Keeping the British Liberal Party flag flying high

After he left school at sixteen, Robert Henshaw joined a film studio where he learnt the craft of film making. At one time he worked with David Lean, the distinguished film director. [1] He has received an Oscar for best director, and other awards. A committed member of the Socialist Labour Party, much of his work expresses his political convictions. He was knighted in the 2014 New Year's Honours. He said that he would accept an honour only from King Henry. He is married to Jessica Hardy, an actress, and they have four children - two boys and two girls. She is not disabled.

[1] Here is the entry for Lean on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lean.
 
William Whiteley, Labour, then Socialist Labour, MP for Blaydon in County Durham since November 1922, died on 3 November 1955. The result of the subsequent by-election which was held on 26 January 1956 was as follows [October 1955 general election]:
Robert Woof [Socialist Labour]: 51.9% [53.2%]
Liberal Party candidate: 27.8% [30.6%]
Conservative Party candidate: 20.3% [16.2%]
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Socialist Labour majority: 24.1% [22.6%]
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The swing from Liberal to Socialist Labour was 0.75%.
 
So impressed you've managed to keep regularly updating this since 2009! :)

Thank you very much.

In this TL the Egyptian Revolution of July 1952 happened as in OTL and Muhammed Naguib became President of Egypt. But he was not overthrown by Nasser in November 1954.
 
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Nasser and his fellow conspirators in the attempted coup against President Neguib in February 1954 were executed.

In June 1954 a treaty was signed between Neguib and Helen Schilizzi, the minister of state at the foreign office. Its provisions were as follows:
All British troops would be withdrawn Egypt by January 1956.
British bases were to be run jointly by British and Egyptian technicians.
Egypt agreed to respect freedom of navigation through the Suez Canal.
British troops would be allowed to return if Britain was threatened by a hostile power. [1]

[1] This was similar to the treaty signed in October 1954 in OTL. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/suez_01.shtml.
 
By January 1956 British troops had withdrawn from Egypt.

In March 1946 Malenkov and Molotov became joint leaders of the Soviet Union. [1] I haven't yet decided how long their partnership lasted, and who came out on top. Or whether someone else seized power.

[1] See post #1818 on page 91.
 
In the power struggle with Vyacheslav Molotov, Georgy Malenkov was victorious in September 1948. Molotov was accused of treason and executed by firing squad in Moscow. Historians have characterised Malenkov as a Stalinist and he proceeded very slowly with the release of political prisoners. But he instituted a policy of increasing the production of consumer goods at the expense of heavy industry.
 
In comparison with OTL in some ways the reputation of Stalin was better than in OTL,and some ways worse. On the one hand he died seven years before OTL and there was no doctors plot. [1] But without World War II there was not the boost to his reputation from the Soviet victory. Although the Soviet Union had annexed the Baltic states, the countries of eastern and south-eastern Europe which in OTL were in the Warsaw Pact were independent nations.

[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_plot.
 
In January 1956 Stanislaw Mikolajczyk was Prime Minister of Poland at the head of a coalition government of his Polish People's Party and the Polish Socialist Party.
 
Lithuania had been invaded and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1941, but in spite of oppression there was an underground resistance movement. Poland and the German Federation gave them help and support. On Sunday 3 June 1956 there were huge peaceful demonstrations in Kaunus and other cities demanding independence.
 
On 4 June 1956, a group calling themselves the Committee for a Free Lithuania [CFL] took over the radio and television station in Kaunas. They declared that Lithuania was a free and independent nation, and called upon the League of Nations to recognise their independence. They called upon the people of Lithuania to withdraw their labour in a general strike until the Soviet Union had withdrawn all its troops and recognised its independence.

In this TL the city of Vilna [or Vilnius] is in Poland but because it was claimed by Lithuanian nationalists, the Polish government, although sympathetic to the CFL, were initially wary of giving it support. But also on 4 June representatives of the CFL met with the Polish government and assured them that an independent Lithuania would respect its boundaries with Poland and other neighbouring nations.
 
Later on 4 June the Committee for a Free Lithuania took office as the provisional government of Lithuania with the Christian Democrat Leonas Bistras as Prime Minister. [1] He had been Prime Minister of Lithuania from September 1925 to May 1926. The government comprised representatives of the Christian Democrats, the Popular Peasant Union and the Social Democrats. It promised that elections would be held to elect a Seimas [or Parliament] as soon as practicable.

[1] Here is his entry on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonas_Bistras.
 
The provisional government also took over government offices, the post office and newspaper offices in Kaunas. In the evening of 4 June, Vincentas Sladkevicius, who had been secretly consecrated Archbishop of Kaunas at the end of April 1956, preached at a packed Mass in Kaunas Cathedral Basilica of apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul. [1] He said that the national revolution must be non violent. He was willing to die for a free Lithuania.

[1] Here is his entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincentas_Sladkevicius. Here is the Wikipedia article on Kaunas Cathedral: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaunas_Cathedral_Basilica.
 
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