Yes, getting rid of Thatcher would have been the only way a different path could have been followed . But, even had the Falklands War not occurred, she still probably would have won against Michael Foot’s Labour .
A more balanced approach to managing the British economy would have helped .
Firstly, reducing inflation became almost an end in itself, rather than a means to an end i.e. a stable economic environment for growth. Thus, inflation was reduced to 3.8 percent by the early 80s but at the cost of...
The UK fought on against the Nazis because of the belief that Churchill would be able to bring the USA into the war at some point . Take this hope away, and the most likely outcome would be a peace deal, with or without Churchill.
Churchill offered the UK the hope that he would be able to bring the USA in on the UK’s side. And so without this hope , the only option is for Haifax as PM and a White Peace.
As for the USA, without the stimulus of UK war orders / US aid for the UK , a return to the economic doldrums beckons...
But the election of 1945 took place after the war against Germany had been won and the bulk of the British voters did not believe the Tories would deliver the kind of society they thought they deserved because of the way the economy had been managed in the thirties.
The Tories were too closely associated with the UK’s economic woes of the Thirties. You would need them to adopt polices designed to boost the economy when they came into power in the early part of that decade.
Balfour was a Scot and so I hardly think he would hold such an opinion. And whoever did hold this opinion overlooked the Scots, Welsh and Irish , all of whom were involved in running the British ( not English) Empire.
Why would he fly to England and not Scotland like he actually did ? And why would he only want to make peace with England ? What has he got against the rest of the UK ?
Preserving the wealth that Britain had accumulated over 1814-1914 would be more important. Yes, the Empire did contribute to this but it was doomed anyway as Britain moved closer to becoming a democracy.