AHC: A Liberal Britain during the 1980's

Imagine a POD in 1978 or 1979 that enables James Callaghan to win the 1979 General Elections and keep the Labour Party in power during tje 80's or at least until somewhere next 1985 or 1986.

How would a Labour-lead Great Britain handle the economy, the special relation with a Reagan Presidency and the end of Cold War?
 
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Imagine a POD in 1978 or 1979 that enables James Callaghan to win the 1979 General Elections and keep the Liberal Party in power during tje 80's or at least until somewhere next 1985 or 1986.

How would a Liberal Great Britain handle the economy, the special relation with a Reagan Presidency and the end of Cold War?

I assume you mean the LABOUR Party. I think a POD could be,that Callaghan calls a election in 1978. Labour was at this time still ahead in the polls. After that? Propably there is still a Falkland-crisis.
 

Thande

Donor
I assume you mean the LABOUR Party.

I assume he's rather confusingly using the American sense of "liberal" to mean left-wing, which is particularly obscure considering we're talking about a Parliament that also included the centrist Liberals...
 
Tks, my mistake....the AHC is about a LABOUR Britain in the 80's.

Agree that the Falkland War or something like would happen in the same way as OTL...the Argentine Junta needed a scapegoat to the their disastrous rule and the Falklands were just in the neighborhood...
 
Imagine a POD in 1978 or 1979 that enables James Callaghan to win the 1979 General Elections and keep the Liberal Party in power during tje 80's or at least until somewhere next 1985 or 1986.

How would a Liberal Great Britain handle the economy, the special relation with a Reagan Presidency and the end of Cold War?
Having Jim Callaghan call the election in October 1978 is really the only way of keeping Labour in at this point. Problem is, the election is likely to result in a hung parliament, or at best a small majority. It may be hard therefore (given what happened OTL from 1979-1982) to keep Labour from being no-confidenced at some point, before the Falklands roles around.

Heath winning in 1974 could lead to a labour-dominated 80's, but that's before your desired pod.


I imagine the economy will struggle, much as it did IOTL, but without the Thatcher policies. Hopefully Labour won't have to ask the IMF for more cash.

I can see Callaghan (and whoever takes over from him, because he probably won't be around for the full parliament) having a solid, business-like relationship with Reagan, unless it's Michael Foot.

Not sure how the cold war goes here-you probably won't see any major reform until Gorby arrives on the scene and I'm not sure who'll be PM at that point, let alone Foreign Sec.
 
Having Jim Callaghan call the election in October 1978 is really the only way of keeping Labour in at this point. Problem is, the election is likely to result in a hung parliament, or at best a small majority. It may be hard therefore (given what happened OTL from 1979-1982) to keep Labour from being no-confidenced at some point, before the Falklands roles around.

Heath winning in 1974 could lead to a labour-dominated 80's, but that's before your desired pod.


I imagine the economy will struggle, much as it did IOTL, but without the Thatcher policies. Hopefully Labour won't have to ask the IMF for more cash.

I can see Callaghan (and whoever takes over from him, because he probably won't be around for the full parliament) having a solid, business-like relationship with Reagan, unless it's Michael Foot.

Not sure how the cold war goes here-you probably won't see any major reform until Gorby arrives on the scene and I'm not sure who'll be PM at that point, let alone Foreign Sec.

Interesting POD Heath winning in 1974...would do you imagine that it would lead to a Labour-dominated 80's (at least the first half of the decade)?
 
Interesting POD Heath winning in 1974...would do you imagine that it would lead to a Labour-dominated 80's (at least the first half of the decade)?

Heath winning in 1974 will likely lead to an almost certain victory for labour in the following election. A second Heath government will likely be a disaster. The issues that flared up in OTl while the Tories were in opposition (resulting in Thatcher's leadership challenge and a relatively painless change at the top) will still happen here, but this time as they're in government the spotlight is on them.

Quite a few MP's disagreed with Heath on Europe, arguably the pressing topic of the day closest to his (Heath's) heart. Heath also has the Troubles in NI to deal with, along with the thing that will ultimately doom his government-the crappy economy, which will still be going South regardless of who the government are.

If Heath wins in 1974, he probably waits for as long as possible to hold an election, probably resulting in Labour winning at around the same time the Tories (under Thatcher) came to power in OTL. This in turn means the next election is likely to follow the Falklands Conflict, resulting in a large majority for the governing party...
 
Heath winning in 1974 will likely lead to an almost certain victory for labour in the following election. A second Heath government will likely be a disaster. The issues that flared up in OTl while the Tories were in opposition (resulting in Thatcher's leadership challenge and a relatively painless change at the top) will still happen here, but this time as they're in government the spotlight is on them.

Quite a few MP's disagreed with Heath on Europe, arguably the pressing topic of the day closest to his (Heath's) heart. Heath also has the Troubles in NI to deal with, along with the thing that will ultimately doom his government-the crappy economy, which will still be going South regardless of who the government are.

If Heath wins in 1974, he probably waits for as long as possible to hold an election, probably resulting in Labour winning at around the same time the Tories (under Thatcher) came to power in OTL. This in turn means the next election is likely to follow the Falklands Conflict, resulting in a large majority for the governing party...

Very nice, but do you belive that a Labour government could survive until 1982 in a terrible economic climate? IMHO James Callaghan is a fragile and gaffe-prone leader in a tumultous Britain...
 
Very nice, but do you belive that a Labour government could survive until 1982 in a terrible economic climate? IMHO James Callaghan is a fragile and gaffe-prone leader in a tumultous Britain...

In these circumstances, Callaghan might not be the leader in the first place-it's quite conceivable to have Dennis Heely at the helm, or perhaps Michael Foot or Barbara Castle.

I'd imagine Heath will be able to survive until 1978 or so, when he probably gets voted out after a No Confidence vote. Labour will probably win fairly convincingly, meaning they'll be able to stay in until 1983/4 at the latest, depending on when the 78/9 election is. This probably means Labour win a big majority in 83/84, for the same reasons Thatcher's Tories did OTL.
 
In these circumstances, Callaghan might not be the leader in the first place-it's quite conceivable to have Dennis Heely at the helm, or perhaps Michael Foot or Barbara Castle.

I'd imagine Heath will be able to survive until 1978 or so, when he probably gets voted out after a No Confidence vote. Labour will probably win fairly convincingly, meaning they'll be able to stay in until 1983/4 at the latest, depending on when the 78/9 election is. This probably means Labour win a big majority in 83/84, for the same reasons Thatcher's Tories did OTL.

I guess that a Dennis Healey Premiership would be the best shot to a Labour-dominated Britain during the 80's....Callaghan, as said, was a weak and inefficient leader in a time when Britain was seeing going downhill....Michael Foot was too "left wing" in a time where the general mood was swinging to the righ (Reagan in the USA, the Yuppies, Punks etc etc) and bad relations with other Labour leaders would prevent Castle becoming the party leader.
 
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