rural Strathclyde constituency of Eastwood. [75] Even by comparison to the 1992 total of eleven seats, it was a shocking and arresting decline; in Wales it was no better, with a reduction of the already limited Conservative presence to a mere two seats. One of the continuing problems for the party over the coming years would be to re-establish themselves as a truly nationally representative party.

It is hard to determine precisely the effect, if any, the party leaders had on the election result, although there is good evidence that Michael Heseltine, generally more popular than the party he lead, helped the overall result in favour of the Conservatives. John Smith’s contribution is rather more difficult to assess. Although Smith’s experience and ‘prudent’ public image may have helped Labour overall, there is some evidence that Conservative attacks on Smith’s record during the campaign may have had a small impact in marginals.

The impact of the Referendum Party has been equally debated. [76] While having absolutely no effect on the overall result, it does seem likely that the party was decisive in a small number of Conservative marginal constituencies in the South of England. The effect of the party in sapping Conservative morale cannot be quantified, but the anti-European vote certainly added to the mountain of pressure on the Conservatives at the election.

Parliament was dissolved with two Conservative MPs still deprived of the whip, Christopher Gill for Ludlow, and Sir Richard Body for Boston and Skegness (Formerly Holland with Boston). Gill was re-admitted to the whip in the immediate run up the election, and therefore received official endorsement as a Conservative candidate from Central Office, although in the event an independent ‘Loyalist Conservative’ candidate from within the local constituency association stood, splitting the Conservative vote sufficiently to allow the Liberal Democrats to claim the seat. Body decided to retire at the election, and his Boston and Skegness seat was narrowly retained for the Conservatives by Norman Lamont. [77]

Taken from John Smith - A Life by Mark Stuart (Politicos, 2005)

Although Smith was constitutionally radical, his attitude to staffing and organising Number Ten was much more conventional, reflecting the close relationships he had built up with his leadership team in opposition, and the faith he held in them. The vast majority of his staff from his private office as Labour Leader took their jobs over into government, in the process confirming that the relatively small number of people under Smith would continue in Number Ten. David Hill [78] became Number Ten’s head of communications, while David Ward [79] headed up the Number Ten Policy Unit, Murray Elder became the Number Ten chief of staff, and Meta Ramsay [80] became the Prime Minister’s foreign policy adviser. The Policy Unit also included within it’s ranks some names who would later go onto greater things - Pat McFadden, [81] a regular on the policy team in opposition, was joined by similarly younger members of the Number Ten staff, such as Oona King, [82] who became a sometime Smith speechwriter, and David Milliband, also on the Policy Unit. [83] Although all three would later be claimed by the Commons, King’s and Milliband’s tenures would be much longer than McFadden’s, who would unexpectedly enter the Commons the following year after Labour was returned to power as the member for Paisley South, following the tragic death of Gordon McMaster. [84]

Although Smith’s temper could occasionally get the better of him, such occasions were relatively rare, and Smith usually confined his negative comments during meetings to a dismissive ‘ach’ - a very typically understated Scottish riposte which Oona King defines was a way of John dismissing “fanciful ideas .. Stuff that was very left-field”. But John liked hearing alternative points off view, and would quiz people strenuously in logical order to marshal the arguments for and against a particular idea. Oona King notes that “if you answered John back, he was totally fine about that kind of thing”. After even heated exchanges, John would go away and deeply consider all that had been said before making his mind up. Smith treated even junior members of his staff as part of a team, and inspired great respect and affection in result, but he also demanded absolute loyalty in return.

Almost all of Labour’s shadows took their portfolios into government, a move which notably included Dawn Primarolo becoming the first Minister for Women, and Michael Meacher becoming the first International Development Secretary. [85] The creation of both of those posts were to be expected, however based on Labour‘s declared policy commitments; one of Smith’s more novel ideas was to promote George Robertson to the Cabinet as a full-cabinet level Minister for Europe. There was much to recommend this: Robertson had been polling well in recent Shadow Cabinet elections, [86] John and he were firm, long-standing friends, and such a promotion would send a strong message on the importance the government attached to the European issue. However, with some irony, it appears that Tony Blair vetoed this idea, insisting that the Foreign Office did not need two ministers at the Cabinet table. This concept of the Minister for Europe in-Cabinet and Robertson’s own accession to the Cabinet would have to wait until 1999, although he states that his two years at the Foreign Office and the MoD were “blissfully happy”. Robertson was appointed instead as a privy councillor, and allowed to attend Cabinet when relevant policy issues were under consideration.

The creation of a Ministry for Justice under Derry Irvine [87] was not of the same league as some of the other departmental changes, but it did presage some of the more strident constitutional reforms of later years. A departmental casualty was the greatly-mis-named Department of the Environment, which in the event was split-up between it’s real ‘environmental’ aspect, [88] and its Housing and Local Government functions. This reflected not only the reality of Labour’s creation in opposition of its own Shadow Cabinet-level Environmental Protection brief, but Smith’s belief that Local Government itself required strengthening. Chris Smith recalls Smith saying that it was “daft” that there was no one department explicitly devoted to Local Government, and that such an anomaly played into the already weak status of local and regional government. Some have suggested that this breaking-up of the DoE lead to some bad blood between Mo Mowlam (who had shadowed Environment, as it then was, in opposition [89]) and Smith, and may have been a factor in her later decisions. Andrew Rawnsley states, in his biography of Mowlam, that she was “suspicious of Smith’s motives” in the break-up of the DoE. Press reports in 2000 also suggested this, although the idea seems implausible considering the responsibility Mowlam was given in steering forward the government’s regional government proposals, and Smith’s own supposed belief in the importance of the local government brief. Chris Smith says that any suggestion that Mowlam was a second-class member of the Cabinet is mistaken: “Mo was right in there, with some very important responsibilities. She was at the heart of government, and she was happy doing what she did. It was a big challenge.” Some have suggested a more likely explanation was that Gordon Brown’s mutual antipathy with Mowlam was responsible, and that perhaps part of the ‘deal’ regarding Mowlam taking the Environment brief was that it would be split in government. “Gordon was furious about Mo going to Environment“, one source close to both camps later stated. “He demanded some sort of recompense. I think John was just exasperated, he thought he had kept Mowlam in backwater portfolios for too long by that stage and Gordon just had to get over these hang-ups about working with people he didn‘t like. Gordon thought John was colonising the domestic briefs with opponents as part of a deliberate strategy to undermine him.”…

…Although Smith was firmly of a mindset which generally favoured increased public spending, some - although not all - of what Labour had lambasted as the Conservative ‘quango culture’ was cut back, sometimes considerably and radically. Heseltine had strongly championed, even as Environment Secretary before he became Prime Minister, the Millennium Commission - a quango which had been set up in 1994 to oversee the construction of a Festival of Britain-style venture, eventually selected in 1996 to be built on a brownfield site in Greenwich. By 1997, the project had coalesced around a vaguely-defined notion of a ‘dome’, open to the public by 2000, but little more had been laid out, and the project was becoming increasingly vulnerable, and was already in deep difficulties by 1997 - a projected £150m shortfall from private investors had already been underwritten by the Conservatives with public money. Labour had already made a great play of this, and had promised to review the project when in government. [90] In consequence, at a cabinet meeting in July, Smith and Mowlam argued for extensively re-thinking the whole project, a suggestion which an already sceptical cabinet reportedly eagerly endorsed. [91] The idea of a dome was scrapped as too vague and unworkable, and in it’s place would be substituted a more focused and commercially-minded public-private partnership which would reach it’s fruition in Greenwich’s Millennium Park… [92]

Taken from The New Encyclopaedia of British Politics, 1945-2006, ed. Jones and Langdon (Longman, 2006)

New Foreign Policy - Term coined by then-Foreign Secretary Tony Blair in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute in June 1997 to describe Britain’s incipient foreign policy under Labour. By Blair’s own definition the phrase was meant to convey a reorienting of Britain’s foreign policy around the promotion of human rights abroad, easier relations with the EU and European countries, and a renewal of Britain’s relations with the Commonwealth. [93]

In many respects, however, the reality was different; the media found it all too easy to find authoritarian governments that had been consorted with and arms sales to dubious regimes which had been previously signed off on, and which Blair found it difficult to cancel. Although the phrase had little impact at the time beyond symbolising the unremarkable ambition of the new government to change Britain’s international relationships for the better, the New Foreign Policy theme would prefigure the arrival of more serious and challenging developments in the years ahead.

Appendix​

H E R M A J E S T Y ’ S G O V E R N M E N T​

(The Cabinet, as composed under the Ministry of The Rt. Hon. John Smith, MP, June, 1997)​

Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Labour Party - The Rt. Hon. John Smith, QC, MP
Chancellor of the Exchequer and Second Lord of the Treasury - The Rt. Hon. Dr. Gordon Brown, MP
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs - The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, MP
Secretary of State for the Home Department - The Rt. Hon Frank Dobson, MP
Deputy Prime Minister, First Secretary of State, Lord President of the Council, Leader of the House of Commons and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party - The Rt. Hon. Margaret Beckett, MP
Secretary of State for Education and Science - The Rt. Hon. Ann Taylor, MP
Secretary of State for Defence - The Rt. Hon. Dr. David Clark, MP
Secretary of State for Transport - The Rt. Hon. Clare Short, MP
Secretary of State for Health - The Rt. Hon. David Blunkett, MP
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and President of the Board of Trade - The Rt. Hon. Robin Cook, MP
Secretary of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food - The Rt. Hon. Dr. Gavin Strang, MP
Secretary of State for Local Government, Housing and the Regions - The Rt. Hon. Dr. Mo Mowlam, MP
Secretary of State for Social Security - The Rt. Hon. Jack Straw, MP
Secretary of State for Employment - The Rt. Hon. John Prescott, MP
Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport - The Rt. Hon. Tom Clarke, MP
Secretary of State for Environmental Protection - The Rt. Hon. Chris Smith, MP
Secretary of State for International Development and Co-operation - The Rt. Hon. Michael Meacher, MP
Secretary of State for Scotland - The Rt. Hon. Donald Dewar, QC, MP
Secretary of State for Wales - The Rt. Hon. Ann Clwyd, MP
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland - The Rt. Hon. Dr. Jack Cunningham, MP
Chief Secretary to the Treasury - The Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman, MP
Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice - The Rt. Hon. The Lord Irvine of Lairg, QC, PC
Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury and Labour Chief Whip - The Rt. Hon. Derek Foster, MP
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for Women and Equality - The Rt. Hon. Dawn Primarolo, MP
Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords - The Rt. Hon. The Lord Richard of Ammanford, PC

Notes and Clarifications​

[66] Due to the additional workload, Heseltine’s health problems are a bit more acute here.

[67] Needless to say, comfortably returned at Enfield Southgate.

[68] It is worth pointing out, though, that the sixty-three majority is simply Labour’s majority over all the other parties. When you factor in the probable close voting patterns between Labour and the Lib Dems, the government’s effective majority is nearer two hundred over the Tories. Wilson may have had a nearly 100-seat majority in 1966, but those were in the days when the Liberal Party was only just clambering off it’s life-support machine. Although the Tories do a lot better here than in OTL, they still win less seats than Michael Foot did in 1983. Paradoxically, although the Conservatives suffer a big defeat, Labour is not - at least, relative to OTL - propelled into the parliamentary stratosphere.

[69] The Lib Dems do better here than in OTL as without any ‘Blair Effect’, more disaffected middle-ground voters/Tory-leaners turn to them, rather than ‘New’ Labour. The Lib Dems polled relatively highly during Smith’s OTL time as Leader, (Anyone interested might want to check out the UK Polling Report website’s historical polls section) and it’s reasonable to suppose that would have continued to some extent had Smith remained in place; combined with the historic level of tactical voting at this election, it’s enough to push the Lib Dems very high indeed. (There’s also, of course, the slightly stronger Referendum Party presence, which acts as a useful vote-spoiler in Tory-Lib Dem constituencies in the South.) These were days, let us remember, when the Lib Dems were still seen by many as a ‘bridge’ between the Tories and Labour, (I.E, as a middle-way home for disaffected Tories) which is an increasingly redundant perspective in OTL for a variety of reasons.

Hence, the Lib Dems do around two percentage points better than in OTL. This is, needless to say, a small amount which is on the whole absorbed by the national spread, but where it is compacted - I.E, in areas of tactical voting - it’s enough to make a crucial difference in quite a few seats, almost entirely in the Lib Dem’s strongest English region - the South West - a fair number of seats in which in OTL remained Tory by anything from a few hundred votes to a couple of thousand, usually with Labour in a strong third place in OTL. Consequently, such nominal bastions of rural/suburban Toryism as Wells, Totnes, Teignbridge, Orpington, North Norfolk, Tiverton, and Dorset mid and Poole North fall to the beard and sandals behemoth in addition to those seats which went historically; at least half a dozen others, such as Surrey South West, Wiltshire North and the like, are photo-finish Tory wins of between double or triple figures and several thousand.

Strangely enough, this also means that quite a few high-profile Tory scalps which were claimed by Labour in OTL go to the Lib Dems; William Waldegrave in Bristol West and Seb Coe in Falmouth and Camborne for instance. Former Thatcher/Major era Cabinet Minister Tom King also falls in Bridgend. Not a good night for West Country Tories at all. Michael Howard also has his majority cut to a worrying/exciting level at Folkestone and Hythe as well. On the Labour side, Tony Benn hangs on only by the merest tip of his pipe in Chesterfield.

[70] In OTL, Oldham East was won by Labour on the strength of the national swing; here the seat is retained by the Lib Dems. Newbury and Christchurch are no different from OTL, although Christchurch is a lot closer.

[71] As in OTL, this statement is debatable. In 1906 the Tories won less seats than in 1997. (Here or in OTL) It is still a historic defeat for the party, though.

[72] This is a bit overdone. Whilst on the face of it, these two gains (Wolves SW and B-E) are a bit startling, in both seats the Tory majority was only between four to five thousand at the 1992 election, so while they may seem slightly incredible, the prospect of Labour taking them by slim margins is actually not especially surprising, even under Smith; they are highly marginal seats at this point, despite their histories. Both seats are also straight Labour-Conservative fights as well, which helps Labour. A similar sort of constituency is Leeds North East, Keith Joseph’s old seat, which also goes to Labour. The much more surprising ones are Dartford and Scarborough and Whitby.

I suspect that Labour taking Birmingham Edgbaston will be one of the big media moments of election night ‘97 here, probably along with Malcolm Rifkind losing at Edinburgh Pentlands. Historically it was just a prelude to what was later to come - here it will probably have more singular significance.

[73] In OTL, very much the same thing happened in Winchester between the Tories and the Lib Dems.

[74] Amazingly enough, the Lib Dems’ share of the vote actually fell in 1997 in OTL from 1992, despite them similarly boosting their representation. That’s FPTP for ya.

[75] The fact that Labour, under a Scottish leader, actually takes three seats less in Scotland than OTL appeals to me in a strange sort of way…

[76] They do a little better here than OTL - not by a massive margin, but it all helps the anti-Tory vote.

[77] Very narrowly - doubtless more so than the OTL result. Couldn’t possibly imagine why…

[78] David Hill was Roy Hattersley’s chief of staff during his time as deputy leader, before becoming Labour’s chief spokesman under Smith. In OTL he went on to become Alastair Campbell’s replacement as No 10 communications chief in 2003.

[79] Ward was Smith’s head of policy during his time as leader.

[80] Ramsay was a former diplomat and close friend of the Smith family who, as above, was part of Smith’s team in opposition.

[81] Something of a wunderkind in OTL until the arrival of the Blair years, Pat McFadden was, in a way, to Smith as leader what Milliband would be to Blair. His career stalled a bit under Blair, and he only made it into the Commons in 2005 - and then for an English seat - at the relatively advanced age of forty. Here, things turn out a bit differently.

[82] ITTL Oona King lost the contest to be the Labour nominee for Bethnal Green and Bow in 1997, which instead was won by Pola Uddin. Considering what a mess the selection was in OTL, and the eventual intervention of Millbank which lead to King’s selection, this is extremely likely ITTL.

King will still enter the Commons ITTL, but slightly later, and for a different seat. More on that later though.

[83] In OTL, Milliband headed up policy at Number Ten under Blair in the first term. Given his background its almost certain that he would have got some wonk-related job whoever the Labour PM would have been, and ITTL he makes it onto the unit on the back of his work as secretary of the SJC, albeit as a junior member.

Milliband’s political centre of gravity may be slightly affected ITTL but I don’t suppose by a great deal - he is still on the modernising wing of the party. Perhaps the most important development here is that Milliband has no Blair template to follow - he’s more likely to become his own man rather than all too obviously modelling himself on his mentor as in OTL.

[84] Unfortunately I don’t see there being sufficient changes here for Gordon McMaster’s suicide to be butterflied away ITTL. The exact date will doubtless be different, but he still dies at a broadly similar point in time as OTL.

In OTL, the by-election was won for Labour by Douglas Alexander, although McFadden was a candidate for nomination - that goes slightly differently ITTL due to Alexander being less prominent than OTL.

Again, like King, Alexander’s political development is retarded slightly ITTL, but not by a great deal.

[85] Neither Meacher nor Primarolo have/were ever been a full member of the Cabinet in OTL; Smith is, in contrast, more comfortable with the left and so they both come in with Labour, albeit in junior posts.

[86] In OTL, Robertson took up the Defence Portfolio when Blair took over, after having served a small amount of time as Shadow Scottish Secretary, and within two years of entering government he was heading off to NATO ; ITTL his political career has been a bit steadier, with him serving as Shadow Europe Minister since 1995 - Europe was one of his policy specialities.

[87] The old DoE might better have been called the Department of the Urban Environment - it’s ‘real’ Environmental aspect was more of a side concern. In OTL, such a split has more or less been effected by the creation of the Communities department - the Local Government Department here is a bit beefier however.

The creation of this Environmental Protection ministry will have some minor effects politically, one being a slightly earlier prominence of ‘green’ issues. It’s not a super-ministry by any means though - the International Development Department might be a useful analogue.

[88] In OTL Mowlam was Shadow National Heritage Secretary at the time Smith died, having been appointed by him to that post in 1993. ITTL she shadows Environment from 1995 onwards.

[89] The creation of a ministry for justice was something that Smith supported, and I’m going by the notion that it’s easier to make such departmental changes coming into government than it is during it. This isn’t anything like OTL’s ministry of justice, though, which was created out of a split in the Home Office; in the main it’s just a ‘codification’ of the Lord Chancellor’s existing 1997 competences, with some minor Home Office judicial responsibilities tacked on; constitutional issues are also firmly enshrined here.

[90] In OTL, Blair did the opposite, pledging to continue with it whilst Labour was in opposition, after being courted by the then DPM and master of the scheme, Michael Heseltine. Heseltine can’t do that ITTL for obvious reasons, and Smith is inherently less inclined to throw money at a sinking prestige project.

[91] In OTL, the Cabinet came out against, but Blair simply flipped them the bird and announced the thing was going ahead anyway. A more Cabinet-rooted, sceptical, and less wide-eyed Smith means that the scheme takes a different course here; in consequence, of course, there will be no Millennium Dome ITTL.

[92] Ironically, of course, this means that Old Labour is more open to business in this instance than New Labour.

[93] Blair is a bit more guarded about things than Cook in OTL, so there’s no ‘ethical foreign policy‘ ITTL, and the shift in emphasis is a bit more cautious. Nevertheless, Blair still gets into trouble due to the problems with delivery.

 

[V-J]

1997 General Election​

(May 1st, 1997)​

Labour Party 361 + 90 (40.1%)
Conservative and Unionist Party 203 - 133 (32.2%)
Liberal Democrats 65 + 45 (18.4%)
Ulster Unionist Party 10 + 1 (0.8%)
Scottish National Party 7 + 4 (2.0%)
Plaid Cymru 4 (-) (0.5%)
Social Democratic and Labour Party 3 - 1 (0.6%)
Democratic Unionist Party 2 - 1 (0.3%)
Sinn Féin 2 + 2 (0.4%)
United Kingdom Unionist Party 1 + 1 (0.01%)
Independent 1 + 1 (0.01%)

Turnout: 74.6%

63 seat Labour majority​

Strength of party representation in the Commons, together with individual constituencies which returned for that party, listed alphabetically in each case:

Labour Party (361)

Aberavon
Aberdeen, Central
Aberdeen, North
Airdrie and Shotts
Alyn and Deeside
Amber Valley
Ashfield
Ashton-under-Lyne
Ayr
Barking
Barnsley, Central
Barnsley East and Mexborough
Barnsley West and Penistone
Barrow and Furness
Basildon
Bassetlaw
Batley and Spen
Battersea
Bedford
Bethnal Green and Bow
Birkenhead
Birmingham, Edgbaston
Birmingham, Erdington
Birmingham, Hall Green
Birmingham, Hodge Hill
Birmingham, Ladywood
Birmingham, Northfield
Birmingham, Perry Barr
Birmingham, Selly Oak
Birmingham Sparkbrook and Small Heath
Birmingham, Yardley
Bishop Auckland
Blackburn
Blackpool North and Fleetwood
Blackpool, South
Blaenau Gwent
Blaydon
Blyth Valley
Bolsover
Bolton, North East
Bolton, South East
Bolton, West
Bootle
Bradford, North
Bradford, South
Bradford, West
Brent, East
Brent, South
Brentford and Isleworth
Bridgend
Brigg and Goole
Brighton, Pavilion
Bristol, East
Bristol, North West
Bristol, South
Burnley
Burton
Bury, North
Bury, South
Caerphilly
Camberwell and Peckham
Cambridge
Cannock Chase
Cardiff, Central
Cardiff, North
Cardiff South and Penarth
Cardiff, West
Carlisle
Carmarthen East and Dinefwr
Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire
Carrick, Cumnock, and Doon Valley
Chesterfield
Chorley
City of Chester
City of Durham
City of York
Cleethorpes
Clwyd, South
Clydebank and Milngavie
Clydesdale
Coatbridge and Chryston
Colne Valley
Copeland
Corby
Coventry, North East
Coventry, North West
Coventry, South
Crawley
Crewe and Nantwich
Crosby
Croydon, North
Cumbernauld and Kilsyth
Cunninghame, North
Cunninghame, South
Cynon Valley
Dagenham
Darlington
Dartford
Delyn
Denton and Reddish
Derby, North
Derby, South
North East Derbyshire
South Derbyshire
Dewsbury
Don Valley
Doncaster, Central
Doncaster, North
Dover
Dudley, North
Dudley, South
Dulwich and West Norwood
Dumbarton
Dumfries
Dundee, East
Dundee, West
Dunfermline, East
Dunfermline, West
North Durham
North West Durham
Ealing Acton and Shepherd’s Bush
Ealing, North
Ealing, Southall
Easington
East Ham
East Kilbride
Eccles
Edinburgh, Central
Edinburgh East and Musselburgh
Edinburgh North and Leith
Edinburgh, Pentlands
Edinburgh, South
Edmonton
Elmet
Ellesmere Port and Neston
Eltham
Enfield, North
Erewash
Erith and Thamesmead
Exeter
Falkirk, East
Falkirk, West
Feltham and Heston
Central Fife
Forest of Dean
Gateshead East and Washington West
Glasgow, Anniesland
Glasgow, Baillieston
Glasgow, Cathcart
Glasgow, Govan
Glasgow, Kelvin
Glasgow, Maryhill
Glasgow, Pollok
Glasgow, Rutherglen
Glasgow, Shettleston
Glasgow, Springburn
Gloucester
Gower
Great Grimsby
Great Yarmouth
Greenock and Inverclyde
Greenwich and Woolwich
Hackney North and Stoke Newington
Hackney South and Shoreditch
Halesowen and Rowley Regis
Halifax
Halton
Hamilton North and Bellshill
Hamilton, South
Hampstead and Highgate
Harlow
Harrow, East
Hartlepool
Hayes and Harlington
Hemsworth
Hendon
Heywood and Middleton
High Peak
Holborn and St. Pancras
Hornsey and Wood Green
Houghton and Washington East
Huddersfield
Hull, East
Hull, North
Hull West and Hessle
Hyndburn
Ilford, South
Ipswich
Islington, North
Islington South and Finsbury
Islwyn
Jarrow
Keighley
Kilmarnock and Loudoun
Kingswood
Kirkcaldy
Knowsley North and Sefton East
Knowsley, South
West Lancashire
Leeds, Central
Leeds, East
Leeds, North East
Leeds, North West
Leeds, West
Leicester, East
Leicester, South
Leicester, West
North West Leicestershire
Leigh
Lewisham, Deptford
Lewisham, East
Lewisham, West
Leyton and Wanstead
Lincoln
Linlithgow
Liverpool, Garston
Liverpool, Riverside
Liverpool, Walton
Liverpool, Wavertree
Liverpool, West Derby
Livingston
Llanelli
East Lothian
Loughborough
Luton, North
Luton, South
Makerfield
Manchester, Blackley
Manchester, Central
Manchester, Gorton
Manchester, Withington
Mansfield
Medway
Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland
Midlothian
Milton Keynes, South West
Mitcham and Morden
Morley and Rothwell
Motherwell and Wishaw
Neath
Newcastle-Under-Lyme
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central
Newcastle-upon-Tyne East and Wallsend
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North
Newport, East
Newport, West
Normanton
Northampton, North
Norwich, North
Norwich, South
Nottingham, East
Nottingham, North
Nottingham, South
Nuneaton
Ochil
Ogmore
Oldham West and Royton
Oxford, East
Paisley, North
Paisley, South
Pendle
Peterborough
Plymouth, Devonport
Plymouth, Sutton
Pontefract and Castleford
Pontypridd
Poplar and Canning Town
Portsmouth, North
Preseli Pembrokeshire
Preston
Pudsey
Reading, East
Redcar
Redditch
Regent’s Park and Kensington North
West Renfrewshire
Rhondda
Rosendale and Darwen
Rother Valley
Rotherham
Salford
Scarborough and Whitby
Scunthorpe
Sedgefield
Sheffield, Attercliffe
Sheffield, Brightside
Sheffield, Central
Sheffield, Heeley
Sheffield, Hillsborough
Sherwood
Slough
South Shields
Southampton, Itchen
Southampton, Test
Staffordshire Moorlands
Stalybridge and Hyde
Stevenage
Stirling
Stockport
Stockton, North
Stockton, South
Stoke-on-Trent, Central
Stoke-on-Trent, North
Stoke-on-Trent, South
Stourbridge
Strathkelvin and Bearsden
Streatham
Stretford and Urmston
Stroud
St. Helens, North
St. Helens, South
Sunderland, North
Sunderland, South
Swansea, East
Swansea, West
North Swindon
South Swindon
Tamworth
Telford
Thurrock
Tooting
Torfaen
Tottenham
Tyne Bridge
Tynemouth
North Tyneside
Vale of Clwyd
Vale of Glamorgan
Vauxhall
Wakefield
Wallasey
Walthamstow
Walsall, North
Walsall, South
Wansbeck
Warley
Warrington, North
Warrington, South
North Warwickshire
Watford
Waveney
Weaver Vale
Welwyn Hatfield
Wentworth
West Bromwich, East
West Bromwich, West
West Ham
Western Isles
Wigan
Wirral, South
Wolverhampton, North East
Wolverhampton, South East
Wolverhampton, South West
Worcester
Workington
Worsley
Wrexham
Wyre Forest
Wythenshawe and Sale East

Conservative and Unionist Party (203)

Aldershot
Aldridge-Brownhills
Altrincham and Sale West
Arundel and South Downs
Ashford
Aylesbury
Banbury
Barnet
Basingstoke
Beaconsfield
Mid Bedfordshire
North East Bedfordshire
South West Bedfordshire
Beckenham
Beverley and Holderness
Bexhill and Battle
Bexleyheath and Crayford
Billericay
Blaby
Bognor Regis and Littlehampton
Boston and Skegness
Bosworth
Bournemouth, East
Bournemouth, West
Bracknell
Braintree
Brent, North
Brentwood and Ongar
Brighton, Kemptown
Bromley and Chislehurst
Bromsgrove
Broxbourne
Broxtowe
Buckingham
Bury St. Edmunds
North East Cambridgeshire
North West Cambridgeshire
South Cambridgeshire
South East Cambridgeshire
Canterbury
Castle Point
Charnwood
Chatham and Aylesford
Cheadle
West Chelmsford
Chesham and Amersham
Chichester
Chipping Barnet
Chingford and Woodford Green
Christchurch
Cities of London and Westminster
Clwyd, West
Congleton
Cotswold
Croydon, Central
Croydon, South
Daventry
West Derbyshire
Devizes
East Devon
South West Devon
South Dorset
Eastwood
Eddisbury
Enfield, Southgate
Epping Forest
Epsom and Ewell
Esher and Walton
North Essex
Fareham
Finchley and Golders Green
Faversham and Mid Kent
Flyde
Folkestone and Hythe
Gainsborough
Gedling
Gillingham
Gosport
Grantham and Stamford
Gravesham
Guildford
Haltemprice and Howden
Hammersmith and Fulham
East Hampshire
North East Hampshire
North West Hampshire
Harborough
Harrow, West
Harwich
Havant
Hemel Hempstead
Henley
Hertford and Stortford
North East Hertfordshire
South West Hertfordshire
Hertsmere
Hexham
Hitchin and Harpenden
Hornchurch
Horsham
Hove
Huntingdon
Ilford, North
Kensington and Chelsea
Kettering
Lancaster and Wyre
Leominster
Lichfield
Louth and Horncastle
Macclesfield
Maidenhead
Maidstone and the Weald
Maldon and East Chelmsford
Meriden
Milton Keynes, North East
Mole Valley
Monmouth
Morecambe and Lunesdale
New Forest, East
New Forest, West
Newark
Mid Norfolk
North West Norfolk
South Norfolk
South West Norfolk
Northampton, South
Old Bexley and Sidcup
Penrith and the Border
Poole
Putney
Rayleigh
Reading, West
Reigate
Ribble Valley
South Ribble
Richmond
Rochford and Southend East
Romsey
Romford
Ruislip-Northwood
Rugby and Kenilworth
Runnymede and Weybridge
Rushcliffe
Rutland and Melton
Ryedale
Saffron Waldon
Salisbury
Selby
Sevenoaks
Shrewsbury and Atcham
North Shropshire
Shipley
Sittingbourne and Sheppey
Skipton and Ripon
Sleaford and North Hykeham
Spelthorne
Solihull
South Holland and the Deepings
Stafford
Stratford-on-Avon
Southend, West
South Staffordshire
Stone
Suffolk Coastal
Central Suffolk and North Ipswich
South Suffolk
West Suffolk
East Surrey
Surrey Heath
South West Surrey
St. Albans
Mid Sussex
Sutton Coldfield
Tewkesbury
North Thanet
South Thanet
Tonbridge and Malling
Tunbridge Wells
Upminster
Uxbridge
Vale of York
Wansdyke
Wantage
Warwick and Leamington
Wealden
Wellingborough
Westbury
Westmorland and Lonsdale
North Wiltshire
Wimbledon
Wirral, West
Witney
Windsor
Woking
Wokingham
Woodspring
Mid Worcestershire
West Worcestershire
East Worthing and Shoreham
Worthing, West
The Wrekin
Wycombe
East Yorkshire

Liberal Democrats (65)

Aberdeen, South
Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine
Argyll and Bute
Bath
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Brecon and Radnorshire
Bridgwater
Bristol, West
Caithness, Sutherland, and Easter Ross
Carshalton and Wallington
Cheltenham
Colchester
Conwy
North Cornwall
South East Cornwall
North Devon
Devon West and Torridge
Dorset Mid and Poole North
North Dorset
West Dorset
Eastbourne
Eastleigh
Edinburgh, West
Falmouth and Camborne
North East Fife
Gordon
Harrogate and Knaresborough
Hastings and Rye
Hazel Grove
Hereford
Isle of Wight
Kingston and Surbiton
Lewes
Ludlow
Montgomeryshire
Newbury
North Norfolk
Northavon
Oldham East and Saddleworth
Orkney and Shetland
Orpington
Oxford West and Abingdon
Portsmouth, South
Richmond Park
Rochdale
Ross, Skye, and Inverness West
Roxburgh and Berwickshire
Sheffield, Hallam
Somerton and Frome
Southwark North and Bermondsey
Sutton and Cheam
Taunton
Teignbridge
Tiverton
Torbay
Totnes
Truro and St. Austell
Tweeddale, Ettrick, and Lauderdale
Twickenham
Southport
St. Ives
Wells
Weston-super-Mare
Winchester
Yeovil

Ulster Unionist Party (10)

East Antrim
South Antrim
Belfast, North
Belfast, South
Fermanagh and South Tyrone
Lagan Valley
East Londonderry
Strangford
West Tyrone
Upper Bann

Scottish National Party (7)

Angus
Banff and Buchan
Galloway and Upper Nithsdale
Inverness East, Nairn, and Lochaber
Moray
Perth
North Tayside

Plaid Cymru (4)

Caernarfon
Ceredigion
Meirionnydd Nant Conwy
Ynys Môn

Social Democratic and Labour Party (3)

South Down
Foyle
Newry and Armagh

Democratic Unionist Party (2)

North Antrim
Belfast, East

Sinn Féin (2)

Belfast, West
Mid Ulster

United Kingdom Unionist Party (1)

North Down

Independent (1)

Tatton


Note to readers: I have listed constituencies where applicable by their county or area names first, regardless of the actual name of the constituency. So North Essex and North West Durham, for example, are listed under 'E' and 'D' respectively. Where an orientation is accepted as part of the place name - for example, West Ham - such constituencies are listed normally.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Nice update. 2001 could be very interesting now that both the Conservatives and Lib Dems have a much stronger base to work off. Glad to see you've got the name of my own constituency right too- South Ribble, not Ribble South!

Has Cameron been elected to Parliament as in OTL then?

Is there any chance of the Conservatives restoring their relationship with the Ulster Unionist Party ITTL? I'm not sure how big an issue it was to the first generation of modernisers in 1997, but if someone can clarify this for me, I'd be interested to know. I also like Fletcher's idea of the Scottish Tories breaking away from the main party and forming their own party that takes the Conservative whip in Parliament in his little TL- is it plausible for something like this to happen here?

And finally, what's happening with the rail privatisation/nationalisation fiasco? I know it's been discussed briefly, but I can't remember if you wrote much about it properly.

 

[V-J]

Nice update. 2001 could be very interesting now that both the Conservatives and Lib Dems have a much stronger base to work off.

Of course, that could work both ways - it’s not unheard of for a government to increase it’s majority at a second election. One thing the map doesn’t bring out is how close a lot of contests were, for all three parties. The Tories certainly have a better hand here than OTL, undoubtedly.

The Lib Dems could be in for a fair few problems here; they’re more or less maxed-out in terms of the Tory seats they can chase as a result of this election, and if the Tories revive for 2001, then they could end up a bit stuffed.

Glad to see you've got the name of my own constituency right too- South Ribble, not Ribble South!

Yes, I was thinking about that actually! A very marginal constituency actually - I nearly gave it to Labour but remembered it was your home seat, and thought twice about it.

Has Cameron been elected to Parliament as in OTL then?

Yes - he’s now MP for Ashford. He’ll first feature as a bit-player in the 1998 sections. In OTL he ran in Stafford, and lost, finally getting into the Commons in 2001 for Witney.

Is there any chance of the Conservatives restoring their relationship with the Ulster Unionist Party ITTL?

Not while the peace process is still embryonic, no - although they could prop up a Tory minority government if push came to shove.

I also like Fletcher's idea of the Scottish Tories breaking away from the main party and forming their own party that takes the Conservative whip in Parliament in his little TL- is it plausible for something like this to happen here?

It’s possible - the Scottish Tories will certainly develop differently ITTL.

And finally, what's happening with the rail privatisation/nationalisation fiasco? I know it's been discussed briefly, but I can't remember if you wrote much about it properly.

It'll be dealt with in it's own section later on around the 1998/1999 mark - keep your eyes peeled.

Surprised nobody has commented on the demise of the Dome. Or the fact that the Tories won in Thanet South for that matter...