AH Vignette: Talking Frank

Lovely work, although I fear it is very much for us. Although that is not a bad thing

I think my favourite bit was the Closed Shop for the 21st Century. That is a phrase we don't hear enough!
 
Brilliant Meadow. Absolutely brilliant.

A neat inversion with enough extra bits to make the world interesting. Like Shadow First Senator in an elected Lords. I imagine that's like Minority Leader is it? Shadow First Senator gets a shot at being First Senator if their party is in government?

And Mair in the Morning as an alt Andrew Marr. Brilliant.
 
Lovely work, although I fear it is very much for us. Although that is not a bad thing

I think my favourite bit was the Closed Shop for the 21st Century. That is a phrase we don't hear enough!

Thank you, that was the last thing I added to the whole story. I had wanted to get it in somewhere (I needed to show that some of the Thatch-era union legislation has been rolled back and that, if anything, Labour probably is in the pocket of the unions ITTL) but couldn't quite work out how. The 2015 manifesto seemed the right place.

You're right that it's probably a few steps over the line of 'AH.com niche'. I am umming and ah-ing as to whether it's SLP vignette collection material, but at the moment I think it probably isn't. Perhaps some edits might make it work for a non AH.com audience.

I suppose it depends on whether Major still succeeded Thatcher here.

In my head it was Hurd Because Butterflies, FWIW.

Brilliant Meadow. Absolutely brilliant.

A neat inversion with enough extra bits to make the world interesting. Like Shadow First Senator in an elected Lords. I imagine that's like Minority Leader is it? Shadow First Senator gets a shot at being First Senator if their party is in government?

And Mair in the Morning as an alt Andrew Marr. Brilliant.

Thank you, indeed that's what the Shadow First Senator is. Under left!Labour an elected Lords is going to happen, and First Senator is a post that reminds all senators that the Commons still has primacy. It's not an executive.

It does, however, depend on the Senate elections - in the last years of the Livingstone government, and during the short 11-month McDonnell premiership, the Tories were in fact the majority party in the Senate, under Ken Clarke. That led to some awkward back and forths, though nothing like OTL's present day USA.

And yes re Mair in the Morning. That's exactly what I was going for, because I want it to exist so badly.
 

Thande

Donor
I won't really apologise for the Mili-D analogy here as it's unavoidably perfect. The whole thing is Turtledovian paralellelism and while I probably do bring it up in multiple TLs I've written, it's, as I say, too perfect not to be done here. Whoever Labour's leader was ITTL 2010-2015 was going to be described as an Ed analogue, and there's rarely a better analogue than a member of a character's OWN FAMILY :)

So while I take the 'we get it, you think David could lose too' point, I stand by its presence here. There isn't really another option to play the role his 'character' needs to, unless we get Clever-Clever.
Yes, I was thinking on those lines myself - judged on its own merits it works here.
Coopham was fun to do, it will probably strike future historians (IOTL and ITTL) as odd that Yvette kept delivering more effective versions of Andy's speeches and came third while he came second.
Well, I've always viewed Burnham as head and shoulders above Cooper in credibility terms, but I suspect both of us are suffering from preconceived biases here: I found myself being far more forgiving of Burnham's often rather pathetic moves during the OTL contest than I should have been.

Thanks to everyone who's read and commented on this. I had the idea a while ago and it was fun to get it finished. I'm also glad I seem to have gotten away with 'the UK becomes at least quietly anti-American, Frank remains pro-intervention' as an inversion of Corbyn's 'friends problem'. That was the hardest part, and I know it's not a perfect fit.
Yes, I liked that, I think it worked well as a comparison. Also as KC says 'Mair in the Morning' was a lovely bit of analogism (is that a word?)

Did you ever actually mention who the Tory Prime Minister is at this point? Apologies if I missed that.
 
Did you ever actually mention who the Tory Prime Minister is at this point? Apologies if I missed that.

They mention a "Dr. Fox", which suggests that neither party is that bothered about trying to appeal to the "Centre".
 
Oh I certainly think you could edit it easily enough to broaden the the appeal.

Alternatively, you could make a collection of vignettes that are designed to have the effect of giving the reader a crash course in our specific frame of reference. Say half a dozen of such.

To the Sea Lion!
 
A nice little piece, Meadow, if I'm being frank.

I laughed at this.

I'm interested in Caroline Lucas the Labour leadership candidate. Did she join Labour rather than the Greens or has TTL seen people bleed away from the Greens to Labour, including her?
 
I'm interested in Caroline Lucas the Labour leadership candidate. Did she join Labour rather than the Greens or has TTL seen people bleed away from the Greens to Labour, including her?

I thought the explanation was implicit in the whole 'Labour being historically much more left-wing' ITTL.

I didn't have anything else to say btw, because most of it was self-explanatory and the rest was covered above. So.. yeah. Good!
 
I thought the explanation was implicit in the whole 'Labour being historically much more left-wing' ITTL.

I didn't have anything else to say btw, because most of it was self-explanatory and the rest was covered above. So.. yeah. Good!

Spot on, Lucas joined the Greens as a student in 1986 IOTL, so did not do so ITTL. It was indeed an implicit explanation, as I hear from many (more upbeat these days) left-Labourites that 'we should have sewn up the Green vote years ago'. Whether TTL's Labour has good small-G green credentials, or has just never vacated the space the Greens moved into on the left, that's probably determinable by reading between the lines - the Unions still have a lot of power over Labour, and there are probably a few artificially sustained (and not particularly environmentally friendly) industries still going strong.

I've just realised that if I do rewrite this, I'm going to need to add a question on whether Field will commit to campaigning for a 'No' vote in Liam Fox's referendum on re-entering the European Union next year...

Glad you liked it, Veej, you're a discerning customer.
 

Thande

Donor
Spot on, Lucas joined the Greens as a student in 1986 IOTL, so did not do so ITTL.

That's interesting, I didn't know that.

Given the date I have to wonder if it had more to do with Chernobyl (the cause of the first and still greatest Green surge) than ideology, though.
 
That's interesting, I didn't know that.

Given the date I have to wonder if it had more to do with Chernobyl (the cause of the first and still greatest Green surge) than ideology, though.
Indeed. I would have thought it was more Green pro-environment ideology than leftism for her at that point, but I don't know her at all and could well be wrong.
 
I must say I'm liking this trend (is two a trend?) towards mini present day set British political leadership timelines. Very well done.

The David Owen Mayor bit was hilarious.
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In 1995, many on all sides of the House wept when they heard Gwyneth Dunwoody had died.

That was probably my favourite choice of doppelganger :), nice work, and she has the best nickname ever lol which I'm betting was a tiny factor in her selection.
 
Spot on, Lucas joined the Greens as a student in 1986 IOTL, so did not do so ITTL. It was indeed an implicit explanation, as I hear from many (more upbeat these days) left-Labourites that 'we should have sewn up the Green vote years ago'. Whether TTL's Labour has good small-G green credentials, or has just never vacated the space the Greens moved into on the left, that's probably determinable by reading between the lines - the Unions still have a lot of power over Labour, and there are probably a few artificially sustained (and not particularly environmentally friendly) industries still going strong.

I've just realised that if I do rewrite this, I'm going to need to add a question on whether Field will commit to campaigning for a 'No' vote in Liam Fox's referendum on re-entering the European Union next year...

Glad you liked it, Veej, you're a discerning customer.

Liam Fox pro-EU. Interesting.
 
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