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The Red - Innocent Until Proven Guilty
Innocent Until Proven Guilty
1935-1937: Stanley Baldwin (National Govt)
1937-1940: Neville Chamberlain (National Govt) [1]
1940-1943: Howard Kingsley Wood (National Govt) [2]
1943-1948: William Morrison (National Govt) [3]
1948-????: Herbert Morrison (Labour) [4]
[1] Reforms in housing and the skeleton of the Full Coverage Prosivion completely overshadowed by the Sudeten War and its aftermath. By the time the Heer had launched a coup against its own goverment several dozen British airmen had died. Most leading Nazis were dead or in Nationalist areas of Spain by the time people were calling for Chamberlain to have done more to prepare for an inevitable conflict, but the quick victory distracted away from that for a while and Labour made few inroads in the 1939 khaki election. Clement Attlee, only ever a caretaker leader, was thanked for his rather thankless role and quickly booted out. Farcical elections were held in Germany shortly after the junta running the country agreed to apologise to Czechoslovakia and cover any damages a group of League of Nations inspectors had been created to estimate. What the Czech's really want is an independent Austria, just in case the German Panzers don't break down en masse next time round, but neither the British nor the French are interested and the Soviets aren't really in any position to force the issue. It's not much of a peace but another period of quiet seems assured at the very least. Chamberlain's health begins to decline dramatically around the same time as the European economy, the German junta were desperately selling military equipment to anyone who would buy but it wasn't nearly enough to avert the economic suicide the Nazis had caused, a European depression looms. Chamberlain knows he isn't up to the job of this new crisis but fears some within his party will put their own advancement over their ability to solve the crisis, as such he spends the last weeks of his premiership telling everyone who'll listen that there's only one man for the job.
[2] A genuine do-gooder who had gradually come to believe that the state was the best way to do good, not a popular view in the Tory party but desperate times and all that. Turned conscription into a Civic Service and employed most men who didn't have a job, injected large amounts of money into the failing German economy and convinced the Americans and the French to do the same. Turned the crisis of the Second Russo-Japanese War into an opportunity by convincing the Japanese to get out of China based on the assurance that Britain would stand with Japan if Stalin threatened Korea. Expanded the unexpectedly large numbers of hospital beds that Chamberlain had though necessary for an expected long war and built the FCP around them. Appeased his own party by standing firm on India but found that it wasn't enough to get them to vote for his Pay As You Earn ideas for income tax, it was an argument that he was still trying to get a result from when he unexpectedly dropped dead in the autumn of 1943.
[3] Choosing a man to lead a nation based on his health and relative youth seems rather silly in the modern day but having two predecessors die in quick succession was rather traumatic for the Tories. Morrison wasn't really the libertarian ideologue he has been cast as by many, wasn't that much of a schemer either but he did genuinely think people should have as much control of their own lives as possible. Scraped by in the October 1943 election after insisting on winning his own mandate as quickly as possible, undid a lot of Kingsley Wood's statism and for a short time appeared justified. Britain's economy boomed, taxes went down, and the INC grudgingly agreed to dominion status. Things were not only settling down but actively seemed to be getting better and as such it seemed that any doubts about Morrisons inexperience hadn't been justified after all. Then the bad things started. A previously little-known civil servant named Horace Wilson struck the first blow, the leaking of his comments about Jews in 1944 by a disgusted colleague who only went by the name "Cato" left Morrison facing some rather awkward questions about Palestine and the plight of Jews attempting to get some of their possessions and property back from the anti-Nazi junta. The Soviet's detonation of 'First Lightning' in the summer of 1947 caused temporary panic after Morrison admitted he'd slashed defence spending to help lower taxes. The end of 1947 became known as the 'Winter of Discontent' after Britain was blighted with freezing temperatures and widescale industrial action over using the Civic Service to replace striking miners. Herbert Morrison smelled blood and his young campaign manager seemed to have an uncanny ability to pin the blame on everything wrong with the world on the Tory party. Michael Foot's propaganda expertise was boosted by the Prime Minister's barrage of inceasingly deranged comments and warnings about the Labour Party, a list of conspiracy theories built up to become so extreme that anti-communist elements within British society began to question whether or not he was being too paranoid.
[4] First and last Labour Prime Minister with a stable majority in the house.
1935-1937: Stanley Baldwin (National Govt)
1937-1940: Neville Chamberlain (National Govt) [1]
1940-1943: Howard Kingsley Wood (National Govt) [2]
1943-1948: William Morrison (National Govt) [3]
1948-????: Herbert Morrison (Labour) [4]
[1] Reforms in housing and the skeleton of the Full Coverage Prosivion completely overshadowed by the Sudeten War and its aftermath. By the time the Heer had launched a coup against its own goverment several dozen British airmen had died. Most leading Nazis were dead or in Nationalist areas of Spain by the time people were calling for Chamberlain to have done more to prepare for an inevitable conflict, but the quick victory distracted away from that for a while and Labour made few inroads in the 1939 khaki election. Clement Attlee, only ever a caretaker leader, was thanked for his rather thankless role and quickly booted out. Farcical elections were held in Germany shortly after the junta running the country agreed to apologise to Czechoslovakia and cover any damages a group of League of Nations inspectors had been created to estimate. What the Czech's really want is an independent Austria, just in case the German Panzers don't break down en masse next time round, but neither the British nor the French are interested and the Soviets aren't really in any position to force the issue. It's not much of a peace but another period of quiet seems assured at the very least. Chamberlain's health begins to decline dramatically around the same time as the European economy, the German junta were desperately selling military equipment to anyone who would buy but it wasn't nearly enough to avert the economic suicide the Nazis had caused, a European depression looms. Chamberlain knows he isn't up to the job of this new crisis but fears some within his party will put their own advancement over their ability to solve the crisis, as such he spends the last weeks of his premiership telling everyone who'll listen that there's only one man for the job.
[2] A genuine do-gooder who had gradually come to believe that the state was the best way to do good, not a popular view in the Tory party but desperate times and all that. Turned conscription into a Civic Service and employed most men who didn't have a job, injected large amounts of money into the failing German economy and convinced the Americans and the French to do the same. Turned the crisis of the Second Russo-Japanese War into an opportunity by convincing the Japanese to get out of China based on the assurance that Britain would stand with Japan if Stalin threatened Korea. Expanded the unexpectedly large numbers of hospital beds that Chamberlain had though necessary for an expected long war and built the FCP around them. Appeased his own party by standing firm on India but found that it wasn't enough to get them to vote for his Pay As You Earn ideas for income tax, it was an argument that he was still trying to get a result from when he unexpectedly dropped dead in the autumn of 1943.
[3] Choosing a man to lead a nation based on his health and relative youth seems rather silly in the modern day but having two predecessors die in quick succession was rather traumatic for the Tories. Morrison wasn't really the libertarian ideologue he has been cast as by many, wasn't that much of a schemer either but he did genuinely think people should have as much control of their own lives as possible. Scraped by in the October 1943 election after insisting on winning his own mandate as quickly as possible, undid a lot of Kingsley Wood's statism and for a short time appeared justified. Britain's economy boomed, taxes went down, and the INC grudgingly agreed to dominion status. Things were not only settling down but actively seemed to be getting better and as such it seemed that any doubts about Morrisons inexperience hadn't been justified after all. Then the bad things started. A previously little-known civil servant named Horace Wilson struck the first blow, the leaking of his comments about Jews in 1944 by a disgusted colleague who only went by the name "Cato" left Morrison facing some rather awkward questions about Palestine and the plight of Jews attempting to get some of their possessions and property back from the anti-Nazi junta. The Soviet's detonation of 'First Lightning' in the summer of 1947 caused temporary panic after Morrison admitted he'd slashed defence spending to help lower taxes. The end of 1947 became known as the 'Winter of Discontent' after Britain was blighted with freezing temperatures and widescale industrial action over using the Civic Service to replace striking miners. Herbert Morrison smelled blood and his young campaign manager seemed to have an uncanny ability to pin the blame on everything wrong with the world on the Tory party. Michael Foot's propaganda expertise was boosted by the Prime Minister's barrage of inceasingly deranged comments and warnings about the Labour Party, a list of conspiracy theories built up to become so extreme that anti-communist elements within British society began to question whether or not he was being too paranoid.
[4] First and last Labour Prime Minister with a stable majority in the house.
- The Red
- Word Count: 890