AHC: Tories Win 1997 UK Election

Your challenge, should you accept it, is with any PoD after the 1992 UK election have the Conservatives win the 1997 UK election. I know this is hard given 1997 was a historic Labour landslide and there were lots of factors going against the Tories, but if we try hard enough there could be a way. It's a challenge for a reason! Any thoughts on how to have the Tories win? the challenge just says have the Tories win, so you can get rid of John major and have a different person become PM. Go ahead!
 
Your challenge, should you accept it, is with any PoD after the 1992 UK election have the Conservatives win the 1997 UK election. I know this is hard given 1997 was a historic Labour landslide and there were lots of factors going against the Tories, but if we try hard enough there could be a way. It's a challenge for a reason! Any thoughts on how to have the Tories win? the challenge just says have the Tories win, so you can get rid of John major and have a different person become PM. Go ahead!

Blair is found guilty of slaughtering children and feasting on their blood? Even then they'd probably just make Brown leader and win a slightly smaller landslide.
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Chris Patten hold a ritual to summon the ghost of Stanley Baldwin into John Major's body, resulting in the Conservatives washing out on 427 seats.

But really, nothing short of divine intervention will save the Conservatives. If you can somehow butterfly away the massive divides in the party over Europe (which literally caused Major to resign as leader in order to face his critics one-on-one), Black Tuesday and the Conservatives failures in the economy, their failures in leadership, the sleaze scandals, and backlash against their policies, then they might have a chance.
 
Gordon Brown and Tony Blair do not agree their "pact" and split the New Labour vote. The voting is close but Brown and Prescott come 1st and 2nd. Brown comes first in the run-off and continues to be deeply uncharismatic. In the 1997 elections he is caught with an open mike criticizing an elderly woman voter for being racist. The resulting election is much closer and the Tories and Labour have roughly equal shares of the vote at around 35% with the Lib Dems doing slightly better at 20%.

Due to the vagaries of FTP this converts into a narrow Conservative majority. If you want to give the Tories a better chance then maybe have Portillo elected in 1995 after "doing a Major" and stepping in after an indecisive first round where Lamont as well as Redwood entered the competition. This would almost certainly keep the Murdoch press on the Tories side.
 
A few events come to mind:
- Following the loses of forty seats, a leadership election is held on 4th July 1993, after four rounds of no signs of a winner coming about, John Major, seeing, that the majority of his party, won't support him, steps out of the election and supports Michael Portillo to be the next leader, this support is more damaging than support form Portillo and results in Chancellor Kenneth Clarke, becoming the new Conservative leader and new Prime Minister.
- Political poll show that the Conservative Government's approval ratings has improved since Clarke took command, with him debating well with, Opposition Leader, John Smith.
- Clarke appoints Michael Howard as the new Chancellor.
- Under Clarke and Howard, the economy grows greatly.
- A drunk driver, in Islington, drives through a restaurant called the Granita, killing two gentlemen sitting at the window side table. The two gentlemen are acknowledged as Shadow Home Secretary, Tony Blair and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown.
- 21 July 1994, Labour party sees Tony Benn elected as its new leader against John Prescott and Margaret Beckett.
- 1997 sees the Conservatives hold a majority of only 10, with Eurosceptic back-benchers calling on Clarke to resign.
 
Blair is ousted over Clause 4 and gets replaced by some bumbling disaster.

Of course, they'd probably win 1997 too.
 
Hmmm. I always like to cheat in these things.

After being forced out of the ERM, and various problems over Europe, combined with a poor majority, Major decides to do a 'Heath' and calls a May 1993 election, which he loses....

Labour take power from 1993 to 1997 and after John Smiths earlier death in 1993 (stroke brought on early due to being PM), Brown just beats Blair and takes over and manages to.. well... not quite mess up but just not do very well.

1997 rolls around, Labour are ahead in the polls and Brown goes to the country expecting another mandate (if he thought he would lose, he'd hang on to 1998 and that breaks the requirement for the 1997 election). However, a combination of 'Shy Tory' plus poor sampling reveals that Ken Clarke's Conservative Party are preferred after all, and they win in 1997.

How Brown buggers up the 1993 to 1997 period isn't clear. You'd need to have him do badly enough to cause him to lose, but not that badly that he'd want to hang on to 1998. Sluggish economy, and problems in Yugoslavia are all good ideas. Maybe some additional European integration... perhaps a late manifesto pledge to join the Euro... causes him to lose in 1997.
 
A few events come to mind:
- Following the loses of forty seats, a leadership election is held on 4th July 1993, after four rounds of no signs of a winner coming about, John Major, seeing, that the majority of his party, won't support him, steps out of the election and supports Michael Portillo to be the next leader, this support is more damaging than support form Portillo and results in Chancellor Kenneth Clarke, becoming the new Conservative leader and new Prime Minister.
- Political poll show that the Conservative Government's approval ratings has improved since Clarke took command, with him debating well with, Opposition Leader, John Smith.
- Clarke appoints Michael Howard as the new Chancellor.
- Under Clarke and Howard, the economy grows greatly.
- A drunk driver, in Islington, drives through a restaurant called the Granita, killing two gentlemen sitting at the window side table. The two gentlemen are acknowledged as Shadow Home Secretary, Tony Blair and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown.
- 21 July 1994, Labour party sees Tony Benn elected as its new leader against John Prescott and Margaret Beckett.
- 1997 sees the Conservatives hold a majority of only 10, with Eurosceptic back-benchers calling on Clarke to resign.


My first thought was that this should be in ASB, but the above sequence of events does seem marginally plausible. If I had ever voted Conservative, it could only have happened if Ken Clarke was leader.

Was the drunk driver called Denis by any chance? :eek:
 
For the Tories to win 1997 they need to lose 1992, which they almost certainly expected to do. Their entire campaign was based around the threat of tax rises that they knew would happen whoever got in. They were trying to lay the groundwork for an 'I told you so' campaign in the next election. Winning was an utter disaster for the Tories as they had to carry out many of the same economic measures they had been lambasting as Labour policy. Best bet to swing 1992? Don't have Kinnock make his dreadful speech at the Sheffield rally.
 
My first thought was that this should be in ASB, but the above sequence of events does seem marginally plausible. If I had ever voted Conservative, it could only have happened if Ken Clarke was leader.

Was the drunk driver called Denis by any chance? :eek:
Thanks for the support, these were the only events I could imagine that would allow the conservatives to hold 23 years in power, unless Ken Clarke was able to form a coalition with Liberal Democrats.

For the Tories to win 1997 they need to lose 1992
This is really the only way, after 18 years of Tory rule, it was a wonder the didn't just implode in on itself.
 
Thatcher had led the Tories to some pretty impressive victories, and she had been popular, despite what some like to claim. You don't win three elections and come to be one of Britain's longest-serving Prime Ministers when literally everybody hates you. Still, by '97 the Conservatives had run out of steam.

As used to be said here in America, Labour is only going to lose '97 if Blair is found with a dead girl, or a live boy.
 
Thatcher had led the Tories to some pretty impressive victories, and she had been popular, despite what some like to claim. You don't win three elections and come to be one of Britain's longest-serving Prime Ministers when literally everybody hates you. Still, by '97 the Conservatives had run out of steam.

As used to be said here in America, Labour is only going to lose '97 if Blair is found with a dead girl, or a live boy.

There's an argument to be made that you do when your Opposition is eating itself alive on television throughout the eighties.

If Hilary wins in November it won't be because she's universally beloved.
 
There's an argument to be made that you do when your Opposition is eating itself alive on television throughout the eighties.

If Hilary wins in November it won't be because she's universally beloved.

No, but she does have a legitimate support base, as did Thatcher, and to imagine otherwise is simply childish. Reagan's opponents liked to claim he was hated nationwide, and his funeral had a higher turnout than John Kennedy's.

In any case, if something happens to politically cripple Blair, then likely Brown becomes Party Leader, and then Prime Minister by a narrower margin, and staggers along for at least a few years.
 
No, but she does have a legitimate support base, as did Thatcher, and to imagine otherwise is simply childish. Reagan's opponents liked to claim he was hated nationwide, and his funeral had a higher turnout than John Kennedy's.

In any case, if something happens to politically cripple Blair, then likely Brown becomes Party Leader, and then Prime Minister by a narrower margin, and staggers along for at least a few years.

Well yes of course she had a legitimate support base. But I doubt there's a similar reaction to Reagan in the the Democrat Heartlands as there would be if you went to Bolsover in the UK and set up a "Thatcher was the Best PM Ever" event in the Town Hall (hint. Have a helicopter handy)

But we're getting off the topic. Another way to have the Tories win in 1997 would be to have John Smith survive a few more years. If he makes it to say the tail end of 96 and then has the fatal heart attack, and then instead of stepping aside gracefully (or having been convinced to step aside) Brown stands for the leadership against Blair and the public get to watch Labour eat itself again.

That might push Major over the line if he can keep any scandals under wraps
 
Well yes of course she had a legitimate support base. But I doubt there's a similar reaction to Reagan in the the Democrat Heartlands as there would be if you went to Bolsover in the UK and set up a "Thatcher was the Best PM Ever" event in the Town Hall (hint. Have a helicopter handy)

But we're getting off the topic. Another way to have the Tories win in 1997 would be to have John Smith survive a few more years. If he makes it to say the tail end of 96 and then has the fatal heart attack, and then instead of stepping aside gracefully (or having been convinced to step aside) Brown stands for the leadership against Blair and the public get to watch Labour eat itself again.

That might push Major over the line if he can keep any scandals under wraps

I would argue that says more about the man in the streets than it does about the Iron Lady, but that's a different debate.

Brown standing against Blair is not at all unrealistic, if memory serves. He very nearly did it IOTL. Smith dying and leaving the Leader's spot vacant at a year or less from the elections would definitely have an impact on how things play out. For one, Blair's supporters have substantially less time to convince Brown to step aside, meaning he might well not.

Blair vs. Brown plays out in the media, Blair probably wins, but Brown's supporters refuse to back him.

The elections roll 'round, and John Major is as shocked as anybody when his party wins.
 
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A few events come to mind:
- Following the loses of forty seats, a leadership election is held on 4th July 1993, after four rounds of no signs of a winner coming about, John Major, seeing, that the majority of his party, won't support him, steps out of the election and supports Michael Portillo to be the next leader, this support is more damaging than support form Portillo and results in Chancellor Kenneth Clarke, becoming the new Conservative leader and new Prime Minister.
- Political poll show that the Conservative Government's approval ratings has improved since Clarke took command, with him debating well with, Opposition Leader, John Smith.
- Clarke appoints Michael Howard as the new Chancellor.
- Under Clarke and Howard, the economy grows greatly.
- A drunk driver, in Islington, drives through a restaurant called the Granita, killing two gentlemen sitting at the window side table. The two gentlemen are acknowledged as Shadow Home Secretary, Tony Blair and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown.
- 21 July 1994, Labour party sees Tony Benn elected as its new leader against John Prescott and Margaret Beckett.
- 1997 sees the Conservatives hold a majority of only 10, with Eurosceptic back-benchers calling on Clarke to resign.

Major isn't going to support Portillo and there's absolutely no way Tony Benn is going to win a Labour leadership election in 1994. Though I think Margaret Beckett (who would be a plausible candidate in that scenario) would be unpopular.

Some kind of national security crisis possibly?
 
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