Thank you all for your responses and criticisms with regards to my latest update! As always, I appreciate your candor, and have edited the post accordingly based on your suggestions where I felt it necessary. Before I continue with my replies to your responses, however, I have another
special announcement!
e of pi has been most pleased to see your enthusiasm for his potential guest update, and part of the reason that I've been quiet for a
bit longer than usual is that we've been going over it for the past few days, and it looks just about finished. Therefore, his interlude update will be posted at the end of this cycle!
Awesome update Brainbin. No Iranian Revolution, means no Argo ITTL.
Thank you! And yes, I thought it would be appropriate that we perfectly reverse the OTL circumstances of the
Argo film ITTL.
Uh-oh. Going back on the gold standard? That... is not the good idea the influential Republican economic minds think.
An unfortunate side-effect of unfettered power for a certain faction within the party. They'll learn about the pitfalls of the gold standard... the
hard way.
Fascinating and entertaining.
Thank you, Steve!
stevep said:
I rather like the way Britain is developing although hopefully Whitelaw will now face up to the unions. He should be able to win and re-balance power in Britain without going to the excesses of Thatcher and her successors.
That, of course, will remain to be seen.
stevep said:
Going to be interesting in Iran as the Shah hangs on, although not really sure if he was intelligent enough for real reform so it could just delay matters.
Well, bear in mind that even a moderately small delay might just be all we need...
stevep said:
Also I like that Portugal keeps E Timor and hence prevents the bloody Indonesian occupation.
As do I. Something worth noting is that Portugal retains a larger seafaring empire than any other country save for the three nautical Great Powers (the US, the UK, and France)
stevep said:
I take it in TTL Taiwan still holds the 5th permanent seat in the UN.
No, UN recognition switched from the ROC to the PRC, as IOTL - though many of the member states who voted in favour are now beginning to
sorely regret having done so.
stevep said:
What is the situation in the ME? Can't remember if the 73 war happened and if so whether you have had Egypt start to change to a pro-western stance?
The Yom Kippur War happened on schedule, resulting in an Oil Crisis resembling that of OTL. I have not yet mentioned the fate of Egypt.
stevep said:
I presume when you say Spain gave up all its colonies you include the former Spanish Sahara, which has probably been occupied by Morocco as OTL but do you include the two coastal cities?
Ceuta and Melilla remain Spanish possessions.
stevep said:
Anyway a very interesting world you have here.
Thank you, Steve - this one was definitely when the chickens came home to roost
Good and very long update. A lot to digest, as you say.
Thank you, Thande! And indeed it is. Even more to write, I assure you
Thande said:
As LordInsane says, going back on the gold standard is a very bad idea, as Winston Churchill found in the 1920s. Ben Disraeli predicted this would happen: he said that people would associate the gold standard with good economic times in the 19th century and thus think the adoption of the gold standard caused a good economy, when the reality was that a good economy caused the adoption of the gold standard, and if the economy was currently weak then the gold standard would just make it worse.
An excellent observation. Consider this the last hurrah of not only the gold standard but
any non-fiat currency.
Thande said:
I know you mean as in the other meaning of the word, 'elected by the people' etc., but it's just
wrong to use the words 'popular' and 'House of Commons' in the same sentence
Fair enough - I switched it to "elective". Fortunately, back then, the House of Lords was strictly hereditary or by appointment
Thande said:
The monarchist revival is interesting--as you say in the text, it's one of those things which is unlikely on paper, but we know from the OTL lone example of Spain that it can happen, and Spain had just as much hostility to its monarchy as Portugal.
And believe it or not, I
still haven't completely elaborated on
all of the root causes of the late-1970s monarchical revival!
Thande said:
The bit about still using Wade-Giles and terms like 'Red China' suggests China is not going to open up any time soon and is likely to delay its OTL rise as an economic power.
A logical assumption, though it should be noted that their bad relationship with the American government is largely responsible for both of those enduring ITTL.
Thande said:
I seem to recall being told that the word 'conservateur' has negative connotations to French speakers both in France and Quebec, hence why francophone conservative parties tend to avoid it, though you might well know more than me on this.
I'm not familiar with those connotations - Quebecers certainly weren't fond of the federal Conservatives because of the Conscription Crisis (ironically, in the 1917 election fought on that issue, they ran as the Unionist Party), but they still voted for them overwhelmingly in 1958 (and, IOTL, in 1984 and 1988) - and
two revived Quebec Conservative Parties were formed IOTL, once in the 1980s and again in 2009 (this second party remains extant). Also, the newly-merged federal Conservative Party (less the oxymoronic "Progressive" prefix) put in good showings in the province in 2006 and 2008 IOTL, as well as in numerous by-elections in the late-2000s. The term
Union Conservateur was chosen ITTL because of the merger between the Union Nationale and the Socred-offshoot Parti National Populaire - the name
Union Nationale was highly dated and had a stigma of its own by then, perhaps too reminiscent of the 1950s premiership of their controversial leader, Maurice Duplessis. Both parties were broadly conservative, and the federal Tories were quite popular in Quebec at the time of the merger (it was 1976, the year of the Olympics),
and the Union Nationale
did have continuity with the ancient Conservative Party, which gave this new party some legitimacy. As it turned out, all of these factors bolstered them with Anglos, which wasn't
technically their intention.
Thande said:
Interesting--was this inspired by recent OTL events in American politics, when Obama supposedly had a supermajority in both chambers but often couldn't pass the laws he wanted because some of the Democrats in question were moderate to conservative 'Blue Dogs'?
That may have been something of an inspiration, yes
Interesting. I didn't think of Denmark but would it actually join the EEC under those circumstances? After all that would put trade barriers between it and important markets such as Britain and Scandinavia? Although it did join with Britain and Ireland OTL. Thinking because its traditionally thought of in Britain as a big supplier of food especially [Ahhh Danisssh
] this could be more of a problem. However that's based on the traditional British viewpoint which could be faulty and it probably also had substantial trade with Germany and the Netherlands especially.
I thought about having the Danish electorate reject joining the EEC as well, but the margin of victory struck me as just too wide to butterfly. Besides, since the United Kingdom is not going to join the EEC ITTL, that means the organization is going to need a token Eurosceptic member. Enter Denmark!
Hmm, a very interesting update all around, Brainbin.
Thank you, Dan! I appreciate that.
Great update!
A few questions:
-Is the Shah still seeking nuclear power?
-Is Reagan wanting to do "Star Wars" ITTL?
-Would the Religious Right continue to stay out of national politics?
-In that vein, will Reagan favor federal aid to segregated religious schools?
Thank you for the compliment, Orville_third, though unfortunately I cannot answer any of your questions at the moment. However, you
will find out in due time!
That is a very solid update (in a good way).
Thank you, Nigel.
NCW8 said:
Still, it makes for some interesting slogans for the General Election - "Who do you trust, a Foot or a Willie ?"
I have no doubt whatsoever that would catch on during the campaign
NCW8 said:
That's going to have interesting effects in Poland. It will probably slow the growth of Solidarnosc, as John-Paul II's visit to Poland in 1979 encouraged membership in the independant union.
An excellent point.
Indeed. I should also emphasise this is more 'you are required to sign up to pursuing a single currency and adopt it once we have a plan for one' rather than one actually being created anytime soon - more or less what the Vilnius 10 countries were required to sign up to in 2004 in OTL, except in that case the euro already existed and it was a case of 'you are required to pledge to join it at some point in the future'.
Yes, this is definitely what I was intending to convey in Mitterrand making that suggestion in the update.
Thanks, yeah, I missed that one; you can tell I go a while between time I get to read this one. It sounds like the perfect vehicle for Williams. I didn't realize, as you mentioned later, that he did drugs - I knew he had an alcohol problem. It's a shame people can't learn to be that crazy without that.
Unfortunately, in that era, drug addiction was ridiculously common, and often had devastating results. Look at John Belushi (a close friend of Williams) IOTL.
DTF955Baseballfan said:
Thank you! I will do my best
Thinking about this, I'm not sure that the Euro currency scare is necessary. The Conservatives were europhile in the seventies because British business leaders thought that joining the EEC would be good for business. Now if ITTL, Britain has the various Commonwealth trade agreements in addition to membership of EFTA, then the business case for joining the EEC is much less strong anyway and that would naturally increase the Europhobe tendancy.
This is indeed going to happen, though gradually. Think of the UK staying out of the EEC being due to a death by a thousand cuts, so to speak.
Walter Mondale or Jimmy Carter in 1980!!!!
We'll see about that.
jpj1421 said:
Thank you very much
I've noticed an unfortunate trend where people being mentioned on this thread is swiftly followed by their deaths...
RIP Frank Thornton
Yeah, I noticed that last night. RIP Captain Peacock - the Royal Army Service Corps wouldn't be the same.
Well said, gentlemen. Thornton lived a long and full life - including serving in the
RAF as a
Flight Officer during World War II - and he entertained millions around the world. May he rest in peace. This now leaves Nicholas Smith, aka Mr "Jug Ears" Rumbold, as the sole surviving original cast member of
Are You Being Served?.
You know, I can't help but feel that this update was inspired a bit by events IOTL, though I can't quite see it.
Yes, this update was basically my attempt at being topical for a change.
Also I wonder if this timeline is losing the suspension of disbelief here, looking at the other responces here.
I'm sorry that you seem to have come to that conclusion. This isn't the first time that people have quibbled about the finer details of this timeline, nor is it the first that I've tweaked my posts in order to better reflect to consensus of my readers. I certainly hope that you'll continue to read and enjoy my timeline in the future.
For me, the main problem is this sentence:
Which, I hope you will note, I have gone back and corrected, while at the same time clarifying some other sticking points.
---
I hope to have the next update - a return to more familiar ground for this thread - ready in the next few days! So, until then...