10 Downing Street Kantei!

The Proud Briton
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The Balloon Drop at the 2009 National Convention in the red, white, and blue of the British flag. Whilst many commentators at the time were impressed by Gregory Tatton's slick organization, they missed the increasingly overt nationalism that was to become a signature of the rejuvinated National Party.

Gregory Tatton 2006-2016
National Party
The Proud Briton
When Tatton was first elected in 2006 many commentators in Britain assumed that this was yet another demonstration of the increasing power of the so-called "Grey Vote". An obsession in the media at the time, and since, the aging population of Britain, further stymied by relatively severe restrictions on immigration, was very much seen as an effective voter block to be courted. It is true that, particularly in his first term, Tatton's conservative and "social order - family values" campaign played up to the desires of older voters. But beneath this veneer was something more politically tumultuous.

Historians, especially, have been deeply critical of Tatton's invocation of a nationalist view of the past. His avowed statement, during the 2006 Presidential Debates, that "Britons should not be ashamed of the valiant defence they launched of their country during the war" was waved off as a misphrasing by sympathetic pundits afterwards, but from around 2009 onwards Tatton's Party took a decidedly right-wing bent. The closure of the British Wartime Museum, whose planning had been initiated under his predecessor Cronin, was a warning flag for many - Tatton had criticised the "lukewarm and self-depricating tone" of the Museum which had aimed to tell a rounded story of the horrors visited both on Britain by its foes and by Britain on others during the war years. Tatton's unapologetic rhetoric and increasingly overt nationalism alarmed some but thrilled others who felt that Britain had unjustly shouldered the blame for what had been, essentially, a defensive war.

Underpinning all of this was Tatton's energetic reconstruction of the National Party. Moving it from the Centre-Right to a more socially conservative place of the spectrum, he was in part inspired by President Brownback's grassroots upset of the 2008 US election, although his more judicious cuts to government taxation and spending were less disastrous than Brownback's own. In a slick piece of political maneuvering, part back-handed party games and part mass-movement mobilisation, Tatton succeeded in marginalising or forcing out the Centrists of the National Party and replacing them with his own supporters. His campaign was a mixture of red-meat for traditionalists, savaging the welfare programs put in place by Cronin, but with enough spice to appeal to a more populist audience, including trade protections and the occasional forays against the "Liberal business elite". Successfully keeping Britain outside of the emerging EEZ, Tatton's legacy, since the aggressive bowel cancer that has effectively removed him from public life, has been a more divided Britain. Whilst some site his leadership as heralding a new pride in Britain and British values others have seen him and his newly defined National Party as the biggest threat to the progressive democracy that emerged post-war since the war itself.
 
The Aristocratic Sinecure
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Protesters in Oxford rally against the increasingly divisive policies of President Rhodes. Much of their effective mobilisation has been online - this woman uses the ChatHash #RhodesMustFall to help stimulate the protest movement online.

Lionel Eustace Brabant Rhodes, Baron Uxbridge, 2016-Present
National Party
The Aristocratic Sinecure

"Really think the China Campaign [referring to the Anglo-Japanese punitive expeditions during the war] is largely overblown in history. Really just the army chasing some whatchi-me-called Hong Kong Joe Triad types around [Radio interview during 2010 election campaign]". "Up-tight, arse-mongling, pseudo-sado-masochists [referring to EEZ commissioners in an interview after a round of trade negotiations]". "Over-educated Liberal whiners in need of a good rogering. That'd make them see sense, what what?! [hot mic incident after being heckled by female protesters at a University of Leeds event]". Just some of the poorly-considered, openly offensive, comments made by President Rhodes that have endeared him to the right who believe he "tells it as it is", made him a pariah on the left, and focused media attention on him from all corners.

The son of a peer of the realm whose ancestry can be traced back to, allegedly, Henry VIII, Lionel Eustace Brabant Rhodes has never shirked controversy. Indeed, in a career that has always been in the media spotlight, he has actively courted it. It can as a relief to those with little inside knowledge of British politics that the charming, aristocratic Rhodes, who has always laughed off his gaffs as harmless "Sportsfields of Eton" banter, took over the reigns of the National Party after his Tatton resigned. Floppy haired, dressed in the pin-stripes of a bygone age, and so much a part of the horsey set that newspaper satirists have been unable to resist drawing the long-nosed patrician as a hobbyhorse, Rhodes's easy charm contrasted well with what one Co-Op MP memorably described as the "sinister men with no neck and no conscience" who made up some of the upper levels of Tatton's Party.

The hope of moderates has been misplaced though. In the little more than a year he has held the reigns of Government, Rhodes's veneer of aristocratic charm has jarred against a staunchly conservative agenda that has challenged many of the foundational principles of the British post-war state. Rhodes has pursued a socially conservative agenda since taking office, continuing Tatton's policy of cladding his policies in a patriotic garb. Playing on his aristocratic lineage he has repeatedly labelled those who oppose him as "Unpatriotic", "Traitors", or "wombling ninnie-hammers". This has not been without opposition. An attempt to restrict abortion rights, for instance, was only narrowly beaten back by campaigners in the Assemblies and the streets. Indeed, street protests have rocketed as Rhodes has pushed a divisive range of policies across the table. Chief among his critics has been former President Cronin, who is currently engaged in a struggle to reassume to leadership of the Co-Op Party from the harder left factions within it. Likewise the Liberals, out of Government since the late 1980s, have been rejuvinated by those centrists who feel no longer welcome in National or are galvanised by the threat they see in Rhodes. Much of this has been fueled by an increasingly problematic economic climate as the EEZ has grown in strength and Britain's inability to come to terms with its own changing economy as an aging population and a stratified skills-based struggling under low immigration sees its lead in many high-tech industries stutter and stall.

So far, though, Rhodes's government has lurched from crisis to crisis, drawing on an angry and isolationist rhetoric that appeals to some and infuriates others. What the election next year will hold is anyone's guess, but Britain enters it angry and divided.
 
The End
Stick a fork in it, it's done!

Thank you for reading and (hopefully) enjoying.

Now, to paraphrase Harold Wilson, the two criteria for a successful Prime Minister are a Sense of History and Sleep. I hope I've delivered one the first - now I'm off to achieve the second.

Ta-ra.

Reydan
 
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