alternatehistory.com
Cevolian - A Steady State
Ok, my first list of the thread. Hope you all like it! (Major credit to @Uhura's Mazda whose last list this is heavily inspired by and @Comisario who came up with some of the stuff about Elliot in a PM list game we participated in).
1935-1937: Austen Chamberlain (National Government of Conservatives, National Liberals, National Independents and National Labour)
When the Abyssinian Crisis forced Stanley Baldwin to resign in 1935, Austen Chamberlain was brought in as the only figure who could command the support of enough in the house to keep the National Government standing. An opponent of appeasement, Chamberlain recommitted Britain to the concept of collective security, using the power of economic sanctions and committing to rearmament to "remind" facist Germany and Italy of the dangers of war. With a "Second Entente" formed between Britain, France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia and Germany contained, Chamberlain stepped down as PM in 1937 due to health concerns, dying just a few minutes this later. The only blip in his premiership was the "Abdication Crisis" of 1936, but aside from a few young appeasers breaking away from the Conservative party to sit as "King's Men" little came of it...
1937-1943: Walter Elliot (National Government of Conservatives, National Liberals, National Independents and National Labour)
def 1939 - Clement Attlee (Labour), John Simon (National Liberal), Herbert Samuel (Liberal), Phillip Sassoon (King's), Ramsay MacDonald (National Labour)
The popular First Secretary of State and Home Secretary Walter Elliot took over from Chamberlain as Prime Minister, continuing the government'S policies towards Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy. When Hitler tried to bully and cajole Austria into joining the "Third Reich" in 1938, Elliot out his foot down and said that the cost of any annexation would be war to enforce the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler backed down, and Elliot was widely praised, winning the Nobel Peace Prize that year, along with the French foreign minister. His government's implementation of "New Deal" policies following the 1939 election (which he had campaigned on the concept of a "Doctor's Mandate" in brought Britain on the road to recovery. Before the dissolution of Parliament for an election a number of technocrats were brought into high office, including John Anderson (an "Independent National") as Chancellor and the geographer and geostrategist Halford Mackinder (a Conservative elected on Elliot's urging in 1939) as Foreign Secretary. The ambitious young Anthony Eden was made First Secretary of State and Home Secretary, and was widely seen as the heir presumptive going into 1943.
1943-1944: Walter Elliot (National Majority)
def 1943 - Stafford Cripps (Labour-"Left" Liberal-Communist "Popular Front"), Herbert Samuel/Leslie Hore-Belisha (Liberal/"Continuity" National Liberal Alliance), Herbert Morison (Social Democratic)
The parties of government finally united in 1943 to form the "National Party", although a few National Liberals joined with the Liberal Party to avoid uniting with the increasingly interventionist Tories. Elliot won out against a far-left Popular Front made up of Cripps' Labour, Beveridgite Liberals avoiding alliance with Hoare-Belisha and the deeply unpopular Communists. With another large majority ensured, Elliot handed over to Anthony Eden...
1944-1948: Anthony Eden (National Majority)
After over a decade of National rule (either for the government or party) Eden was destined to have a difficult time. Leading the party into the new "European Steel and Coal Community" (designed to prevent war through economic entanglement), Eden received backslash from the left and the extreme right of his own party. Transitioning into a new era which pitted the Capitalist west against the Communist East (following the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Nationalist-Communist United Front brining China into the Soviet orbit), Eden's biggest success was in fact Mackinder's - brining the USA into the Entente. In 1948 Eden was forced to call an election, and went down in a blaze of mediocrity despite a divided left...
1948-1953: Megan Lloyd-George (Social Democratic-Socialist Labour-Action Coalition)
def 1948 - Anthony Eden (National), Archibald Sinclair (Liberal), Stafford Cripps (Socialist Labour), Ernest Millington (Action), Various ("Right" Independent Liberals), Various (Anti-ESCC Nationals)
Coming to office at the end of the period of prosperity following the Depression, Megan Lloyd-George led a disparate coalition... The new Social Democraic Party was roughly the right of Labour and some of the left liberals, the Socialist Labour Party the Crippisite Labour left and a scattered assortment of ILP members Communists and Socialists, and the radically libertarian socialist "Action" Party was formed of a handful of left liberals and dissatisfied former Labour members. Britain's first female premier had genuinely noble intentions, seeking to create a "Fair Society" and modelling herself on a mixture of FDR and her own father. Unable to reach a compromise on anything, the coalition wheeled out a disastrous "National Health Association" and commenced with failed coal and steel nationalisations. The collapse of the "Great Northern Rail" project which it had opposed led the Action Party to pull support from the coalition and bring down the government...
1953-19---: Noel Skelton (National-Unionist-Liberal Coalition)
def 1953 - Megan Lloyd-George (Social Democratic), Peter Thornycroft (Unionist), Nye Bevan (Socialist Labour), Clement Davies (Liberal), Richard Acland (Action), Rajani Palme-Dutt ("Continuity" Communist)
Having suffered a brief Cancer scare in the thirties, Noel Skelton returned to government under Elliot, then served first as President of the Board of Trade and then Chancellor under Eden. Advocating "Industrial Democracy", he was securely to the technocratic left of the National Party. His ascension to the left solidified the split between the right and mainstream of the party, but he was able to form an amicable alliance with the new "Unionist" party (made up of the largely Classical Liberal right wings of the former Conservative and National Liberal parties). Whilst forced to moderate his policies by more laissez-faire coalition partners, Skelton's first months in office nevertheless saw the teasing of Britian's first nuclear bomb and the future of his government looks bright...
A STEADY STATE
The wonders a firm hand can bring...
The wonders a firm hand can bring...
1935-1937: Austen Chamberlain (National Government of Conservatives, National Liberals, National Independents and National Labour)
When the Abyssinian Crisis forced Stanley Baldwin to resign in 1935, Austen Chamberlain was brought in as the only figure who could command the support of enough in the house to keep the National Government standing. An opponent of appeasement, Chamberlain recommitted Britain to the concept of collective security, using the power of economic sanctions and committing to rearmament to "remind" facist Germany and Italy of the dangers of war. With a "Second Entente" formed between Britain, France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia and Germany contained, Chamberlain stepped down as PM in 1937 due to health concerns, dying just a few minutes this later. The only blip in his premiership was the "Abdication Crisis" of 1936, but aside from a few young appeasers breaking away from the Conservative party to sit as "King's Men" little came of it...
1937-1943: Walter Elliot (National Government of Conservatives, National Liberals, National Independents and National Labour)
def 1939 - Clement Attlee (Labour), John Simon (National Liberal), Herbert Samuel (Liberal), Phillip Sassoon (King's), Ramsay MacDonald (National Labour)
The popular First Secretary of State and Home Secretary Walter Elliot took over from Chamberlain as Prime Minister, continuing the government'S policies towards Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy. When Hitler tried to bully and cajole Austria into joining the "Third Reich" in 1938, Elliot out his foot down and said that the cost of any annexation would be war to enforce the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler backed down, and Elliot was widely praised, winning the Nobel Peace Prize that year, along with the French foreign minister. His government's implementation of "New Deal" policies following the 1939 election (which he had campaigned on the concept of a "Doctor's Mandate" in brought Britain on the road to recovery. Before the dissolution of Parliament for an election a number of technocrats were brought into high office, including John Anderson (an "Independent National") as Chancellor and the geographer and geostrategist Halford Mackinder (a Conservative elected on Elliot's urging in 1939) as Foreign Secretary. The ambitious young Anthony Eden was made First Secretary of State and Home Secretary, and was widely seen as the heir presumptive going into 1943.
1943-1944: Walter Elliot (National Majority)
def 1943 - Stafford Cripps (Labour-"Left" Liberal-Communist "Popular Front"), Herbert Samuel/Leslie Hore-Belisha (Liberal/"Continuity" National Liberal Alliance), Herbert Morison (Social Democratic)
The parties of government finally united in 1943 to form the "National Party", although a few National Liberals joined with the Liberal Party to avoid uniting with the increasingly interventionist Tories. Elliot won out against a far-left Popular Front made up of Cripps' Labour, Beveridgite Liberals avoiding alliance with Hoare-Belisha and the deeply unpopular Communists. With another large majority ensured, Elliot handed over to Anthony Eden...
1944-1948: Anthony Eden (National Majority)
After over a decade of National rule (either for the government or party) Eden was destined to have a difficult time. Leading the party into the new "European Steel and Coal Community" (designed to prevent war through economic entanglement), Eden received backslash from the left and the extreme right of his own party. Transitioning into a new era which pitted the Capitalist west against the Communist East (following the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Nationalist-Communist United Front brining China into the Soviet orbit), Eden's biggest success was in fact Mackinder's - brining the USA into the Entente. In 1948 Eden was forced to call an election, and went down in a blaze of mediocrity despite a divided left...
1948-1953: Megan Lloyd-George (Social Democratic-Socialist Labour-Action Coalition)
def 1948 - Anthony Eden (National), Archibald Sinclair (Liberal), Stafford Cripps (Socialist Labour), Ernest Millington (Action), Various ("Right" Independent Liberals), Various (Anti-ESCC Nationals)
Coming to office at the end of the period of prosperity following the Depression, Megan Lloyd-George led a disparate coalition... The new Social Democraic Party was roughly the right of Labour and some of the left liberals, the Socialist Labour Party the Crippisite Labour left and a scattered assortment of ILP members Communists and Socialists, and the radically libertarian socialist "Action" Party was formed of a handful of left liberals and dissatisfied former Labour members. Britain's first female premier had genuinely noble intentions, seeking to create a "Fair Society" and modelling herself on a mixture of FDR and her own father. Unable to reach a compromise on anything, the coalition wheeled out a disastrous "National Health Association" and commenced with failed coal and steel nationalisations. The collapse of the "Great Northern Rail" project which it had opposed led the Action Party to pull support from the coalition and bring down the government...
1953-19---: Noel Skelton (National-Unionist-Liberal Coalition)
def 1953 - Megan Lloyd-George (Social Democratic), Peter Thornycroft (Unionist), Nye Bevan (Socialist Labour), Clement Davies (Liberal), Richard Acland (Action), Rajani Palme-Dutt ("Continuity" Communist)
Having suffered a brief Cancer scare in the thirties, Noel Skelton returned to government under Elliot, then served first as President of the Board of Trade and then Chancellor under Eden. Advocating "Industrial Democracy", he was securely to the technocratic left of the National Party. His ascension to the left solidified the split between the right and mainstream of the party, but he was able to form an amicable alliance with the new "Unionist" party (made up of the largely Classical Liberal right wings of the former Conservative and National Liberal parties). Whilst forced to moderate his policies by more laissez-faire coalition partners, Skelton's first months in office nevertheless saw the teasing of Britian's first nuclear bomb and the future of his government looks bright...
- Cevolian
- Word Count: 1000