Exocet - the Effects of a different Falklands

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The ‘shock election’ of 1993 seemingly was, at first, a political masterstroke by Heseltine. Heseltine, always a more popular figure than his party, despite being personally damaged by Black Tuesday and the Realignment Crisis, still enjoyed positive personal ratings from the public. In the week after the election announcement polling confirmed this, with voters approving of the “ballsy move” (to quote the News of the World) by Heseltine. Some of the most positive polling from the time even showed that Heseltine was within reach of winning back his majority, unthinkable in the winter months of 1992-93.

Heseltine also initiated a ‘spring-cleaning’ Cabinet reshuffle which the rise of fresh faces such as Chris Patten (who had lost his Bath seat in 1991 but re-entered Parliament with a 1992 by-election in the Cotswolds, also being one of the only government holds in the 1991-1993 parliament) becoming Foreign Secretary, Virginia Bottomley taking the Health portfolio and Michael Ancram promoted to Environment.

The second week of the campaign saw Heseltine attempt to set the agenda, with him confirming that if re-elected, he would seek to create a devolved Assembly in Scotland, via a referendum. This move seen as a breath of fresh air for the party, alongside helping them win a substantial number of seats north of the border, would mark the end of the good news for the government.

When the election campaign began in earnest, voters began to reassess their view of Heseltine, and many took to blaming him personally for the economic slump which millions remained in. The Realignment Crisis, still a national and economic humiliation, meant that interest rates remained eye-wateringly high. The consumer society which thrived after the economic reforms undertaken by Heseltine and Thatcher, funded out of high levels of private borrowing and debt. With these high interest rates, said society was unable to finance this lifestyle, and so, living standards fell. When Heseltine would tour town centres and businesses, he would be met with derision and anger from the public, who blamed his government for their personal economic woes.

Whilst divisions in the Conservative party subsided, thanks to right-wing adversaries of Heseltine being caught off guard by the surprise election, more or less acquiescing to a ‘support Heseltine, for now’ policy. However, the right-wing press, still furious at Heseltine for his support of the E.E.R.M and European integration, would offer lukewarm support to Heseltine whilst boosting the profile of the Referendum Party, financed by euroskeptic Sir James Goldsmith.

Labour under Robin Cook campaigned hard and fast, fearing another result like 1991. Being only 40 seats away from a majority, Labour’s 1993 campaign was the first true example of the growing Americanization of British politics, with instant ‘rebuttal units’ and ‘spin-doctors’ being employed. Cook, a modernizer in the party, heavily criticised the economic record of Heseltine and with his Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown, launched a ‘city strategy’ to woo business interests into supporting Labour. A pledge to not increase corporation tax and continuing British membership of the E.E.R.M, helped them achieve this strategy.

In the middle was the Alliance, who under the leadership of Sir Menzies Campbell, proved to enjoy its position and campaigned to be a responsible progressive voice in Westminster. Menzies Campbell, not a natural campaigner, offered a statesmen-esque like figure on the campaign trail, with polls showing that Campbell was voters’ (who had heard of him) preferred Prime Minister.

Whilst Labour remained steady in the polls, the Conservatives saw a marked decline, with many voters switching to the Alliance or the nascent Referendum Party. The BBC/ITV exit poll concurred with this, and correctly predicted a virtual tie in the popular vote. However, as votes were counted, it was clear that Labour was enjoying an advantage thanks to a more effective vote distribution and more favourable constituency boundaries. Whilst it was another hung parliament, this time, the arithmetic favoured the left. Cook had, thanks to parliamentary support from Plaid Cyrmu and the SDLP, an effective majority and returned Labour to Downing Street after 14 years in the wilderness.

 

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Michael Heseltine stayed on as Conservative leader for a further three weeks after his last address from Number 10 as PM. This three-week period was justified by Heseltine so that the party could enter a period of ‘reflection’ after their defeat and to allow potential candidates time to prepare for the leadership election. Heseltine's decision to not resign immediately, in favour of his deputy, Kenneth Baker, was criticised by those on the right of the party. These criticisms only grew louder when Heseltine whipped the party to support the first bill introduced by Cook's government, the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Act 1993 which legislated for devolution referendums to be held in the aforementioned nations.

When Heseltine resigned, party insiders became worried that the divisions which had triggered the 1993 elections would rear their heads once again. The two immediate front-runners seemed to epitomise this. Norman Lamont, the ‘failed assassin’ of February returned to try and take the crown, whilst Tom King, a Heseltonian and the former Chancellor took on the mantle of continuity. Other candidates included Edwina Currie (elected from Croydon Central in 1993 after losing East Derbyshire in 1991), known for her brash personality and for being the ‘other woman’ which ended John Major’s promising career and Ken Clarke, a young and fresh face representing the Thatcherite wing of the party.

However, it would be the inoffensive Douglas Hurd who would take the crown. Having spent his time across Cabinet in multiple portfolios (ending as Home Secretary in 1993), Douglas Hurd had managed to avoid the worst excesses and controversies of the Heseltine government. More importantly, unlike King and Clarke he avoided the stain of Black Tuesday and the Realignment Crisis and, unlike Lamont, had avoided the inter-party divisions over Europe (Hurd was committed to the idea of Europe, if not the processes required to commit). After 9 years of Heseltine, who had centralised power dramatically in Number 10 at the expense of the Cabinet and the party (evidenced by calling the 1993 election), Hurd's promises of [a] 'cabinet of equals' and 'collective responsibility' were seen as a refreshing change for the party.

Whilst press attention was focused on the more outspoken candidates (specifically Currie and Lamont), Hurd worked behind the scenes in winning second-hand support from MPs. Whilst King gained the most votes in the first and second round, Clarke's and Currie's supporters moved to back Hurd, the inoffensive one. Their support, alongside King’s elimination (and his subsequent endorsement of Hurd) and Lamont recognising he didn’t have enough support in the party to win outright, saw Hurd elected unopposed on the fourth ballot.

Hurd had won by portraying himself as a steady hand who could lead a unified party back into Downing Street. After all, every Conservative leader, with the exception of Austen Chamberlain, had served as Prime Minister.

 

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Frasier is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for 11 seasons, premiering on September 16, 1993 and concluding on May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey and David Lee in association with Kelsey Grammer’s production company Grammnet and Paramount Network Television.

The show was made as a spin-off of the sitcom Cheers and continues the story of psychiatrist Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) who returns to his hometown, Denver, as a radio show host. In the show he reconnects with his blue-collar father Martin (John Mahoney), a retired police officer injured in the line of duty, and his pretentious younger brother, Niles (David Hyde Pierce). Also included in the cast was Lisa Kudrow as Frasier’s producer Roz Doyle, Jane Leeves as Daphne Moon, Martin’s live-in caregiver and Bob “Bulldog” Briscoe, a rival of Frasier's at KACL, played by Dan Butler. Alongside the human cast, the show also included Eddie, (played by Moose and then Moose’s son Enzo) a Jack Russell Terrier and Martin’s dog.

When casting the show both Mahoney and Pierce were cast without an official audition, whilst Leeves was chosen thanks to NBC producers wanting an English nurse for Martin. Mahoney and Leeves quickly bonded over their shared English heritage, with Mahoney originally coming from Manchester (where Leeves' character is from), cementing her position in the cast. Mahoney would go on to be one of the godfathers of Leeves' second child (as would Pierce). Kudrow, whilst being the first choice of the casting directors for Roz, had a more difficult auditioning process, and was close to be replaced by Peri Gilpin, who would later go on to play Regina "Reggie" Kostas in the comedy series Becker. This difficulty was caused by producer and writer concerns about Kudrow’s ability to portray Roz's assertiveness towards Frasier (and to a lesser extent, Grammer). However, Kudrow would remain in the role, and would go on to become a fan favourite and a breakout character, alongside Niles.

The city of Denver was chosen to be the as it seemed like an isolated enough place with the producers wanting to set it as far away from Boston as possible. Further, the producers wanted to set the show in a progressive city in a progressive state, to match the show’s values and ethos. Colorado (and Denver) had just rejected the anti-gay Amendment 2 in 1992, which if passed, and according to former producer David Lee, could’ve seen the show set in a different city.

Frasier was critically acclaimed, winning thirty-nine Primetime Emmy Awards, both surpassing Cheers' original record of 28 Emmy's and continues to hold the record for the most awards gained by a scripted series to this day.

 

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The first bill to be introduced by Cook’s government was the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Act 1993, ironically both one of the most constitutionally radical (in that it would allow Scotland and Wales self-determination via their own elected assemblies) and politically feasible (with every major party backing the act). This oxymoron characterised Cook’s consensual yet radical government.

As Cook had fallen short of a majority after the 1993 election, his government was forced to rely on other parties in Parliament to pass legislation. Labour, rather than seeking a confidence and supply deal, instead worked with other parties on a case-by-case basis. So, the bills introduced in Parliament would be those which would either have been negotiated prior to its introduction with the Alliance or would have strong support regardless.

This meant that a raft of legislation passed Parliament with Alliance and nationalist support, including an anti-corruption and freedom of information act, an equalizing of the age of consent for gay men alongside instituting a nationwide minimum wage. This was complemented by radical constitutional reform, including House of Lords reform with an attempt to remove hereditary peers from the chamber and devolution referendums in Wales, Scotland, and London. However, negotiations between Labour and Alliance over the nature of London devolution meant that both the legislation was introduced, and the date of the referendum were later than those to be held in Scotland and Wales.

Cook and Labour strongly campaigned in favour of the creation of legislative assemblies in both Wales and Scotland, investing considerable resources and sending the most popular members of the Cabinet to see through the referenda.

Scotland, which possessed a stronger independent streak than Wales, was always more favourable to an elected assembly and was further persuaded to back the move after the passionate campaigning of Donald Dewar (who later become the Scottish Labour leader). With the SNP and Alliance in favour of the move (with the Conservatives having a free vote and free say on which side to back), there was little surprise when Scotland voted in favour of an independent assembly by 60-40%.

Wales, however, proved a harder sell for the government. Having been historically opposed to devolution, as demonstrated by rejecting it when last offered by referendum in 1979 (unlike Scotland which failed to have enough ‘Yes’ votes to see its creation), government ministers went into the referendum unoptimistic. Despite, Wales Secretary Ann Clwyd’s forceful campaigning, Wales would reject devolution 55-45%. This saw both Clwyd's resignation from Cabinet and Plaid Cymru’s withdrawing of support from Labour. This defeat then led to sensationalist headlines from the press gleefully predicting that the government was on the cusp of collapse, in a mirror of 1979.

London and its upcoming referendum was then turned into an attempt to humiliate Cook and Labour. Hurd (unlike with Scotland and Wales) rejected the proposal of creating a London mayor, arguing that it would be become an opportunity for Ken Livingstone and the ‘loony left’ to return to power in the capital. Hurd, whilst playing to an national audience outside of London, failed in this campaign when London voted in favour of directly electing a city-wide mayor, via a two-round system (similar to French presidential elections), by an overwhelming margin.

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The first election for both London Mayor and the Scottish Assembly would be held in May 1995.

 

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Prior to the ‘mani pulite’ (clean hands) scandal, Italian politics had been characterised by a high level of political stability alongside the dominant power of the Democrazia Cristiana / Christian Democrats (CD). However, the mani pulite scandal unearthed the corruption present in Italian politics and saw both this stability collapse and ushered in the CD’s collapse. Beginning in February 1992, with the arrest of Mario Chiesa a manager of a public hospice, mani pulite soon exploded onto the national level. By the 1994 election, six former prime ministers, more than five hundred members of Parliament and several thousand local and public administrators were being investigated on charges of corruption and malpractice. Amongst the victims of mani pulite was Silvio Berlusconi, who was accused of bribing public officials.

The 1994 election saw the fracturing and collapse of the mainstream parties and the rise of the extremes, on both the left and the right. The left had organised themselves into the Alliance of the Progressives bloc led by Achille Occhetto, who himself led the PDS, the successor to the Italian Communist party. The right, meanwhile, struggled to create a united bloc. The Pole of Good Government, led by Giuseppe Tatarella, a member of the neo-fascist National Alliance, came closest to forming a united right bloc. However, Lega Nord (Northern League) resisted joining this bloc, with tensions between the National Alliance leader Gianfranco Fini and Umberto Bossi proving too difficult to overcome.

Accordingly, the election saw the Alliance of Progressives win a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, but was forced to enter discussions with Mario Segni, a liberal, to try and patch together a majority (and thus government) in the Senate. The eventual agreement reached increased tensions within the Alliance of Progressives, itself a disparate coalition of Communists, socialists, progressives and democrats.

The stability which once defined Italian politics was gone.

 

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A.N. I've both used and slightly edited Mathieu Lauffray's work and Tom Jung's title from the 1991 front cover when creating this update. I did this to better fit in both elements to create a realistic movie poster to better serve the story. This is in no way me trying to claim credit for either of their amazing work, and I thought I should reference this prior.
The original link for the picture I've used is here: Lauffray's original picture
I've also included Lauffray's ArtStation profile f you want to see more of his incredible work: lauffray.artstation.com

Star Wars IV – Heir to the Empire is a 1994 American epic space opera co-written by Timothy Zahn (who wrote 1991 book of the same name), Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas who also directs. It stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fischer, Harrison Ford, Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker reprising their characters from the original trilogy alongside a slate of new characters. Charles Dance plays Grand Admiral Thrawn, Gillian Anderson plays Mara Jade and Jeff Bridges plays Talon Karrde. It is the fourth film released in the Star Wars film series and the 6th in 'in-universe' chronological order.

Set 11 years after the Battle of Endor, during the New Republic Era, the film follows Grand Admiral Thrawn’s (Dance) plot to overthrow the New Republic and the search for the former Emperor’s hidden weapons vault, guarded by a crazed clone of former Jedi Master Joruus C'Baoth (Lee). Whilst the New Republic is attacked by Thrawn, Luke Skywalker is tasked with finding the weapons vault with the help of Mara Jade (Anderson), who later is discovered to be a Sith, who served as the Emperor’s Hand, alongside Darth Vader.

The film struggled during production, with Lucas’ initial hesitancy to continue Star Wars, preferring to work on a prequel storyline instead. However, close collaboration with Zahn and Kasdan convinced Lucas to move forward with the film, alongside the election of Tommy Thompson as President (who Lucas would come to despise). Filming took place in January – September 1993 in England, Romania and Iceland. During filming, the fake production title ‘The Middle’ was used to divert attention and maintain its secrecy.

The film was released in May 1994 to critical acclaim and grossed over $1.1 billion, becoming the highest grossing film in both 1994 and in the 1990s. Whilst the film did receive some criticism for its overly complicated plot structure (with particular scorn for the Senate and politics subplot), it was strongly received and became an instant classic. Much praise was heaped on Gillian Anderson’s portrayal of Mara Jade as a conflicted and angry Sith assassin, who would deceive the main protagonist Luke Skywalker, before trying to kill him and Gabriel Byrne’s Gilad Pellaeon a loyal but underutilised commander, who is shown to suffer from PTSD from the Clone and Civil War.

The film would be followed by two sequels, which veered further away from the Zahn trilogy, with 1997’s The Rise of the Sith and 1999’s The Last Stand, which whilst well-received, failed to match the hype and acclaim of Heir to the Empire.

 

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The 1994 European Parliament elections in the United Kingdom saw the Labour and Conservative Party remain steady whilst the Alliance experienced a breakthrough. This would be the last election held without the use of a proportional voting system for European Parliament elections, as mandated by the EU.

Labour under Robin Cook had styled itself as a modern and progressive party and had initiated a broadly popular agenda of devolution and rights legislation. Fiscally, with Chancellor Gordon Brown, the government remained cautious and avoided the “tax-and-spend bombshell” policies that the Conservatives warned voters about if Labour was in power. Further, with the economy on the mend from the realignment crisis, Labour was in a good position prior to the election.

This confident agenda and economic stability also meant that Labour gained credibility, whilst Hurd’s Conservatives, unused to being in opposition, lost it. Hurd’s hands-off approach led to continual spats between his MPs and did little to heal the divisions in the party about Europe. The Alliance meanwhile, went from strength to strength, and capitalised on the momentum gained in 1993.

The EP elections were seen by Cook and Labour as a ‘midterm’ (borrowing a phrase from America) on whether they should risk calling an early election in the next year, to try and win an outright majority. Labour, maintaining a similar vote and seat share to 1989, had seen that its time in government hadn’t led to voter backlash. Cook and his government agreed, the elections were good enough to call a snap election for the next year.

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Europe-wide, the picture proved positive for the incumbents too. The elections saw the dramatic rise of the European People’s Party (EPP) as the predominant party of Europe and heralded the end to the resurgent europessimism which defined Valéry Giscard d'Estaing term as Commission President. The EPP (which had undertaken an aggressive campaign of bringing national parties such as the UK Conservatives under their whip), consolidated centrist and centre-right parties, and accordingly saw a rise in the number of seats despite unpopular national parties such as the Conservatives, the CDU/CSU, RPR and the remnants of the CD in Italy.

The election also marked the end to Giscard d'Estaing term. The Giscard d'Estaing's Commission would be unable to convince the disparate leaders of Europe to agree a date for the introduction of a common currency, mostly thanks to French and Italian intransigence. Instead, Giscard d'Estaing focused on expansion of the Union, acting as a campaigning commissioner, visiting and courting prospective members such as Sweden, Austria, Finland and Norway. After referendums in favour of joining the European Union, all 4 would enter on the 1 January 1995.

In the negotiations to find a new Commission President, the EPP pushed hard for one of its own members to become the Commission President. In part due to the domestic concerns of Chancellor Späth who feared an internal CDU coup, he proposed and nominated former Chancellor Helmut Kohl to become Commission President. A titan of European politics, Kohl’s respected nature and affable personality meant that all 11 EU leaders, across the political spectrum, supported his nomination.

 

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Four armed men, disguised as pilots, hijacked Air France Flight 8969 in Houari Boumedienne Airport, on December 24, 1994 and seized the plane without drawing attention to themselves. These men, led by Abdullah Yahia, were members of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA) an Islamist insurgent group fighting against the French-backed Algerian government. With links across North Africa, in both Algeria and war-torn Libya (which was mired by sectarian violence after Colonel Gaddafi’s death to American missiles), the GIA had cultivated a large, experienced and fanatically loyal following. The French, who supported the Algerian government, had been attacked previously by the GIA with a series of bombings in Paris, Lyon and Villeurbanne. Despite this, the French government had little in active intelligence on both the strength and capabilities of GIA and the immediate threat posed by the group.

After being delayed for 20 minutes, Flight 8969 would be allowed to take off from Algiers and soon entered radio silence. Onboard the plane, the hijackers told the crew and passengers that if they stayed calm, they would live. They claimed that they had hijacked the plane in order to land it in Paris to start a series of hostage negotiations with French authorities. This was a lie told to maintain calm onboard the plane. When they reached Paris, the hijackers killed the pilots and would crash the plane directly into the Eiffel Tower at 12:45pm.

It would become one worst atrocities to happen on French soil and stands as the deadliest terror attack in human history. Jacques Chirac made a national address the same evening, with the smoke still rising from the Champs De Mars, and declared that he would "find this evil, end this evil and give justice to those who died". Accordingly, France prepared its military and began to make plans to directly intervene in Algeria to hunt and destroy the GIA and support the embattled government. Meanwhile, in solidarity with France, NATO invoked Article V (the common defence clause), and pledged its support. The first air strikes would take place on New Year’s Eve and shortly thereafter, an international coalition would follow into the desert sands.

 

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Cook implicitly believed that Labour’s victory in 1993 was more a reaction against the unpopular Conservative government, than an endorsement of Labour and his policies. Accordingly, when in power, Cook continued to try and moderate and modernise the party, in order to prove that they could govern and that they could be trusted in power. The focus on self-styled (and spin-doctor approved) ‘progressive’ policies such as the creation of devolved assemblies, the codification of human rights and legislation promoting government transparency whilst radical, was an attempt to prove that Labour could be trusted with the levers of power.

Meanwhile, Chancellor Gordon Brown’s commitment to remaining in the E.E.R.M after the Realignment Crisis (sharing the same view as Brittan and King, in that the E.E.R.M was an inflation-buster and trade facilitator) and his proposal to give the Bank of England independence from the central government shored the party up with big business and the City. Further, Labour and Cook’s reaction to the horrifying Noël Attack and support of the NATO intervention into Algeria (later expanded to Libya which was in a state of humanitarian crisis alongside harbouring the terrorists responsible for the attack) shook off the public perception of Labour being ‘soft’. Whilst in a far more comfortable position in terms of the parliamentary arithmetic than Heseltine’s government before his, Cook wanted a majority to "allow Labour to govern as Labour". So, in late January, with his Cabinet behind him, Cook announced to the nation that he would be holding a snap election for late April.

The Conservative Party had been consumed by turmoil of opposition and internal divisions. After Heseltine’s resignation, the party held a divisive leadership contest which saw Douglas Hurd, Home Secretary, and the only minister to have been in cabinet continually from 1979, win the contest. His leadership however did little to restore the party or sooth the divisions within, with Private Eye’s quip of Hurd’s leadership style akin to "trying to hurd [sic] a pack of man-eating wolves" summarising his ineffective leadership. The Alliance, meanwhile, could claim to have both moderated Labour in government and have spearheaded the progressive reforms introduced in the 1993-1995 parliament. With popular leader Menzies Campbell still at the helm, they went into the election optimistic.

Cook campaigned vigorously across the nation after calling the election. In speeches to the TUC and CBI, he would highlight Labour’s progressive record in government and that, with Brown, the economy had returned to growth (albeit sluggish growth with interest rates remaining at 9%) and that the budget deficit was falling. In speeches to activists and Labour clubs however, he would strike a different tone and he would speak of the need for a radical government which would correct the inequalities of the Thatcher/Heseltine era.

The election debate, the first to be broadcast live in British political history, saw Cook flex his oratory skills to rout Hurd, who was visibly uncomfortable on the debate stage. Cook’s vacillation when questioned about his stance on a European common currency was quickly forgotten by voters, after Hurd’s stuttering response to the same question became the moment of the debate.

The 1995 election returned the largest Labour majority since 1966 (coincidentally with a similar number of seats) alongside the party gaining a strong plurality of the vote. Further, the Conservative Party saw their seat total fall to 213, the worst result for the both the Conservative Party and for HM Opposition since 1945. The continued rise of the vote-sapping Referendum Party, and the abandonment of centrist voters who favoured Campbell’s Alliance continued the trends which had hurt the party so badly in 1993. Hurd’s resignation soon followed the results.

Cook, returning to Downing Street, thanked voters for the opportunity and for the trust they had placed in him and Labour. However, this optimism was quickly dampened by fears that Cook, like Wilson before him, would be unable to win Labour a second consecutive full term in office. With this in mind, Cook would embrace the mantra of this being a "once in a lifetime" government.

 

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Donald Dewar, a committed advocate of devolution and Scotland Secretary in Cook’s government was the only choice to become Scottish Labour leader to contest the upcoming assembly election. Dewar campaigned leisurely for the Assembly election with the national Labour party machine, which was fighting a general election at the same time, making the arguments for him. Cook’s frequent visits during the Westminster general election campaign and afterwards, greatly improved Labour's poll ratings in Scotland, meaning (alongside Scotland's inherent bent towards Labour) Dewar felt confident he would become the inaugural First Minister.

The SNP led by Margaret Ewing, married to SNP politician Fergus Ewing and the step-daughter of long time MP and MEP (and SNP president) Winnie Ewing, however, had a harder campaign. Originally polling first, the SNP saw a decline in its polling as the campaign got underway. On top of the party recovering from a gruelling leadership contest between Ewing and Alex Salmond, the moderate Ewing's attempts to portray the SNP as a 'catch-all' nationalist party, stifled the party greatly in the election campaign.

For the Conservatives, the general election meant that many big-name MPs chose not the make the jump from the national to the regional level. Whilst Malcolm Rifkind was the bookies favourite to become the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, the promise of either a major position in Hurd's government, or a chance at the leadership kept his interest firmly to the south of Holyrood. So it fell to Brian Meek, the former MP for Edinburgh West and one of the most outspoken Conservatives in favour of devolution, to fight the election. A mooted plan to change the party’s name to the ‘Unionists’ was considered by Meek but rejected, with the belief that such a change would have no real impact on the election and would waste tens of thousands of pounds to rebrand.

David Steel returned from the House of Lords to lead the Alliance, both out of a sense of pride that his home country had finally received its own legislative body and to try win the Alliance more seats in the Assembly, with Steel polling as both the most popular and well-known leader.

The campaign, despite being dominated by the general election and then by its aftermath, was a largely consensual and respectful affair. The four main leaders were in agreement on major policies and principles and all four attempted to appeal to the middle ground. Dewar’s attacks on the Conservatives for their record in rejecting devolution fell on deaf ears, with voters instead acknowledging the promises made by Heseltine and the advocacy of Meek as a sign the Conservatives were serious about Scotland's domestic affairs and sovereignty.

To no-one’s surprise, Labour came first with a clear lead over the other parties. In a surprise result however, the Conservatives came second by two seats which saw the SNP in third, far below the original expectations of the election. Alongside a strong showing for the Alliance, Robin Harper became the first ever directly elected Green politician in the UK after being elected in the Lothians regional list. Dewar extended his hand to David Steel and the two parties and two men formed a centre-left coalition government.

 

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Jacques Chirac’s presidency had not been an easy one with hubris setting in almost immediately after victory. Vindicated by victory, Chirac dramatically consolidated power in the Elysée, both by side-lining the UDF in the National Assembly and by making Alain Juppé, an ultra-loyalist, Prime Minister.

Chirac and Juppé accelerated their controversial liberalisation of the French state and economy, which they had initiated after the 1986 legislative election. The protest movement which had begun prior to the election (encouraged by then-President Mitterrand), continued with it becoming commonplace to see protesters picketing city streets and government buildings in opposition to the government’s agenda.

Chirac’s centralisation of power also explains his decision not to renominate EC Commission President Jacques Delors in 1989, one which left bad blood between the two Jacques. Chirac’s nomination of Giscard d’Estaing to be Delors’ successor as both French Commissioner and Commission President was widely seen as at attempt to deprive UDF of one its strongest figureheads, rather than being based on merit. This would however prove a fatal miscalculation for Chirac as it would both raise D’Estaing’s profile and anger Delors, now a domestic political rival. Whilst Chirac was seen as politically amenable to Europe and integration, his personality and mindset saw a period of europessimism set in. Instinctively cautious towards deeper integration, having once been a fierce critic of Europe, alongside Chirac’s tense relationship with German Chancellor Lothar Späth, saw France put pause to moves which would deepen the Union.

By 1993, Chirac was deeply unpopular, and a rash of tax cuts and infrastructure works, in response to the early 1990s recession, did little to help either the economy or his poll ratings. Chirac’s party and allies were soon wiped out in the legislative elections with Chirac being forced to cohabitate with socialist Lionel Jospin, who became the odds-on favourite to win the next presidential election.

Then France was attacked. The immediate aftermath of the Noël Attack and the subsequent invasion of Algeria and Libya saw Chirac enjoy a rally-around-the-flag polling bounce. His forceful and nationalistic speeches on the ruined Champs de Mars and in the deserts of Algeria seemed to articulate the view of the French people, who wanted vengeance. Coinciding with this, France suffered from an increased number of hate crimes directed at Muslims and other ethnic minorities, whilst far-right figures such as Jean-Marie Le Pen surged in popularity, gaining greater attention from across the political spectrum.

Yet, when the election campaign kicked off in March, Chirac began to feel the weight of incumbency. Questions were asked about; why Noël happened; about how the terrorists got the plane; about how they flew it across the Metropole without causing concern and why the French intelligence services did not intercept active intelligence on the plot to stop it. It was not only Chirac who faced difficult questions but Jospin, the Prime Minister at the time, as his office was aware of the hijacked plane but chose not to intercept it, instead believing that the radio was malfunctioning. Jospin chose not to run, in part because of this and instead backed the eventual PS nominee, Jacques Delors.

Meanwhile the right was divided mainly between three candidates. Furthest right was Le Pen who had gained airtime with (his supporters would argue prescient) attacks and racism towards Islam and minorities. Then there was the incumbent, Chirac, who would find the support of the French in the aftermath of the Noel was less secure than it seemed. The more centrist of the three, was UDF candidate and former President, was Valéry Giscard d'Estaing who had been invigorated by his time as Commission President and wanted one more go at it.

However, when the first rounds results were forecasted and counted, a sense of collective horror fell France. Whilst Delors advanced to the second round, his challenger and by a margin of 0.05% was not Chirac, nor d’Estaing, but Le Pen. It was the first time in the Fifth Republic that a far-right candidate had made it to the second round. Le Pen had used the wave of nationalistic fervour and anger from Noël to find a receptive audience and one large enough to propel him to the second round. Chirac and D’Estaing immediately endorsed Delors for President, even if the centre-right soon descended into recriminations.

Le Pen posing with an assault rifle in Algeria contrasted with Delors empathising with grieving families. Le Pen’s angry speeches about the threat posed by Islam was met with Delors holding meet-and-greets in ethnically diverse cities and neighbourhoods. Delors’ last rally before the election, with d’Estaing and Mitterrand beside him, saw him implore voters to say “Non” to Le Pen, to racism and to nationalism. To the collective relief of the establishment and Europe, they would do so by a historic margin.

 

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The creation of a directly elected London mayor, the brainchild of Labour MP Tony Banks, was expected to be a wash for Labour and Ken Livingstone. The former leader of the Greater London Council in the 1980s, before its scrapping by the Heseltine ministry, Livingstone announced he would be running for the mayoral election almost immediately after the legislation establishing the position had passed parliament. Livingstone would be the frontrunner throughout the election, winning the Labour nomination by a large margin against no-name opponents.

In a voting system similar to French presidential elections, Londoners would first vote for a field of candidates, then the top-two who would advance to a second round, held a week later. It was hoped that this style of voting would be both more proportional than FPTP (Labour fearing a divided left would see right-wing candidates triumph) and majoritarian enough to stop smaller left-wing parties from qualifying for the second round, guaranteeing Labour domination of city hall. Criticisms about the extra costs and effectiveness of holding two rounds of voting were ignored by the government.

When the election was scheduled in 1994, only Labour party grandees in Number 10 foresaw Cook’s snap election and the landslide majority which followed. In part due to the general election, the Conservative Party was in a weak position in the capital prior to the mayoral election. Potential candidates like David Mellor and Edwina Currie were uninterested in running. However, Conservatives found themselves a self-proclaimed winner, a man with charisma, talent and youth, Michael Portillo. With his career stalling in Westminster, and polling in his Enfield Southgate seat looking shaky for the upcoming general election, Portillo made the jump to the local arena to run for London mayor. Portillo, having cultivated himself a reputation of being an independent and progressive voice within the Conservative party, with his support for devolution and the equalization of the age of consent, whilst against European integration, was a far stronger candidate than his detractors made him out to be. Against soon-to-be disgraced author Jeffery Archer, Portillo won his party’s nomination in a landslide.

The first round of the election saw Portillo and Livingstone in first and second place respectively at 39.5% and 38.7%, consistent with Labour’s fears of a FPTP election. So, as the second round began, Portillo and Livingstone began to rally support for the final week of campaigning. However, Livingstone who had grown arrogant during his time as an MP, seemingly took a step back from the process and acted disinterested, as if he was the pre-ordained winner. This was worsened by the national Labour party having entered a period of complacency after its 1995 landslide re-election and the similarly positive results in Scotland. In contrast, Portillo campaigned heavily, canvassing streets, knocking on doors, and promising change, gaining endorsements from businessmen like Richard Branson, political heavyweights like Michael Heseltine (who was still popular in the capital) and from the Alliance nominee for mayor (who had lost in the first round and backed Portillo against the wishes of the national leadership) David Owen.

Whether it was Livingstone’s complacency that lost him his mayoralty, or if it was Labour’s landslide spurring voters to give the party a bloody nose, or Portillo’s positioning as a "New Conservative" with his party was decimated and leaderless, voters made Michael Portillo London’s first metro mayor.

 

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The Madrid Accords is a deeply contentious and unpopular document for the Falklands and Falklanders. The Madrid Accords, rather than deal with the territorial disputes which caused the Falklands Conflict and settle long-term ownership of the islands, threw the issue to the United Nations, and invited them to create a protectorate on the disputed islands. This protectorate was originally agreed in the Madrid Accord to be administered for 10 years, to cool tensions, before a plebiscite would be held by Falklanders’ to determine who owned islands. It was agreed by the UN Security Council with Resolution 528 (with Britain being arm-twisted to accept by Argentinean-friendly US Ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick), however, that the plebiscite would be held a year after the 10 years was up, with Falklanders given nominal control of their affairs during this year. UN Peacekeepers, in the form of a two patrol ships with 59 soldiers, thus prepared and landed at Port Stanley on the 23 March 1983, with the Argentinean garrison leaving shortly after. With the UN flag raised above the town hall, the United Nations Mission in the Falklands and its Dependencies (UNMIFAD) had begun.

A major problem for the islands was that in the year of occupation, Argentina had encouraged people to settle on the islands, which saw an influx of over 300 (the collapse of the Junta and subsequent chaos meant that the numbers were lower than the 1000 expected) settlers, who were excluded by native Falklanders and would face discrimination by the British majority. Attempts to build an Argentinian self-sufficient settlement near Port Stanley failed and by 1984, most of the settlers had returned to Argentina. Whilst the peacekeepers and UN officials would try and help these settlers integrate, these actions made them deeply unpopular to Falklanders.

The Falklands Islands, with approximately 4000 residents was the one with the largest population out of the islands administered by the mission and was the most resistant to the changes brought on by both the Madrid Accords and the UN Mission. With the suspension of the economic exclusion zone, Argentinean fishing vessels soon had a free rite of passage into Falkland’s waters and soon fishermen were seeing a depletion of the available fishing stock and of their livelihoods. This lead to infamous “trawler wars”, which saw multiple skirmishes at sea, with Falklander and Argentinean fishing boats sabotaging nets, sailing dangerously close to each other and, in some instances, ramming each other. In 1984, shots were fired between two fishing boats, which led to the death of one Argentinean fisherman. The UN patrol ships spent most of their time trying to stop this conflict, which made the UN mission and peacekeepers unpopular. Many fishermen and their families, unable to earn a living, left the islands and returned to Britain (still having British citizenship), grumbling.

The UN Mission being unpopular, saw the base being repeatedly vandalised in Port Stanley by graffiti and ‘fly dumped’ with refuse being left on the street outside the compound by disgruntled Falklanders. Peacekeepers also found themselves banned from local establishments like the Stanley Arms Bar and the Prince Andrew Bar. The eventual withdrawal of the second patrol ship in 1989 saw half the peacekeepers leave and calmed tensions of the island, but for most, the UN was still seen as an occupying and hostile force.

However, a benefit for the islands, especially South Georgia and the unhabituated South Sandwich Islands was that the protectorate allowed for greater scientific exploration from the international community. Being under UN control (and thus technically neutral), allowed for scientists to visit to study global warming and Antarctica, was a boon for some with the islands becoming a hotspot for scientific research.

By 1994, the islands were ready for the sovereignty plebiscite, even though Argentinian President Eduardo Angeloz lodged an official complaint at the United Nations about the legitimacy of the plebiscite. Complaining that the British had effectively colonized Las Malvinas and that the land belonged to Argentina, if not the people, Angeloz saw his complaint ignored by the UN. To many, an independently organised self-determination referendum, was the only peaceful and democratic way to solve the problem.

And so, with only two voters not showing up to the polls (both had left the Falklands in January for Britain and were in the process of dropping their citizenship), referendum day saw 98% vote in favour of re-joining the United Kingdom. South Georgia (with only 30 voters) saw the lesser support for British unification, the reasons for which were the benefits gained by the scientific and the distance of South Georgia from Argentina proper.

It took another year for the UN to organise a withdrawal and for sovereignty to be transferred back to Britain. The UN forced a settlement between the two countries which meant that the EEZ would be shared, and any future oil exploration or resource extraction would either be a joint effort to be monitored by the UN.

Robin Cook would become the first British PM to visit the Falklands and would stand by the former leader (and recently elected Governor) Sir Rex Hunt to welcome “reunification day”, closing the sorry saga of the conflict and of the UNMIFAD.

 

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John Crosbie’s 1991 re-election defied both domestic political gravity and the international trend against incumbents, which saw them fall to defeat in the US, UK, and Japan. This victory would create enough political capital (alongside the election of Tommy Thompson) to force the Canadian Senate to finally pass NAFTZ, which created a comprehensive free trade zone between the US and Canada. Mexico’s attempts to join the free trade zone, however failed, with the nation struggling from internal crisis and a deepening democratic deficit which led to its failed application in 1994. Whilst Crosbie claimed that NAFTZ would stimulate Canada’s struggling economy, which had slumped into recession in Autumn 1990, it did little in the short-term, with the wave of expected American investment instead going to newer and more exciting markets in Japan, China and Russia.

Further attempts to stimulate growth also failed to break end the recession and lower the deficit. Even with the creation of new and unpopular taxes like the GST, the deficit continued to rise, peaking at -41,000m C($) in 1993, the highest it had been since the 1960s. In a further headache to Crosbie, unemployment also remained above 10% during his entire second term in office, further damaging the government. Politically, it would be Paul Martin, the newly elected Liberal leader, who gained the advantage from this. Martin, a fiscal conservative, made the state of the economy the focus of his leadership, which resonated with voters.

This is not to say the government was without success. In an achievement for Crosbie, he oversaw the legalisation of same-sex unions with the Same Sex Couples Act 1994 (necessary after the Supreme Court ruled that the exclusion of LGB couples from the rights afforded to straight couples by marriage was incompatible with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms). Whilst lauded by historians and seen as a personal achievement for the socially liberal Crosbie, it would lead to blowback in the form of enraged social conservatives in the West and a boost to Reform.

What saw Crosbie’s end was the rising tide of nationalism and separatism. Lucien Bouchard dramatically resigned from Cabinet in September 1993, lamenting Crosbie’s indifference towards further constitutional reform. Bouchard’s defection to sit as an Independent (later becoming a Bloquiste), along with five fellow Quebecers saw Crosbie lose his majority, rendering him unable to introduce and pass legislation without first consulting opposition parties like Reform and said ‘Bloquistes’. On top of this, the 1994 Quebec general election saw Jacques Parizeau win a majority of the seats allowing for an independence referendum for October 1995. Crosbie in his memoirs, spoke that the moment he lost his majority was the moment he decided that he wouldn’t fight the next election and resign, which he would do in April 1995.

In the resulting leadership election to determine who would be both the next Progressive Conservative leader and the next Prime Minister, Jean Charest, a close supporter and ally of Crosbie, won against Perrin Beatty and Kim Campbell, both of whom wanted the party to reposition itself to try and fight Reform in the West. Charest proved a charismatic and appealing figure during the leadership contest, enjoying strong approval ratings. Once elected, he saw a polling bounce and accordingly, called a June snap election, to try and win in honeymoon period like Chrétien did in 1984. Based on the state of the official opposition, it was understandable why he called the election.

The NDP, the official opposition, were having a torrid time of it, despite being closer to government than they ever had been before. Whilst a relatively stable and united force under Broadbent, his retirement in 1992 signalled the return of intra-party fighting and factional warfare. Whilst Dave Barrett, the former NDP premier of BC won the leadership against Bob Rae and Audrey McLaughlin, his victory did little to steer the party away from these fights. A westerner, Barrett tried to focus the party on dealing with Western alienation, to little avail. The conservative voters of the West saw more to like in the populist Reform than in the socialist NDP. This tactic was ruthlessly attacked both because of its failure to pay dividends in key seats and because of the moderation of party policy needed to better appeal to the West. Compounding these challenges was a donations scandal in British Columbia, which saw the resignation of BC’s NDP premier, making the NDP unpopular in the province, further undermining Barrett’s work.

The Liberals, meanwhile, were able to portray themselves as a responsible voice of government by having learnt the lessons of 1987 and 1991. Martin’s close relationship with the former Mayor of Calgary and MP from Calgary Centre, Ralph Klein, epitomised this new approach. A passionate budget-balancer, Klein would be used to drum up support in the West whilst Martin stayed almost exclusively in Ontario and Quebec. To portray himself as a strong leader Martin also spent trying to marginalise the 'Rat Pack', a group of Chrétien loyalists who came from the progressive wing of the party. This strategy paid dividends and allowed Martin to focus on the economy and bring the party unity, (and when in compared to the NDP), helped the Liberals distinguish themselves on the campaign trail.

The election mostly saw the trends which defined the 1991-1995 parliamentary term play out in a 6-week campaign. Charest tried to keep his party above water, Barrett spent most of his time fighting fires in his own caucus and Martin ran on the economy and the deficit. Reform and BC, the polar opposites of one another, ran similar campaigns, in preaching to the already converted and disillusioned. The debates did little to change public opinion, with voters amenable to Charest, but not willing to give the PCs another term in office.

And so, despite Charest’s appeal on the campaign trail, the Progressive Conservatives lost a historic 137 MPs, losing to Reform in the West and the Liberals in the East. Among the losses included Kim Campbell, Perrin Beatty and even Crosbie’s old parliamentary seat, with the PC candidate losing out to the Liberals who had attacked the government for ending cod fishing in the region. The NDP were also clear losers, losing half its caucus, almost half its vote share and almost losing its leader, Dave Barrett, who had held his seat, after two recounts, by only 19 votes. The BQ’s also underperformed, to the fears of the Oui campaign, mostly thanks to tactical voting by federalists in Quebec, mostly due to the upcoming independence referendum scheduled for October.

The winners were the Liberals, who returned to government with a healthy majority, and Reform who had captured Western anger and alienation at Ottawa and had broken the PCs. Reform becoming the official opposition, was the cherry on top for the party after a historic election. Martin had won, but with the independence referendum on the horizon, this victory could be short-lived. Martin made it the number one priority of his new government to prepare for Quebec’s independence referendum and convince the nation to stay in. If he failed, then his hard-fought victory would become a poisoned chalice.

 

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After the crushing defeat of 1995, Conservatives were forced, yet again, to enter a period of reflection and soul-searching. 1995 had seemingly destroyed the idea that 1993 was a fluke, and killed the hubristic notion that the Conservatives were the natural party of government. The scale of the defeat was also unprecedented, with the party losing heavily across the board, seemingly without an identifiable trend. Much of this defeat could be blamed on Hurd’s ineffective leadership of the party, which seemed increasingly out-of-touch to the public and their concerns.

Without being in government, the party’s infighting got more brutal, especially with regards to Europe and the common currency. Hurd’s ‘speak-no-evil’ strategy did little to unify the party. Euroskeptics kept sniping from the backbenches arguing that any future constitutional change, such as the introduction of a common currency, should first be put to a national referendum rather than left to Parliament. Michael Heseltine, would also shift his position, now out of power and government, becoming a forceful advocate for adopting the common currency.

So, when Hurd resigned, the party seemed to be ready for a slug-match. Representing the europhillic wing, with the endorsements of Heseltine, King, Heath and many other prominent One Nation Tories, was the former Foreign Secretary (who was never tarred by Black Tuesday) Chris Patten. His campaign represented a clean break from the cautious Hurd. On Europe, he argued that Britain’s place should be “at the heart of Europe” whilst on social issues, he said the party needed to accept both social liberalisation and open its doors to women and minorities, or else they would be consigned to the 20th century. Borrowing a phrase from Portillo’s successful campaign, he presented himself as a ‘New Conservative’ and ran accordingly, to make the party fit for the 21st century.

If Chris Patten represented the future, then Ann Widdecombe was the candidate of the past. Doubling down on euroskepticism, her campaign was supported by the right, who believed her to be the next Thatcher. Her cutting appraisals of her competitors and her social conservative bent gained her attention but proved to be merely hype. She gained only 10% of the vote in the first ballot, the clear loser, with the right instead backing Michael Howard, who had similar policies, but lacked the fire-breathing qualities which doomed Widdecombe.

The continuity candidate was Shadow Foreign Secretary Ian Lang. Like Hurd before him, Lang attempted to appeal to both wings of the party but struggled in his campaign after difficult questions were asked about his vote against Scottish devolution and his subsequent resignation from Heseltine’s shadow cabinet. Further, he was seen as a potential liability thanks to his miniscule majority, being only 200 votes ahead of the SNP candidate. Lang would be forced out in the second ballot, after Widdecombe’s supporters coalesced around Howard.

Howard’s right-wing campaign may have motivated Conservative members, but the benches of the party had moved increasingly to the left (relative to its members) under Heseltine. Patten thus won the election and, in a show of good faith, appointed Lang as Chancellor and Howard as Home Secretary. Upcomers in the party like Stephen Milligan, John Maples and Oliver Letwin were also appointed to the Shadow Cabinet. A small bounce in the polls aside, the party would have to settle on the sidelines, for now.

 

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If the symbolic end of the Cold War in Europe came with the Berlin Wall's 1989 collapse, then its definitive end was with German reunification in 1991. In East Germany’s first free democratic election, the CDU/CSU (essentially a vehicle for unification) won in a landslide and West German Chancellor Lothar Späth, became a forceful advocate for unification. Whilst there was hesitance to unification from French President Chirac, cautious support of the project from Britain and the US, in effect, made it inevitable. Once united, with the first free German-wide election since pre-WWII, Späth won a historic absolute majority in the Bundestag, the second absolute majority since the war.

One of the most consequential decisions of Späth’s chancellorship (lauded by historians and East Germans alike) saw his government pursue currency parity with the former East, allowing for an easier transition to democracy and into unity. Domestically popular, this policy gained fierce critics in Europe and the EU. The high interest rates required to ensure this currency parity, caused many of the tensions within the E.E.R.M, including both Britain’s ‘Realignment Crisis’ and Italy’s dramatic crash-out 1995, which saw the end of the Ochetto government. These issues have been credited as part of the reason for the failure of the EU to adopt the common currency (as originally planned) in 1999.

By 1995, domestic concerns overshadowed Europe and European integration to German voters. As the unemployment rate surpassed the government’s statutory limit of 4 million, with greater unemployment in the East than the West, the lackluster response of the CDU/CSU made Späth deeply unpopular and seemed to predict defeat in the upcoming election. Alongside this, Späth seemed consumed by internal party tensions and whispers of coups from rivals. Whilst Kohl had been removed from domestic politics, Späth was fearful of a party coup led by either Kohl’s protégé Wolfgang Schäuble or CSU leader Edmund Stoiber. In response to this, Späth was seen to have centralized power, at the expense of rivals and the CSU. An unintended side-effect of this centralization was that Späth had (in essence) presidentialised the CDU/CSU in his image, which proved personally catastrophic for him in light of the economic recession Germany was suffering.

Meanwhile, the SPD had seemingly returned to electability. After a crushing defeat in 1991, the party united around Rudolf Scharping, the Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate. Whilst criticised for being boring and dull, his ability to balance the SPD (between the ‘New Ideas’ Gerhard Schröder and socialist Oskar Lafontaine) with his informal ‘troika’, saw the party constituted as a united force for 1995. With a campaign focused on the domestic issues, with little mention of Europe, the SPD resonated with voters.

The Citizens’ Alliance (Bürger Bündnis/BB) was the likely kingmakers according to pre-election polling. The Alliance was a collection of liberal, green, and democratic activists and parties from former East Germany, which unlike the Western Green Party, had survived the 1991 election. With no representation, the Citizen’s Alliance was able to leverage its charismatic members (such as Joachim Gauck, Matthias Platzeck and Marianne Birthler) and parliament representation to co-opt the Greens and in essence become the de-facto green political party, albeit being more prominent in the East than the West. Joachim Gauck, the first elected leader of the united party, clearly positioned themselves a green democratic alternative and made overtures to both SPD and CDU/CSU voters. Gauck also made clear that (against the fundamentals ‘fundis’ wishes) that the Green’s would be open to working with the SPD in government.

The FDP, excluded from Späth’s majority government, became consumed with internal strife, with its social liberal and economic liberal wings in competition with the other. Languishing in the polls, the FDP saw itself fall to fourth place, the worst result for the party since WWII. The PDS, the successor to the East Germany Communist party, also struggled in this new climate and failed to meet the electoral threshold for proportional seats in the Bundestag. Alongside this, the PDS saw Gregor Gysi, its leader accused of being Stasi agent, which raised controversy. Despite this, Gysi was re-elected to his Berlin seat alongside Petra Pau.

The campaign saw the SPD successfully translate widespread public resentment at Späth into support for the party, allowing them to enjoy a corresponding surge in their vote share to become the largest party (for the first time since 1972) in the Bundestag. Alongside this historic achievement for the SPD, voters elected a majority of its representatives from parties which were left-of-centre (counting the SPD, BB and PDS), for the first time in the Bundestag’s history. Accordingly, Scharping invited Gauck into coalition, which was quickly accepted, with Gauck being Foreign Minister. Scharping would make reducing unemployment the main objective of his new government.

 

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A.N. This update is dedicated to @Time Enough who wanted Irish politics, but probably not like this.

Fianna Fáil has dominated Irish politics and public life, so much so, it would be accurate to describe Ireland as being under a de-facto political hegemony, with Fianna Fáil resembling political parties such as Japan’s LDP, Mexico’s PRI and (pre-‘mani pulite’) Italy’s CD’s. Further, with Irish politics being profoundly populist and localist in both its nature and culture, Fianna Fáil was able to maintain this hegemony by continually shift its politics, appealing to different groups whilst remaining ideologically and politically coherent. Fine Gael’s Garrett FitzGerald’s government which ran Ireland between 1982 and 1986 (which saw the liberal Fine Gael form a coalition with the democratic socialist Labour party) was largely fruitless, with an unpopular economic programme and minimal progress made towards the Irish peace process. Charles Haughey’s return to office, with an absolute majority, was a bitter disappointment for those opposed to Fianna Fáil but, ultimately, represented a return to the status quo.

The 1990 Irish Presidential election, however, represented the beginning of a change to this status quo, which had defined Irish politics since 1921. Brian Lenihan, the Tánaiste and a Fianna Fáil grandee, was a flawed candidate, mired with accusations of misleading the public on national TV about whether he placed political pressure on President Hillery in 1982. Lenihan was also seen to have escalated the situation by insulting voters by saying that their concerns were akin to a “storm in a teacup”. Calls for his removal as Deputy Leader were ignored by Fianna Fáil, with Haughey not wanting to stir the controversy further which would overshadow the campaign. FitzGerald and Spring (the former leaders of their respective parties during the former PM’s coalition and both the Presidential nominees) largely campaigned on an anti-Lenihan message in response to this. This controversy saw, for the first time since 1945, Fianna Fáil’s candidate failing to win the first count outright, forcing a second count, and only then, managing to win 50.4% of the vote, the lowest margin for a victorious candidate for President recorded in Irish history. The close result was seen as a sign of concern for Haughey and Fianna Fáil who, whilst succeeded in electing Lenihan, observed a growing trend against the party.

The 1992 election reflected this trend, with Fianna Fáil, whilst still the dominant party, falling considerably short of a majority. Michael Noonan of Fine Gael was an effective leader who saw his party gain a considerable amount of seats. The left, meanwhile, continued to struggle with working-class voters divided between the Workers’ Party, Labour, Greens and Fine Gael. Without a charismatic leader in Spring, Labour seemed lost to decline, and in a shock, polled fourth in vote share, losing out to the Progressive Democrats.

Meanwhile, both before and after the election, Haughey faced serious allegations of corrupt practices after a number of allegations were raised by the Granada Television programme World in Action, relating to tax fraud, falsification of documents and weights of beef and government favouritism towards certain beef companies, particularly those of beef baron Larry Goodman.

Haughey thanks to this, went into the post-election negotiations weak, but luckily for him, Fine Gael’s position proved weaker. Noonan was unable to form an anti-Fianna Fáil coalition, thanks to the weak position of the Labour Party, shell-shocked by the result and so were in no condition to run government departments. An attempt by Fianna Fáil to enter coalition with Labour also failed, for the same reasons. Thus, Haughney was forced to enter a coalition with the Progressive Democrats. These negotiations were especially difficult for Haughney as not only had PD leader Desmond ‘Des’ O’Malley, left Fianna Fáil because of Haughey’s leadership and socially conservative policies he had instituted. It was also a PD demand that a political tribunal would be established (which had not been used to investigate corruption allegations prior) to investigate ‘Beefgate’. Whilst an agreement was eventually reached, these tensions only hastened Haughey’s retirement as PM.

In the resulting leadership election, the two titans of the Fianna Fáil, Bertie Ahern (representing the urban, modern wing) and Albert Reynolds (representing the so-called ‘country and western’, rural wing) fought for the leadership. Ahern successfully argued that if Fianna Fáil was to return to single-party government, then it needed a leader who could appeal and win back urban areas (Dublin), which had begun to reject the party in favour of Fine Gael and the Progressive Democrats. This, with Haughhey’s backing, who had come to despise Reynolds for his attempts to undermine his leadership and hasten his retirement in the early 1990s, saw Ahern win by a large margin.

Ahern was far more comfortable in coalition than either Haughey was, or Reynolds would have been. He also represented a new and fresher face for Fianna Fáil and was more in tune with the changes Irish society was undergoing in the 1990s. Working with British PM Robin Cook, Ahern signed the much-delayed Anglo-Irish Agreement in August 1995, with hope the Agreement would reduce tensions on the island and offer a practical path to peace on the island. Alongside this, Irish society was moving towards a more liberal place as a result of the advent of the interweb and concurrent European-wide socio-cultural changes.

These changes would finally achieve political results in the 1995 presidential election, held after the death of the incumbent President Leinhan. Leinhan, a controversial figure since his victory in 1990, self-styled as the “People’s President” proved increasingly out-of-touch with the public, with his populist charm having worn off. His death of a heart attack in September led to a minor constitutional crisis, before it was decided that en election should be held in October, for a seven-year term. In-keeping with tradition, Fianna Fáil nominated Minister of Justice and party grandee Albert Reynolds to become President despite his own controversial nature and the questions raised by the Beef Inquiry about his behaviour. The campaign would become a proxy for the culture and identity issues which had been dividing Ireland since the divorce and abortion referendums. Reynolds was a social conservative from the rural west whilst his main opponent was Fine Gael’s Mary Banotti, a single mother of two (when such was frowned upon in Ireland) from Dublin and a feminist who co-founded Women’s Aid. With Labour’s Adi Roche’s presidential campaign being derailed after serious allegations of her bullying fellow charity workers, the race morphed into a two-way fight between Banotti and Reynolds. By the end of the campaign it became clear that that Reynolds needed a first round knock-out as most of Roche’s second-preference votes (alongside other candidates) would go to Banotti. This would prove correct when the votes were counted and so, with an unexpected and sizeable margin, Banotti had been elected President, becoming the first female, and the first Fine Gael one at that. It was as if a new dawn had broken for Ireland.

 

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The Rwandan Conflict has become synonymous with the ‘New War’ (the term coined by British academic Mary Kaldor), the next stage of global politics which would follow the end of the Cold War. Rwanda, originally a one-party dictatorship under President (and Hutu) Juvénal Habyarimana from 1975-1990, saw with the end of the Cold War, international as well as internal pressure for political reform. Due to this, in July 1990, Habyarimana would institute democratic reforms in order to transition Rwanda from a one-party state into a multi-party democracy.

However, this would not be an inclusive democracy. Habyarimana stated that Rwanda had “no room” for 500,000 mostly Tutsi refugees living in exile, which led to them forming the Rwandan People’s Front (RPF). The RPF, led by Paul Kagame, initiated a civil war from their Ugandan base, in an attempt to remove Habyarimana from power. The Rwandan Civil War would last for two bloody years, before concluding in the Arusha Accords, which would agree a form of power-sharing, alongside allowing for both the Organization for African Unity and the United Nations, specifically, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), to establish footholds in the nation to maintain the peace. However, these tentative steps towards a settlement would be derailed with the assassination of President Habyarimana on April 6, 1994.

Habyarimana’s plane would be shot down when landing in Kigali , leading to a political crisis and power vacuum. Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, constitutionally Rwanda's new head of state and of government, attempted to consolidate power with the UNAMIR sending 10 Belgium bodyguards to protect her. Opposite her was the military, dominated by Hutu-supremacists, who sought to remove her from office and initiate a genocide against both the Tutsis and those supportive of them. Uwilingiyimana was attacked in her house, which was sieged the Rwanda military. Her bodyguards, by fighting back, allowed the PM and her family to escape out of the compound. Hearing further reports of the U.N. volunteer compound being attacked in the search for the PM on Radio Rwanda, saw Uwilingiyimana seeking refuge in Hôtel des Mille Collines, which was housing multiple other refugees and foreign nations at the time. The UN’s evacuation of foreign nationals two days later, also saw the PM evacuated with her family, rightly fearing her safety if left in Rwanda. When the UN evacuation was discovered, the military encouraged a brutal campaign against UNAMIR personnel left in the nation, leading to further international condemnation.

With the PM having escaped, control of the nation fell to an extremist, far-right and Hutu-dominated military junta called the ‘Crisis Committee’ which began to direct the army, militias, and ordinary citizens to kill Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The violence began in Kigali, but soon spread nationwide. Meanwhile, the RPF-controlled areas saw a flood of refugees but would do little to help those being killed in government areas, seeing winning the civil war as being the more important objective.

It would be a meeting between Thompson and Cheney on April 12 that saw the US commit to intervening in Rwanda, in part after a plea from Uwilingiyimana, now in exile in Tanzania. Beginning with air strikes (and the unilateral declaration of a no-fly zone above Rwanda) on the committee’s airfields, military bases, and troop movements, the US flexed its military might. This strategy originally seemed to pay dividends in stopping the genocide, but military experts soon concluded that due to the scale and nature of the conflict, it would be difficult to end the genocide without active troops of the ground. It would take a month for US to establish a foothold in the nation, following the Battle of Kigali. During this month, over 200,000 civilians would be killed.

After the Battle of Kigali, the US soon found themselves occupying a hostile, ethnographically diverse and foreign nation, in the middle of a three-way war, between the Crisis Committee, RPF and the constitutional government-in-exile led by Uwilingiyimana. Despite this, casualties were low on the US side, thanks to Wesley Clark’s leadership and effective ‘decapitation’ policies against the Crisis Committee and militias, which saw the arrest or killing of leaders and key organisers by US special forces. However, US troops would be unable to stop mass murder outside of the urban areas of Rwanda, forcing a recalibration of military strategy. Allying with the RPF, the US gave weapons and aid to the RPF, to better stop the continuing violence. Most of the fighting in the rural areas would thus be done by the RPF, which defeated both the national army and the Hutu militias, with US support. By August 1994, the genocide was deemed to be officially over by the United Nations.

This allowed the US and the UN (led by Roméo Dallaire, who had gained a prominent profile in both the US and Canada, thanks to his role as a UNAMIR commander) to negotiate a ceasefire of the civil war in December 1994, which would see US troops remain for a year, supporting the interim government, before being withdrawn. A government of national unity was created which was RPF-led but included members of eight political parties, with the creation of a dual Premiership, with a First PM and Deputy PM taken by RPF’s Paul Kagame and former PM Uwilingiyimana. It was a cautious peace, but a stable one.

 

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John Hewson’s victory in 1993 saw the Coalition enter government but would find itself unable to enact its agenda. Thanks to the close election result (where the Coalition lost the 2pp vote), Hewson was unable to implement many parts of the economically austere Fightback!. In recognition of the weak parliamentary position of the Coalition, saw the government instead, focus on the centrepiece of Fightback!, the GST. In a charged and divisive parliamentary debate, Hewson eventually saw through the introduction of the deeply unpopular Goods and Service Tax (GST), which made both the government historically unpopular and drained all the political capital and goodwill that Hewson had gained in 1993. Attempts to reduce red-tape, change labour laws and cut corporation tax fell by the wayside, with government attention soon being diverted to dealing with the biting mid-1990s recession.

Internally within the Liberal Party, Hewson's position was in an even more tenuous position than his party's. Many MPs saw Hewson as having 'blown' 1993 and distrusted Hewson’s commitment to republicanism and his social liberal bent. These issues did little to help buoy his internal party popularity, especially with the National Party continually sniping at Hewson’s ineffective leadership. So, with the government unpopular and party tensions high, cabinet ministers like John Howard and Peter Costello would engage in a briefing war against Hewson, characterising him as 'aloof' and unable to manage the Liberal Party, let alone the country, effectively.

These briefings and internal party strife eventually culminated in a leadership spill in Autumn 1994, where Hewson narrowly retained the support of the party. In an attempt to clear the air, Hewson announced that he would not be running for re-election, but would remain PM until 1996, when he would resign and a leadership contest would follow. This announcement, instead of strengthening his hand, sealed his fate. Triggering this was an unprecedented by-election defeat in Kooyong in November 1994, the seat of former Liberal leader Andrew Peacock, which also saw the government lose its majority (and elect the first Green MP Peter Singer, in Australian history in the process). By January 1995, Hewson was faced with another leadership spill, but this time, he was not as lucky. Hewson was deposed by the main agitator against him, John Howard.

Howard’s first act as Prime Minister was to reverse the GST and gain independent support for the government from the 2 Independent MPs elected in 1993. Phil Cleary and Ted Mack, the two independents, reluctantly chose to support the government, to gain government monies for their constituencies alongside a pledge that Howard would legislate for a referendum on the monarchy before the millennium.

Howard, against Opposition Leader Kim Beazley (who had defeated Paul Keating in an April 1995 leadership spill), met a worthy match. Polling concurred, and despite a small bounce for Howard after the repeal of the GST, Beazley effectively countered that Labor would never have introduced it in the first place. Howard, therefore, was forced to spend 1995 attempting to make up from the polling deficit which had grown since the 1993 election, which was a difficult task considering the recession Australia had found itself in.

When the election was called for March 9, 1996, polling predicted a Labour landslide, which could see the Coalition fall as low as 45 seats. Whilst Howard proved a more adept campaigner than Hewson before him, ultimately Beazley never lost the initiative or his popularity. In a landslide, albeit not as grand as once predicted, Beazley returned Labor to government and begun preparations for the upcoming referendum on whether Australia would become a republic.

 

[Nevran]

By 1996, despite Labour's landslide majority in Parliament, Cook was struggling to achieve his agenda, especially with regards to increased spending and European monetary integration. The reason for this was the struggle lay primarily in Number 11, with his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, who had both centralised power and was unafraid of bucking Cook's agenda and telling Number 10, 'no'. When Cook and Brown had been aligned during their first term, achievements included establishing an independent central bank and creating a national minimum wage. By the second term, this alignment had began to break down and tensions grew.

The main issue between the men proved to be disagreements on the common currency, now preliminary named the ecu (the name derived from the European Currency Unit). Cook saw adoption of a European common currency as desirable, seeing the currency as complementing both his modernizing and pro-Europe agenda. Brown, however, privately resisted moves towards the adoption of the ecu, fearful of the political and economic effects such a move would cause, alongside the loss of power Number 11 would undoubtedly suffer.

Brown attempted a compromise, one which involved a series of independent economic tests on whether Britain should adopt the ecu, but Cook (rightly) saw this as a potential off-ramp for Brown to take, considering the economic tests would be, in essence, self-marked by Brown. Complementing the policy clashes was their continually fractious relationship, who despite their 1991 agreement, were mutually distrustful of and disliked each other. These disagreements began to spill over into the Labour Party at large. Cabinet Members soon felt pressure to ‘pick sides’, between Cook and Brown. MPs who hoped for promotion into ministries would start to position themselves accordingly. So began the next series of divisions in Labour, the Modernizers (Mods) versus the Rockers (Rocks). The Mods were led by Brown, Tony Blair and Jack Straw versus the Rocks, consisting of Robin Cook, Margaret Beckett and Gavin Strang. Both groups and both men would orbit the other, waiting for the other to strike first. This uneasy peace would last until May 1996.

It was a leak from the Guardian that forced Cook’s hand. A source from within Number 11 said that Brown (after a shouting match between the Chancellor and his staff) was openly plotting against Cook and talking about being PM before 2000, making preliminary plans for a potential cabinet. In the week that followed, the once private tensions in both Number 11 and Labour-as-a-whole began to be played out in public. The week of leaks which followed were a series of damaging stories about the hostile workplace created by Brown in Number 11, with Brown acting like a mini-dictator, bullying staffers and becoming overly reliant on special advisers. Labour was unable to escape this week unscathed either, with newspapers beginning to identify, the once-hidden, divides in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).

It would be on the morning of the 19th of May which finally saw the end of Brown. Cook, sensing the opportunity after the torrid week previously, tried to reign in Brown. The details remain sketchy about the meeting which followed, as both Brown and Cook refused to disclose what was discussed behind closed doors. What is known, however, is that after a short ten minute meeting between the men, Brown was seen leaving Number 10, where journalists quickly discovered that Robin Cook had fired Brown as Chancellor.

Shocked and angered by Cook, Brown attempted to launch a coup and began to rally support in the party. However, Brown found himself, probably for the first time in his career, one step behind his opponent. Cook, after sacking Brown immediately initiated a massive government reshuffle. Unbeknownst to Brown, the press reports of who Brown would have in his Cabinet had prompted similar action from Number 10, planned for the eventuality that Brown would quit. Replacing Brown, was Cook ally and veteran Labour politician Margaret Beckett, both a historic choice and someone seen to be more amenable to the ecu. In a widely perceived slight to Brown, (and a slight which destroyed Brown's attempted coup), Tony Blair was appointed and accepted the role of Foreign Secretary, replacing Jack Cunningham. The move was both a major promotion for Blair and deprived Brown of one of his closest allies in the PLP. Cook had, in essence, replaced one big beast in Cabinet with another, but at least this one was in a less critical position and more supportive of Cook's agenda. Also, included in the reshuffle was the sacking of Brownites in cabinet, with the most well-known victim of reshuffle being Chief Secretary to the Treasury Harriet Harman, who was replaced by Chris Smith. Meanwhile, loyal cabinet members like Frank Dobson, Gavin Strang and Ron Davies remained in their positions or saw promotions, to replace gaps left by Brownites in government.

The move was both easily comparable to and reminiscent of Harold Macmillan’s ‘Night of the Long Knives’. The move was as unpopular as Macmillan's dramatic 1962 reshuffle too. Conservative leader Chris Patten attacked the government for creating “chaos and upheaval” as Labour fell behind the Conservative Party in polling for the first time since 1993, as a result of the reshuffle and the firing of Brown (who was one of the more popular members of Cabinet). Cook, however, took this criticism in his stride. To the Prime Minister, he saw the move as a necessary evil, one in which that meant he could forge ahead with his agenda, not Brown’s.