AHC: Liberals and Labour as major parties?

Bit of a Grauniad Lefty fantasy I know but what is the possibility of the conservatives being the party in decline instead of the Liberals and the majority of the 20th century being a back and forth between Labour and the Liberals? Probably with the Tories remaining a third party.

(Double points if you write a TL where the more conservative Liberals form an alliance with the Conservatives in the early 1980s before merging in 1988. Triple points 2011 has a Liberal-Conservative Coallition.)

Would this require a PoD pre-1900?
 
In Decades of Darkness the Tories fight the North American War (basically WWI) and lose. They become the third party.
So, something like that. The Liberals would probably move to the right though. I could see Labour and the Tories being socially conservative, with the Liberals and the Tories being economically liberal (in the European sense).
 

Thande

Donor
I did a sketch for a No WW1 scenario where the Conservatives remain protectionist, Labour only ever forms one minority government and it ends in disaster, and the Liberals become dominant to the point that eventually the Conservatives and Labour merge as the Democrats, the 'nationalist' party, while the Liberals are the party of free trade and internationalism. Not quite what you were asking for I know.
 
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