AHC: British Prime Minister Cecil Parkinson

IOTL Thatcher had hopes of him succeeding her as PM and were it not for Sara Keays, he would've become Foreign Secretary in June 1987. Let's say Parkinson stays away from Keays, or she's not impregnated. He becomes Foreign Secretary in 1987. Assuming Thatcher still gets overthrown in 1990, could Parkinson succeed her instead of Major? Presumably he'd be much more forceful and effective with Major- following the majority of backbenchers and ordinary members on Europe and telling Hessie and Clarke to shove it instead of fighting most of the party. Obviously no chance of beating Blair in 1997 but the Tories would probably do better than OTL. Most of Major's domestic legislation still goes through. What about ERM ejection?
 
While PM Tebbit sounds nice in my book in would be interesting with a PM Cecil Parkinson but besides Major's domestic policies and not signing Maastricht there wouldn't be anything else
 
Cecil Parkinson following Thatcher would have been akin to Eden following Churchill. Promising, charming and elegant - a useful assistant but not much more.

Michael Parkinson as PM would be much more interesting.
 
Michael Parkinson as PM would be much more interesting.

I can't quite see Michael Parkinson as PM, but I can sure imagine a Parky who quits the booze and goes into politics circa 1960 being lucky enough to become the charismatic, sexy (yes) member of the team of rivals in the '74/'79 Labour Cabinet. He's probably too young to be anything more than a junior minister in the sixties Wilson government.

It mightn't get him anywhere in an era when substance still mattered when it came to becoming leader, but he would have pretty awesome media management skills. Tarzan would have nothing on him.
 
Even assuming that by 1990 Thatcher hasn't transfered her affections to someone else, which she did quite regularly, or that Parkinson hasn't resigned anyway, then he's not going to become Prime Minister.

Major won in OTL because he was a unity figure - people across the party liked him and thought he was one of them. He'd cultivated an image of being reasonable and dependable and people could easily get behind that. The party wanted to move away from Thatcher - a die-hard Thatcherite wouldn't have won in 1990.

Parkinson had a mixed record in government - he really ballsed up at Transport. And considering his private life, it's pretty reasonable to suppose he wouldn't have made it to 1990 anyway if the Keays affair hadn't all come out.
 
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