Chancellor Enoch Powell?

I think we all agree that Powell becoming Tory PM is borderline ASB for many reasons, but what about Chancellor? Is that plausible at all, though I doubt it since a One National like Macmillan, Home, Heath or Maudling would not want their ideological polar-opposite in No 11. If so, the effects?

Alternatively: Northern Irish Secretary. That should certainly send some strong signals to the Unionists...
 
I think we all agree that Powell becoming Tory PM is borderline ASB for many reasons, but what about Chancellor? Is that plausible at all, though I doubt it since a One National like Macmillan, Home, Heath or Maudling would not want their ideological polar-opposite in No 11. If so, the effects?

Alternatively: Northern Irish Secretary. That should certainly send some strong signals to the Unionists...

Birthday post :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D::D:D:D:D:D:D

Rab Butler becomes PM and since Powell supported him he becomes Irish Secretary.

But Enochs National Front by Cumbria was able to put Powell into the PM seat without it being that much ASB.
 
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Well, that means the Unionists stay on the Tory benches. If someone can fulfill the Chancellor challenge though... bonus if Thatcher or Keith Joseph is in No 10...
 
Powell stays with the Tory's and when the 1975 leadership election comes he tells Thatcher he won't run and will support her if he becomes Chancellor. (Thatcher's autobiography said if Powell stayed ran for leader back then she wouldn't have had so there's a PM Powell but not what you want)
 
Hmm... that'd be interesting to say the least. At least Denis Healey will have actual oratorical competition rather than the dead sheep... :D
 
Thatcherite and proud of it. :cool:

I'm surprised that he had to ask you RB!

My journey to being a Thatcherite is long and full of twists as first I was a Blairite then a Brownite then a Bennite then a Powellite and finally I became a Thatcherite after the shitstorm that was Lisbon treaty.

You've never been a Camaroon then?

;)

As I explained to a mate today, I'm basically a Gaitskellite, centre-left Keynsian economically, civil libertarian, assertive foreign policy, I'm a total patchwork of unworkable ideas!

Anyway. The most obvious way I can think of regarding Powell becoming Chancellor (which I still see as unlikely, he simply wasn't the great political figure so many make him out to be, he was a great intellect and theorist but otherwise a lackluster Minister who should have really remained in academia) would be to butterfly away "Rivers of Blood" (let's say that he is taken ill before the Tory Conference) and remains as Shadow Defence Secretary. Have the Tories win in 1970 (perhaps with a larger margin than in OTL thanks to the anti-immigration Powell being even more associated with the rank-and-file Party). Assuming Macleod dies early in his period as Chancellor, Powell is pushed upwards to Number 11 to appease the Conservative right. His period in office is marked by a more assertive start to neo-Liberalism, perhaps with the Selsdon Manifesto (as it was) being narrowly adopted in the face of opposition from from One Nation wing.

If the Conservatives lose the next election (which I think would happen if strike actions are more pronounced owing to Powell's more hardline policies) Powell would perhaps stand for the Leadership if Heath is forced out. However, assuming Thatcher doesn't stand, my gut feeling would be that he looses owing to his more divisive and high-profile status in the party. Whitelaw or Howe become Leader of the Opposition instead and Powell perhaps goes to the Lords.
 
Long Knives...

Powell had been part of Peter Thorneycroft's Treasury team and was fired by MacMillan in the infamous "little local difficulties" of 1958.

Thorneycroft had been a supporter of MacMillan but didn't seek political revenge and would rejoin the Cabinet in 1960.

I wonder whether if Thorneycroft had survived, he would have been a challenger on MacMillan's resignation in 1963.

Had Thorneycroft won and become Prime Minister, Powell would likely have become no.2 in the Treasury to Nigel Birch and had Thorneycroft won in 1964, perhaps Powell would have become Chancellor.

Just a thought...
 
He'd never accept a peerage- refused it multiple times IOTL, since he fought with Foot against the dilution of the Lords' power. I forgot about Thorneycroft, but everyone told me he wasn't the proto-Thatcherite I'd previously assumed. Just a monetarist who was otherwise a One National.
 
He'd never accept a peerage- refused it multiple times IOTL, since he fought with Foot against the dilution of the Lords' power. I forgot about Thorneycroft, but everyone told me he wasn't the proto-Thatcherite I'd previously assumed. Just a monetarist who was otherwise a One National.

Very true on the latter point, I must disagree with you with your first one though RB. Powell remained in the Commons because he felt he had more status there to go along with his pet projects, namely Northern Ireland, foreign affairs and the Constitution. Powell wasn't against Life Peerages as such, he simply felt that they shouldn't be used to pack the Lords with political hacks (which has never happened...)

As a retired Chancellor though, he would perhaps feel entitled to some sort of move to the Other Place. It was still fine to hand our hereditary peerages in the mid-seventies (though not that common) so that would be acceptable to Powell, particularity if he felt that his career had peaked with his failure to become leader. I've heard that being a very proud sort of chap, one of Powell's main objections to taking a Life Peerage in the eighties was the continued presence of Ted Heath in the Commons. Assuming the two don't fall out too much while in office (Rivers of Blood was the cumulation of a succession of policy and personal problems, but they weren't irreconcilable pre-1968) Powell may choose to take the ermine after it's clear he's never going to become Tory leader.
 
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You've never been a Camaroon then?

;)

As I explained to a mate today, I'm basically a Gaitskellite, centre-left Keynsian economically, civil libertarian, assertive foreign policy, I'm a total patchwork of unworkable ideas!

No but I support his new Europe policy that includes a referendum on any new treaty on EU integration which is what I think Thatcher should have done back in the 80's

Ah Gaitskell is what we should have had instead of Wilson.
 
Maybe but I could never do a TL as I can never get a good idea down on paper but you might as you're good with McCarthy and can write a good TL. :D:D:D:D:D

The best "realistic" timeline involving Powell is also the one that first tempted my interest in Alternate History, What if Gordon Banks had Played?

It's quite astonishingly detailed and well written and adequately gets over the personalities of Powell and almost every other major politician of the time. It is perhaps too dystopian for its own good and I still doubt that Powell could have ever become Tory leader, but it is well worth an afternoon's read.
 
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Wolfpaw

Banned
Maybe but I could never do a TL as I can never get a good idea down on paper but you might as you're good with McCarthy and can write a good TL. :D:D:D:D:D
Awww, you're makin' me blush :eek:

And I'd be lying if I said that I haven't toyed around with the idea of PM Powell cropping up some time in the McCarthyverse...;)
 
Powell remained in the Commons because he felt he had more status there to go along with his pet projects, namely Northern Ireland, foreign affairs and the Constitution.

Powell remained in the Commons because A) he probably loved the placed too much to quit and B) with his his typical High Tory attitude he thought life peerages were a constitutional inovation too far and would only accept a hereditary peerage. Thatcher investigated giving him one after he lost in '87 but the advice from the men in dark suits was that it would set a bad precedent.

Powell would only become Chancellor if you could find someone who could politically stomach him in that role, (ASB from the 70s onwards) adheered to him economically (ASB before the 70s) and wasn't advised against it. Which is a very extreme stretch.

The chances of him lasting in any major frontline political role whatsoever for an extended period of time are essentially nill in any case because his judgement was so erratic and because of his general inability to work with people. I am not really sure why people are that interested in Powell, he was really quite a dull person.
 
I am not really sure why people are that interested in Powell, he was really quite a dull person.

As I said V-J, I don't really know why so many people here seem to like him either, sorry for giving that impression. I said that it was possible for him towns up as Chancellor (although very unlikely) and that I'm of the same mind as you when he should have just stuck to what he was good at, academia, rather than spending time in frontline politics, something he was never really cut out for.
 
No, sorry, that wasn't really directed at anyone specific, it was more of a general comment.
 
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