10 Downing Street Kantei!
- Thread starter Reydan
- Start date
Only natural that the Monarchy was rejected after all that. No way it would have survived. Edward VIII ruined everything.
Which brings up an interesting point: does the Commonwealth go bye-bye? I would assume so and the other Realms are now republics as well.
Which brings up an interesting point: does the Commonwealth go bye-bye? I would assume so and the other Realms are now republics as well.
Coulsdon Eagle
Monthly Donor
Burn the heretic!
That tends to happen if I step onto consecrated ground...
Excuse me while I contact some priests. Best make it several denominations and religions, just to be on the safe side.
Coulsdon Eagle
Monthly Donor
Excuse me while I contact some priests. Best make it several denominations and religions, just to be on the safe side.
As an atheist, I don't believe priests exist.... or something like that, anyway
Burn the heretic!
I have a better idea...
>>>
@Reydan , would it be possible to provide a list of the prime ministers in this TL and who their analogues in Japan were? Being not very familiar with Japanese history, it was difficult for me to follow the analogues, especially as the TL progressed.
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Will Britain ITTL have the same cultural and political hang-ups as Japan IOTL: a difficulty coming to terms with our colonial past, an overworked workforce and tensions vis-a-vis immigrants. Actually come to think of it that's not too different fro IOTL. Can we at least get some decent animation out of it?
The Seat Warmer
Harold Wilson, 1957-1958
Co-Operative Party
The Seat Warmer
His time in office, however, was not particularly eventful. Wilson continued on, really, with the policies of his predecessor, Bevin still casting a large shadow over his party, and his only substantial political contribution as President was the decriminalization of terminations and their inclusion as treatment in the BHC.
Wilson's legacy, instead, had more impact politically. It was he who, after a bruising leadership election, set the trend for regional primaries (modeled on the US example), that all parties continue to follow today. Secondly, his defeat in 1958, although in reality a combination of voter fatigue, changing economic circumstances, and upheaval in international politics, was interpreted by many across the political and social spectrum at the time as evidence that the electorate favoured the softer Bevin-brand of Co-operative Democracy to the harder socialism that Wilson and his "Move Left" group were advocating.
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If he loses the election I assume the postwar Britain has avoided the near total one-party monopoly on political power that was the case in Japan until relatively recently.
I felt the need to do this, for some reason:
Jeremy Corbyn
Labour Party
The Old Campaigner
Labour Party
The Old Campaigner
Very fun, interesting stuff Reydan. I'd actually been planning a similar "Turning Japanese" UK Poli TL myself so apart from a vague shaken fist I'm really enjoying this. Question though, you're a bit vague on the new system of the British Republic. There's a President but are they a true executive or a figurehead? You mention Bevin winning presidential elections but the change over to Wilson implies its parliamentary.
Why not use the internet? It really is the coming thing.
Why not use the internet? It really is the coming thing.
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It may astound you, but I did, in fact, use the internet. Look at the dates as this TL gets past the 1930s.
Jack Brisco
Banned
An interesting thread. I don't follow British politics that much but you made things easy to understand.
One observation - as a retired officer, the US would never have sent six airborne divisions anywhere without heavy forces landing soon over beaches to reinforce them. Airborne divisions, by their very nature, are light infantry units with limited artillery and no armor. They don't have staying power without heavy reinforcements. Note what happened in Normandy - the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions dropped into France to cause a diversion for the Germans, and seize and hold critical transportation nodes until the regular infantry and armor could meet up with them.
One observation - as a retired officer, the US would never have sent six airborne divisions anywhere without heavy forces landing soon over beaches to reinforce them. Airborne divisions, by their very nature, are light infantry units with limited artillery and no armor. They don't have staying power without heavy reinforcements. Note what happened in Normandy - the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions dropped into France to cause a diversion for the Germans, and seize and hold critical transportation nodes until the regular infantry and armor could meet up with them.
Ahh, but the question is can he build on it and work with the Parliamentary Party this time? Otherwise it ends up becoming:
Jeremy Corbyn
Labour Party
The Incapable Chairman
Labour Party
The Incapable Chairman
Thanks for the reads - sorry I inadvertantly pinched your idea. Although there's probably multiple ways you could play this theme.
The Republic is basically a three-nation home rule system, so English, Scottish, and Welsh Parliaments, that each return a First Minister but with a Presidential Election that takes place alongside the Parliamentary one. So Wilson, when Bevin retired, was selected by Co-op MPs from the three Parliaments as there is no mechanism [as of 1958] for vice-presidential succession.
It's a valid question, especially as since the 1930s this Timeline has veered away from following the events of Japan exactly. I'll try and add in a link to each in a spoiler tab if I have time.
Thanks for reading.
And thanks too for your observations - it makes a lot of sense. I'm trying to stick to the politics mainly in this timeline, purely because if I try and cover everything in detail I'll never finish. How I imagined the situation in Scotland was that the Airborne divisions were essentially landed into an area in the North that was already in open revolt against the Government with the intention of establishing a beachhead that was never needed in the end as the UK collapsed. So it was not as much parachuting into Normandy as dropping them into already-secured landing zones behind allied lines. I agree with you that, if London had been able to push back, they would have been in a difficult position, but the Naval Revolt put an end to that risk.
The Thunderbolt
Michael Mackintosh Foot, 1958-1966
Liberal Party
The Thunderbolt
A middle child of a large patrician family in Cornwall, Foot had an upbringing steeped in the arts and literature of historic Britain. His father was a Liberal MP, and had served in various governments before the slide in militarism, and Foot was a young admirer of Grey and particularly Addison. He flirted with radicalism at University but never quite converted. His was an older radicalism, born of the Romantic traditions of English Literature and the birth of Liberal England in the Victorian Age. It was the War, though, that ultimately re-affirmed Foot's classic Liberalism. His experience of unbridled Government power, including the confiscation of his family home as "Traitorous Property" by the Wartime Government, put him firmly against big government of any kind. 'In the Britain of 1936 I would have said I was a libertarian socialist' he recalled years later 'but in the Britain of 1946 I was most definitely a Liberal'.
Foot entered Parliament along with two of his brothers in 1948, only 35 years old, and the Foot Triumvirate soon made waves on the Liberal Back and then Front benches. Foot himself was a powerful orator, whose soundbites remain iconic in Parliamentary History, and the fact that a fourth brother was editor of the leading Liberal-supporting newspaper the Manchester Guardian helped considerably. Throughout his time in the House he was a powerful and thoughtful voice, well-respected as an intellectual and feared as a debate opponent. He was guided by a strong self-belief in the rightness of the Liberal cause. For example, he led spirited opposition to Bevin's rapid decolonization not because of a desire for Empire but because, as he was proved, the too-fast release of former colonies left their new governments with very wobbly foundations. Yet he was also influential in corralling Liberal MPs into voting for Wilson's decriminalisation of homosexuality and abortion, indeed deserving as much credit as Wilson in that regard, because he felt it was the right thing to do with regards to individual liberty.
If Foot was a dark horse in the Liberal Primaries preceding the 1958 General Election, nor was he totally unexpected. The party, like the others, had never run a primary before and Foot, with his siblings in support, ran a tight and effective campaign that hammered his opponents relentlessly. There was no doubt, going into 1958, that of all potential Presidents he was the one with the strongest support of his own party rank and file.
Foot's strong victory in 1958, which saw the Co-ops lose control of both English and Scottish Parliaments and Foot himself secure 72% of the Presidential vote, paved the way for an equally strong Liberal Parliament. The achievements of his Government between 1958 and 1966, Foot holding strong in the intervening 1962 election, were remarkable. Some of the super-structures of Bevin's Britain were pruned, although Foot drew the line at any major denationalization for fear of irritating the Trades Union movement. His abolition of the death penalty, massive extension of legal aid, and targeted support for emerging industries in the Chemical and Automobile sectors, earned Foot popular support across the political spectrum.
In International politics, however, Foot was less capable. Although he helped ease tensions with the Bolshevik Block, despite also signing the NORDSEA defense agreement with Norway, Sweden and Denmark (expanded in 1977 to include Iceland and Finland), events in Africa destabilized Foot's Government. The developing civil war in Nigeria, as Government forces began to attack Biafran rebels in the south of the country in 1965, saw Foot press for military as well as humanitarian intervention. This was too much for many of his MPs and much of the electorate in the aftermath of a Britain which, as Bevin had correctly ascertained, was thoroughly suspicious of the use of force. Although events proved Foot right, both in terms of the humanitarian misery in Biafra and the disruption to the UK's oil supply that stemmed from the lack of a strong UK response, his stubbornness on the issue cost him many supporters in and out of Westminster. A leadership battle in January 1966 failed to dislodge Foot, but it did fatally wound his Government in the eyes of the public, and the Liberals lost their English majority as well as the Presidency in the subsequent General Election.
The Expert
Dr. Richard Beeching, 1966-1970
National Party
The Expert
Many believed Dr. Richard Beeching, an award-winning chemist and manager from British Petro-Chemicals, would have been better suited to the civil service. But, increasingly frustrated by the back-and-forth economic policies of Co-op and Liberal Governments, something he saw as hampering the development of a modern British economy, Beeching stood in 1960 as MP for his home town of Solihull on a new party ticket. National, as much centrist as right-wing in outlook, were a growing force on the electoral scene, hoovering up disaffected seats in the middle-class heartlands of Britain. In 1964 they ended up essentially absorbing other right wing parties to form a newly defined National Party for Britain. Still, it was Beeching's fervent belief in the need for "Modernization, Modernization, Modernization", as his slogan ran, that helped shape the campaign that saw National pick up enough seats among a divided electorate to form post-war Britain's first minority Government whilst Beeching himself was able to secure enough Independent and right-wing Liberal defectors to take the Presidency.
Beeching lasted only one term in office before National fell from power, but his tenure was remarkable by many standards. Much of the general public, then and since, has been divided on his legacy. A recent Channel 7 Documentary named him the "Saviour of Britain's Railways" and it is true that his massive Modernization Rail Scheme, popularly known as "The Reshaping of British Railways", led to a mass expansion in dedicated container freight services, high speed rail links, and a restructuring of the industry as a whole into a profitable body with privatized edges. Very much an investment driven conservative, Beeching pushed repeatedly for the unleashing of the post-war stock market from "socialist" controls and used Government loans and tax-breaks to encourage UK industries to invest in new technologies and sites. There were losers, particularly in Wales where the radical reshaping of factory-type work-forces that Beeching's loans encouraged put many thousands out of work and saw at least one company, the venerable Welsh Motor Co., overextend and end up in receivership. Still, Beeching remains an icon of modern conservatism in Britain - a new man for a new age who encouraged modernization of industry and the freeing up of the bureaucratic state.
Where Beeching struggled, however, was in the arena of social policy. Always an industry expert, he did little to conceal that much of domestic policy outside of the economy bored him, and National failed to keep abreast of the changing social and cultural make-up of Britain that ultimately saw it flounder in the polls in 1970.
Arrrrgh. US spellings have contaminated the King's English. Was this a deliberate policy?.... "Modernization, Modernization, Modernization"....
Dr. Richard Beeching, 1966-1970
National Party
The Expert