Election '78. What If

Any questions, thoughts or comments?:)

I'm still stunned at the thought of 71 Liberal MPs in 1979, I imagine some of the 71 MPs are as well. Some of them are obvious like Wells, Aberdeenshire West and Newbury, but I'm otherwise scratching my head a bit. I suppose Councillor Meadowcroft may have taken Leeds West one election early:eek:
 
In some respects the numbers themselves aren't important. The focus of this thread is to see how a battle between Wilson and Thatcher would have turned out.

For this I have taken real life events eg the death of Airey Neave and set them back a year.

Plus I've also extrapolated some of the themes of the 1970's such as the rise of the Liberals and the whole notion of cross barrier politics.
 
The thing is, Nezza, this hurts the TL somewhat. Why have the INLA struck at Airey now? How on earth did the Liberals do so well?

I'm enjoying this but it could learn a thing or two from some of the 2010 election TLs, where attempts are made to explain all the radical departures from OTL.
 
In some respects the numbers themselves aren't important. The focus of this thread is to see how a battle between Wilson and Thatcher would have turned out.

For the Liberals to do that well, they must have won, or come close to winning the national vote, surely such a huge PoD requires some sort of explanation?
 
For the Liberals to do that well, they must have won, or come close to winning the national vote, surely such a huge PoD requires some sort of explanation?

Many Thanks for the comments. You're right an explanation is required for the Liberal's success:

John Sergeant "Give Me Ten Seconds" Published in 2001

"I am not a political historian. Despite the fact my career was as a political correspondent from both the BBC and ITN I never regarded myself as someone who could analyse the way in which people regarded the political classes.

But looking back now I realise that I wasn't analysing. I was in fact documenting the huge political changed that rocked the UK in the 1970's More often than not we do not realise our impact on events until much later and very few of us can even begin to understand them

The 1970's were one such time. There have been many books written about the state of the country during that decade and I am not going to add to the volumes of writings

The general view that the 1970's were a time of huge turmoil and the political classes were unable or unwilling to deal with the economy, Europe or Northern Ireland.

It was a view that reflected in the electorate's eyes. They wanted change and in the 1970s that change was to result in the incredible events of 1978.

To explain why this happened we must go back three elections to the winter of 1974. Mr Heath had called a snap election in what is now regarded as one of the greatest political mistakes of all time

I am not going to go over old ground about the result except to say that the fact that Mr Heath found himself turning to the Liberal to support his government was a direct effect of the electorate turning against the old Labour/Conservative hegemony

The Liberals had done incredibly well by their standards it was possible to assume that Mr Thorpe could have become a senior member of the government (possibly Home Secretary).

But the fact was in 1974 the Liberals were content to preserve their own position not be part of government.

However between 1974 and 1978 attitudes changed. The status quo between Mr Wilson and Mr Heath, later Mrs Thatcher led to huge discontent in the public's eyes.

The feeling was it was the same old situation, the UK in trouble and no-one doing anything about it.

The Liberals were able to capitalise on this. Between 1974 and 1978, public opinion of the Liberals increased. They started branding themselves as "The True Alternative

Certainly as the themes of Europe, Northern Ireland, the economy and the industrial decline of the UK continued and dovetailed throughout the mid to late 70s the general feeling was Wilson was too old and jaded to act (his illness was not well known at this point) and Thatcher was untried.

The Liberals were in effect saying "we can make a difference. Give us a chance and we will make that difference

The number of Liberal seats in '78 came as a surprise to many people myself included. We now had to change our scope.
 
6th May 1978 11.00AM

John Smith walked slowly down the corridor of the House of Commons. He knew what he had to say was potentially explosive and could mean the end of his career.

Yet he also knew he had to put the option forward.

He got to the door and knocked

"come in"

John opened the door and saw Michael Foot sitting at his desk reading a book.

"ah john come in...many congratulations"

"thank you"

"Now what can I do for you"

Smith hesitated "I have been speaking to David Steel over the weekend..."

Foot leant forward his familiar spectacles glistening in the may sunshine.

"oh?"

"yes...they are willing to talk"

"I see....John you do know if Harold or Jim find out..."

"I know but we need to do something.

"go on"

"They have suggested in return for support we make the following laws:

1. Full devolution for Scotland and Wales. They call it 'devo max' where everything but foreign and defence policy is handover to Edinburgh and Cardiff.

2. A switch to PR with us voting yes in the referendum

3. Handing control of interest rates over to the Bank of England


"hmm" said Foot "That is concise but there is no way we can do that. We would lose voters in Scotland and Wales. and as for interest rate Denis would go mad.

"yes" said Smith...but they know we could deliver...the Tories won't...
 
I know the Liberals are a lot stronger than they have been since the long gone days of the three-party system in the twenties, but their demands seem over the top. Almost as if they deliberately don't want a coalition.
 
I know the Liberals are a lot stronger than they have been since the long gone days of the three-party system in the twenties, but their demands seem over the top. Almost as if they deliberately don't want a coalition.

This is a new more strident, more aggressive Liberal party. After February 1974 in this ATL Thorpe etc realised that given the correct circumstances the big 2 parties would have been prepared to talk to them as Heath did in the OTL.

The Liberal feeling is "we've got them over a barrel"
 
We've had some flagrant Liberal-wanks on this forum in the past but unfortunately this is taking the biscuit with sheer ASB territory. Apologies if that seems rude but it's hard to take this seriously now - a Wilson-Thatcher battle would have been very interesting to watch but randomly boosting the Liberals to a degree that they didn't manage even under the best possible conditions in 2010 (your mileage may vary) is, frankly, nothing short of silliness.
 
We've had some flagrant Liberal-wanks on this forum in the past but unfortunately this is taking the biscuit with sheer ASB territory. Apologies if that seems rude but it's hard to take this seriously now - a Wilson-Thatcher battle would have been very interesting to watch but randomly boosting the Liberals to a degree that they didn't manage even under the best possible conditions in 2010 (your mileage may vary) is, frankly, nothing short of silliness.

Hmm. What can you suggest then? It's not rude at all
 
Hmm. What can you suggest then? It's not rude at all

I'd give the Liberals a small boost in votes - protest or otherwise - but not many more seats. Then focus the story back on the real core of it - the potentially mentally unstable Wilson struggling to hold on against the not-quite-bathing-in-glory Thatcher.

The 1970s have some great personalities in politics (look at the Ted Short timeline in my sig to see some of them in action) and you don't always need big unexpected events like an ASB Liberal Surge to keep them interesting. Wilson, Thatcher, Foot, Benn, Whitelaw, Thorpe and more practically write the story themselves.
 
I'd give the Liberals a small boost in votes - protest or otherwise - but not many more seats. Then focus the story back on the real core of it - the potentially mentally unstable Wilson struggling to hold on against the not-quite-bathing-in-glory Thatcher.

The 1970s have some great personalities in politics (look at the Ted Short timeline in my sig to see some of them in action) and you don't always need big unexpected events like an ASB Liberal Surge to keep them interesting. Wilson, Thatcher, Foot, Benn, Whitelaw, Thorpe and more practically write the story themselves.

Well in your opinion would it be worth me refocusing on the wilson-thatcher battle or start a new thread and just focus on wilson-thatcher battle from the start with just a few liberal nods?
 
Well in your opinion would it be worth me refocusing on the wilson-thatcher battle or start a new thread and just focus on wilson-thatcher battle from the start with just a few liberal nods?

It's your TL and you must do what you enjoy doing. However, as you asked my opinion, I'd start this again and don't include the out of the blue Liberal successes. Give them maybe their best result since 1945, sure, but the situation they're in at the moment ITTL is, as I say, pretty ludicrous.
 
It's your TL and you must do what you enjoy doing. However, as you asked my opinion, I'd start this again and don't include the out of the blue Liberal successes. Give them maybe their best result since 1945, sure, but the situation they're in at the moment ITTL is, as I say, pretty ludicrous.

I'll take your advice and start again. TBH I was starting to struggle with the direction of where it was going.

Thanks to all for your comments and advice and please join me on my reduxed version:)
 
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