AH Challenge: 100 Years on. Make the Liberal Democrats the Party of Government.

The Challenge if you choose to accept it is to make the Liberal Democrats the clear Majority Party in the British Parliament (with a Liberal PM) and a viable choice for voters before 2016.

IN 1916 the last true Liberal Government collapsed. The Challenge is to restore the Liberal Party to its previous glories before the 100-year anniversary of their last Government.

Game on.

 
POD:

The Guardian, December 23rd 1986

LIBERAL MP IN LORRY ACCIDENT

David Penhaligon, Liberal MP for Truro was injured in a road accident in his constituency yesterday morning. Mr Penhaligon had just finished paying an early morning visit to postal workers dealing with the Christmas mail, when his car was hit by a lorry at an icy junction.

Penhaligon, regarded to be the most likely successor to David Steel as the leader of the Liberal Party, suffered a broken arm and some other minor injuries, but returned to his home yesterday afternoon.

He said to reporters "I'm lucky to be alive, the roads were treacherous today. Thankfully I wore my seat-belt"


Would you like me to continue?



 

ninebucks

Banned
Charles Kennedy never succumbs to alcoholism, and so the party never goes through its phase of destructive leader-swapping.

Meanwhile, the Blair-Brown spat continues for a few more months than OTL, and Dave Cameron never comes to prominence amongst the Tories.

Charles Kennedy eventually resigns as leader, and the position is given to Vince Cable in 2006.

Cable rules a united and successful party untill his tragic death in 2010. The young, right-leaning market liberals of the party come to the fore, with Chris Huhne serving as leader.

Meanwhile, a single term Cameron premiership, (2009-2013), has been viewed as a failure, and so in the 2013 election, the parliament is hung. The Labour Party under David Milliband and the Lib Dems form the governing coalition. One of the primary demands of the Lib Dems for their co-operation is the introduction of a proportional system of elections.

The coalition collapses in 2015 as Labour cabinet-members get involved in a series of scandals. A new election is called, the first using the new electoral system. The Liberal Democrats, along with their coalition partners, (socialist parties, Scottish parties, etc.), win the election and form the next government.
 
Easy - no Labour.

If you can keep the Marxists in the Social Democratic Federation to one side and keep the Lib-Lab Pact going yeah. Problem is you basically get the Labour Party under a different name as the 'Lab' faction will garner the growing support it did in OTL.

However it does mean the Trotskyite Militants of the 1970's-80s will be kept to the minor Commie/Socialist Parties.

Of course thats all pretty basic, put you certainly wont get a Lib/Lib Dem government of anything OTL could create
 
Alternate History Challenge 100 years on make the Liberal Democrats the majority part

Sailing close to the wind for this discussion site however lets go.

I recommend Prime Minister Portillo and other things that never happened and President Gore and other things that never happened both by Duncan Brack

Firstly the last Liberal Government collapsed in 1915 not 1916. After the Gallipoli fiasco a coalition was formed with one of the conditions for Tory support being the removal of Churchill from the Admiralty. 1916 was when Lloyd George replaced Asquith as PM.

There are two theories as to why the Liberals collapsed one is that they were split by Lloyd George's attempt to form a centre party, the other is that they failed to adapt to changed social conditions particularly the demand for working class representation. The latter is the more likely.

Divergence 1- In the 1890's the Liberal agree to adopt 50 working class candidates in winnable seats and the Trade Unions agree to continue to work through the Liberal Party. In practice they reached about half the number at the most in 1906 by which time it was too late. The Liberals remain the main radical party; Churchill remains in the Liberals in the 1920's.

Divergence 2- No secret pact between Herbert Gladstone and Ramsay McDonald in 1902. The Tories stay in power for a generation

Divergence 3- David Steel arranges for Roy Jenkins to join the Liberals and the SDP is aborted before birth. There is no bandwagon effect but the Liberals slowly increase in strength

Divergence 4- Galtieri thinks better of it Thatcher has no second term the Alliance wins in 1984

Divergence 5- Charles Kennedy seeks help at an early stage. The party continues to grow but maybe not quickly enough

However none of these happened. The three parties seem very similar on economic policy. All three accept a social market economy; all 3 are scared of raising taxation so they go for public services through privatization or the so-called third sector than effectively turns the voluntary sector into an arm of the state.

The vacuum is on the left for a non-socialist radical alternative with Keynesian Economics and an element of tax and spend. The biggest divisions in society are now class based even ethnic divisions have a class foundation. Reports are increasingly validating this perspective. The party that addresses this without destroying the creation of the wealth that is needed to address it is on to something, this issue defeated the Liberals between 1906 and 1914 and it is quite clear that new Labour does not represent the people Labour was formed to represent. There is a difference on decentralisation and civil liberties so the next scenario is the next election

Gordon Brown loses his majority possibly after the alternative vote is introduced
a) He is supported by the Liberals in return for PR as well
b) Cameron forms a government supported by the Liberal in return for devolution including taking controls of local authorities and a bill of rights and Cameron support one nation conservatism
c) The Liberal enter a coalition with either

a or b could result in the Liberals being the major party by 2016 c will result in their leaders gaining seats in the cabinet and becoming a footnote in history. Wartime excepted coalitions tend to submerge minor parties. The Liberals lost their majority in 1910 but both they and Labour maintained their identity and both had an input without a coalition

Over to you Nick to you want to be history or do you want to make history.
 
Labour would have been touching cloth had Tony Benn been elected deputy leader instead of Denis Healye in the early 80's.

Had Benn been elected, then perhaps more of the Labour right would have jumped ship, leaving the "people's party" in an electorally weaker position for the 80's and early 90's.

I guess Blair and Mandelson would have left for the Alliance, but Smith and Brown would have stayed, simply as the Scottish Labour Party and Scottish politics would have been largely insulated from any Bennites movements.

This would have led to the interesting prospect of Blair leading whatever the Lib Dems would have called themselves with half the Labour Party on tow and maybe say Brown leading a Scottish Labour Party. Plus an English Labour Party, strong only in the city, but electorally unable to win a majority.

Would 1997 been the year of a centre majority government ?
 
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