I'm new here, so apologies if this has been done to death before - I did a search but nothing came up.
I've been reading some of the threads about an alt-2010 UK general election and it got me thinking about the 1997 one, specifically the idea that Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown were keen on the idea of a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition, but the sheer size of the Labour majority made it impossible. So, what changes and what PoD would be needed to make it happen?
My first thought was something around John Smith living, but IMO, that wouldn't have made much of a difference. The Tories were in trouble whoever the Labour leader happened to be, and I don't think Smith was into the 'realigning the left' idea as much as Blair anyway, so it would require a quite major change and Labour missing out on an overall majority to bring about a coalition.
So, can we make any changes to the Tories to make them more popular? Is there any way to change the leadership election in 1995 to get someone who'll be more popular than Major in place? Is there a plausible scenario whereby Portillo, Heseltine or AN Other can either defeat Major or profit in a contest after Redwood or someone else has forced him out? Perhaps a scenario where Portillo does stand against Major, it's a stalemate between the two of them and a unity candidate (though I'm not quite sure who could have unified the Tories at that point in time) comes through. He or she is moderately successful as a new face, Blair only gets a small majority and invites Ashdown aboard 'for stability' (and to scupper the Labour left, of course)
Even supposing we got to that situation, could Ashdown have brought his party along with him? There was a different mood towards the Labour party in the Lib Dems then, but was there enough for a deal? Of course, with a somewhat less battered Tory vote, Paddy might only be leading 25-35 MPs, not 46.
So, given all those hurdles, would it have been possible without ASB involvement, or was it destined to remain a pipe dream?