In December 1937, Clement Attlee visited the embattled Spanish Republic as head of a British Labour delegation which also included "Red Ellen" Wilkinson. "When leaving Spain in [Prime Minister Juan] Negrin's personal aircraft, the Labour delegation were pursued by an Italian plane and forced to nosedive to escape its guns." https://books.google.com/books?id=IaX_DQAAQBAJ&pg=PT261
Suppose the plane carrying Attlee had been shot down or crashed, killing all aboard. Who would succeed Attlee as Leader of the Labour Party? Herbert Morrison? An able man, but Ernest Bevin hated him. ("When a MP said to Bevin that 'Morrison was his own worst enemy', he replied, 'Not while I'm alive he ain't.'" http://spartacus-educational.com/TUmorrison.htm) Also, Morrison would have lost an important supporter with the death of Wilkinson (widely believed to be his lover). Arthur Greenwood? Roy Jenkins states that Greenwood was "a more outgoing personality and better speaker than his leader [Attlee]" but as Jenkins diplomatically put it, "He had as great a propensity to alcohol as had Churchill himself, but he held it less well..." https://books.google.com/books?id=kkxgBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA601 (Greenwood does not seem to have made an exhibition of himself the way George Brown later would, but that he drank too much was well-known.)
Whoever is chosen, does Labour still win in 1945 (my guess is Yes--however great a war leader Churchill had been, people no longer trusted the Conservatives, whom they blamed for the interwar failures) and if so, how does the Labour Government of this ATL differ from Attlee's?
(BTW, even after the Labour delegation left Spain, it was not out of trouble: "lightning struck their plane on the flight between Paris and Croydon." https://books.google.com/books?id=5fA_CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA330 Maybe that would be a better POD for a fatal plane crash than the Italian airplane shooting it down or causing it to crash in Spain, which could complicate relations between the UK and Italy. Though I suppose most British Conservatives would feel that anyone visiting Spain to support the Republic did so at his or her own risk.)
Suppose the plane carrying Attlee had been shot down or crashed, killing all aboard. Who would succeed Attlee as Leader of the Labour Party? Herbert Morrison? An able man, but Ernest Bevin hated him. ("When a MP said to Bevin that 'Morrison was his own worst enemy', he replied, 'Not while I'm alive he ain't.'" http://spartacus-educational.com/TUmorrison.htm) Also, Morrison would have lost an important supporter with the death of Wilkinson (widely believed to be his lover). Arthur Greenwood? Roy Jenkins states that Greenwood was "a more outgoing personality and better speaker than his leader [Attlee]" but as Jenkins diplomatically put it, "He had as great a propensity to alcohol as had Churchill himself, but he held it less well..." https://books.google.com/books?id=kkxgBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA601 (Greenwood does not seem to have made an exhibition of himself the way George Brown later would, but that he drank too much was well-known.)
Whoever is chosen, does Labour still win in 1945 (my guess is Yes--however great a war leader Churchill had been, people no longer trusted the Conservatives, whom they blamed for the interwar failures) and if so, how does the Labour Government of this ATL differ from Attlee's?
(BTW, even after the Labour delegation left Spain, it was not out of trouble: "lightning struck their plane on the flight between Paris and Croydon." https://books.google.com/books?id=5fA_CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA330 Maybe that would be a better POD for a fatal plane crash than the Italian airplane shooting it down or causing it to crash in Spain, which could complicate relations between the UK and Italy. Though I suppose most British Conservatives would feel that anyone visiting Spain to support the Republic did so at his or her own risk.)