Challenge: Have Labour Lose in 2005

This is certainly a challenging challenge. In a nutshell, find a way of putting Michael Howard's Conservatives in Number 10 in May 2005. Or is it impossible?
 
Highly unlikely considering where the Tories were coming from, which is to say, more than 250 seats behind Labour. When you add in the requirement to have Michael Howard as leader, I honestly can't think how it can be done other than through the usual ASBish staggering bad luck/incompetence PODs.
 
It's not impossible but an unlikely set of circumstances has to take place, namely:

1. Howard has to become Tory leader in 2001 after Hague resigns. He wasn't even a candidate in that election and he'd have to see off Clarke, Portillo and IDS - not the easiest of tasks. A Howard/Portillo pact would seal the deal as Portillo had scored a few hits on Brown as Shadow Chancellor between 1999/2001 but his university background would still scare many old-style Tories.

2. Howard has to shake off the "something of the night about him" image which Doris Karloff...er...Ann Widdecombe stuck to him in 1997.

3. After September 11th and Iraq, Howard should not roll over and be submissive as IDS was. However, extreme caution would have to be employed as the media will be all over the least bit of insensitivity or political capitalisation.

4. After Blunkett, Mandelson and to a lesser extent Millburn (and how the media didn't pick up he was shagging his secretary when it was an open secret in Whitehall) committed political suicide in the 2001-2005 term, more capitalisation could have been made of it all.

5. IDS packed the Shadow Cabinet full of semi-allies, he didn't actually have any allies. Howard would have to work harder to get the talented politicians in key positions and send them on the offensive.

I don't think Howard has the wherewithal to have done these things. 2005 was barely winnable for the Conservatives but it was winnable. Labour dropped the ball several times but IDS never picked it up and ran with it. He was an abysmal failure and if someone ever compiled the "10 worst leaders of the opposition" list, he'd rank number 1 as someone who just stunk.
 
An indirect approach

What if Robert Kilroy-Silk had remained in UKIP. UKIP were scoring around 25% in elections in 2004. If they had kept a similar level of support into 2005, the Conservatives would have been squeezed. By the last week of the election, opinion polls would give the Conservatives no chance and they might have started to split into pro- and anti-European factions and to blame each other.

Thus Labour supporters could relax. Most Labour supporters were strongly against the Iraq war. Might a very large number have made a protest vote for the Lib-Dems? Could everyone have woken to find no overall majority? Perhaps Labour and Conservatives could be the only viable majority and Howard might become PM if that was his main demand in the negotiations.
 
Sorry you'd need major changes to the time line, even with Iraq voters saw the corrupt, pseudo-authoritarian shit eating grin of Tony and than saw the Tories, the same old Tories, a depressing choice but an obvious one for a lot of the electorate.

Hell even with the Conservative Party playing New Labour's game and the government being run by a man with all the charisma of a crusty sock, plus a decade of baggage on top of that, polls at the moment are close!

Maybe get someone like Ken Clarke in charge? Focus on personal freedom and small government rather than immigrants and the 'British Dream'
 
Howard did a good job. He knew he wasn't go to win the election unless with a major change or event, but he worked on reducing the Labour majority to where it could be beaten in the next election, and he did just that. The swing in 2005 was uneven, when Putney fell to them that swing if it had been nationwide would gave the Tories a majority of 20 seats. But I read somewhere that it would have only taken 1 in 7 voters to change their minds and Howard would have won. The other thing he did was to promote Cameron and Osbourne after the election to put them in a place where they could defeat David Davis. Howard made sure that Davis would not follow him as leader.
 
It's not impossible but an unlikely set of circumstances has to take place, namely:

Welllllll, considering the OP didn't specify anything other than the Tories had to be elected on that date under Michael Howard, you could go even further back - personally I would have a reformist Portillo as leader in '97, awful problems for Labour in it's first term, and consequently a weighty reduction of it's majority in 2001. The Tories, however, get sick of Portillo regardless (let's factor in some kind of scandal as well) and ditch him for Howard as a 'compromise candidate', (Why? Not sure. But could be done.) who broadly sticks with Portillo's basic positioning of the party socially but focuses more than he on kitchen sink stuff such as crime, the economy etc. Labour buggers things up further (with a smaller majority and a sharper Tory party, the backbenches are uneasy and passing stuff is much harder) and Howard goes on to surprisingly win the 2005 election with a very small 17 seat majority.

Howzat?
 
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Thande

Donor
It's not impossible but an unlikely set of circumstances has to take place, namely:

Interesting scenario, but a question: if it looked as though Howard had a serious chance of winning the election, would Blair still call it in 2005? Wouldn't he wait longer, try to see if the situation in Iraq improves for example? Or perhaps even call it earlier?
 
Hmmm, of course in such a scenario where Blair looks as if he's going to lose might just chuck the keys at Brown and say "see ya!"

I think in the "President Gore and other things that never happened" book had a Michael Howard victory scenario *rushes off to check*

This one is Howard wins Tory leadership in 1997 through being Machievelli/Francis Urquhart personified. He loses in 2001 and decided to fall on his sword having only won 198 Tory seats. David Willetts wins the next election but Howard quietly tips off Cameron to pick up the ball and run with it as he has laid much of the groundwork.

Bit unlikely but the author, like many in the book, is an arch-Tory. I think my proposed scenario is a little more realistic.
 
This is certainly a challenging challenge. In a nutshell, find a way of putting Michael Howard's Conservatives in Number 10 in May 2005. Or is it impossible?

My favourite way of changing election results is to meddle with the economy. It should be fairly easy to push the current crisis back three years or so, which should mean a narrow Conservative majority in any elections in 2005, among other things. It would be interesting to see how the Tory leader gets on with President McCain.
 
Interesting scenario, but a question: if it looked as though Howard had a serious chance of winning the election, would Blair still call it in 2005? Wouldn't he wait longer, try to see if the situation in Iraq improves for example? Or perhaps even call it earlier?

Probably, yeah, but miscalculations are always possible. Possibly a reverse of Brown in late 2007?
 
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