Made Glorious: A 1960s TL

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Four. Homecoming



March 8th, 1965


Noel Kemp couldn’t help but find the new Parliament mildly bemusing – nothing more so than the fact that, with two elections under his belt and a parliamentary service of little over a month – he was now one of the more senior figures in the Liberal Party – and two of them, the rather talented pair of Steel and MacKay from Scottish constiuencies – were even younger than him. If Jo really was planning to step do - and he was called out of his reverie by a chorus of Labour cheers as the Leader of the Opposition sat back down after some remark.

The Prime Minister stood up – and after one still moment, spoke. “If he spent less time on my parentage and more on the problems facing this country – the British people might not have discarded his party in a matter of months. I am willing to defend my background for as long as Mr. Wilson is willing to stay in opposition.”

Douglas-Home smiled in a way that was very far from friendly, as the Conservative benches whooped and hollered and Labour seethed. The member from Huyton himself had an poisonous expression with a hint of – something indefinable.


April 2nd, 1965


“Weakness – that’s what it is.” the new Chancellor muttered to the new Housing Minister.

Anthony Barber was a little taken aback at this. “Are you quite sure ? At least another election in him surely, like, well… ”

“Hugh Gaitskell didn’t get thrown out of government after four months, did he? Didn’t essentially stake his whole reputation on a mandate that – I confess – I thought he’d get. And Wilson has all the old Gaitskellites to contend with now – and his fumbled pact with the Liberals can’t have pleased the Left.”

A smirk at this. “Looking a bit like MacDonald, isn’t he?”

“I suppose.” Ted Heath sighed. “A party leader really has to know when to go.”


April 6th, 1965


“Seventeen percent is – really a very decent result Jo.” Noel muttered.

“Hardly a breakthrough though, is it? We got twenty percent in Saffron Walden in the general election and now – back to being a wasted vote again.”

“We were never going to win there – and the Conservatives were certainly determined to retain Butler’s seat after the viscountcy. No reason to well – slip into a funk over it.”

Grimond pursed his lips at this. “I can hardly rail at Home as a tired old man when I put him back in office. We did well – very well – in terms of seats, but the parties simply don’t need us again – and after the electorate threw out Mr. Wilson, I don’t think any party will be terribly keen to try a deal in future either. I – I’m proud to have fought three elections as leader and for how very well we’ve done – and I hope I know when to leave on a high note.”

“So, Jeremy?”

“Probably.”


April 13th, 1965


James Callaghan looked at the note one more time, with a confusion that he didn’t really feel.

Douglas Jay and Patrick Gordon-Walker wanted to meet with him at some restaurant in Islington.

He frowned.

***

Douglas-Home Cabinet (4th March 1965)


Prime Minister: Alec Douglas-Home
Lord Chancellor: Lord Dilhorne
Lord President of the Council: Quintin Hogg
Lord Privy Seal: Selwyn Lloyd
Chancellor of the Exchequer: Ted Heath
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs: Christopher Soames
Secretary of State for the Home Department: Reggie Maudling
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: Lord Drumalbyn
Secretary of State for the Colonies and for Commonwealth Relations: Duncan Sandys
Secretary of State for Defence: Peter Thorneycroft
Secretary of State for Education and Science: Iain MacLeod
Minister of Housing and Local Government: Anthony Barber
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster: Hugh Fraser
Minister of Overseas Development: Julian Amery
Minister of Power: John Peyton
Minister of Technology: Enoch Powell
President of the Board of Trade: Keith Joseph
Minister of Labour: Peter Thomas
Minister of Health: Mervyn Pike
Minister of Transport: Robert Carr



 
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Five. Stepped So High



July, 1966.

The congressman slings his jaw defiantly. “Just answer the question already Ms. Capomacchia – you’ve taken up enough of the commission’s time.”

She smiles disarmingly at this, like a schoolteacher with a rather obdurate child. She really was a schoolteacher, he remembers with a jolt.

“Rhodesia.”

“What?”

“It was his speech on Rhodesia – when the talks between Ian Smith and uh Douglas, Douglas Hume-”

“The Fourteenth Earl of Home, go on.”


“I heard it exactly on the radio, Johnson said-” A faint grumble came from the audience at this. “President Johnson said – that Rhodesian independence would be intolerable without a formula to give Black Rhodesians power – he wanted to give them the whip hand over the white man.”

“Ms. Capo-”

“HE WANTED TO HAND WHITE RHODESIAN MEN AND WOMEN OVER TO THE ‘LOVING CARE’ OF UNEDUCATED SAVAGE N-”


“MS. CAPOMACCHIA!” Congressman Ford’s fist hit the table – he winced. “Just shut up – shut up! That will be quite enough.”

***

From “Sitting on the Dispatch Box” by Noel Picarda-Kemp, Baron Picarda of Bosworth

Foreign affairs wasn’t my strong suit as of 1965 – my faculty with foreign languages and general interest in the military covered up considerable gaps of knowledge – and the cauldron that was Rhodesia at the time was one of them.

So at the time I mostly stood back while Jeremy, with an eye to the leadership, tore into the flailing Conservative government. Douglas-Home himself was the catalyst for once – normally a smooth political operator, on Rhodesia he was strangely inclined to rush to an independence deal. Home had a willing partner in Ian Smith, who had been pleasantly surprised to see Wilson defeated after a few months, and was aware that the Conservative majority might not hold. After Smith’s lopsided victory in the May election in Rhodesia – he felt open to pursuing negotiations – and Home for his part was still dedicated to independence ‘within the year’ as he had unwisely put it.

In other words, Home, Smith, and Duncan Sandys were all motivated to rush to an agreement – and I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised that the end product was less than impressive when it came to guaranteeing the rights of black Rhodesians.

Alongside an overly long transition period to majority rule, the independence deal’s worst bits were actually in the realm of psephology. I won’t bore you with the details of course – suffice it to say that the constituent seat and district seat veto gave Josiah Gondo power in practice but sounded mildly damning in principle. Then of course there was the goddamned ‘consultation’ that Home proposed to test Rhodesian sentiment in the deal. In practice of course it meant another indaba or tribal council – which would both be antiquated and in practice a undemocratic dodge around real disapproval of the deal by black Rhodesians.


***

July, 1965

Jeremy Thorpe grinned like a shark. “Of course the Prime Minister would be in favor of another Indaba – that’s how he became Conservative leader in the first place.”

Home and Macleod winced almost in unison.


***

From “My Life in Politics” by David Penhaligon


The 1965 Liberal leadership election was the first one I paid keen attention to, and as much as I felt personally loyal to Noel I had to admit Jeremy Thorpe was on the top of his form at the moment – vexing the government over Rhodesia and pretty clearly taking command of the left of the party.

The remainder of the MPs split into various movements to ‘Stop Thorpe’ – Noel was the darling of the moment while Roderic Bowen was the old standard-bearer and Eric Lubbock was poised somewhere in between the two with at least a modicum of experience and that legendary win in Orpington. I wasn’t overly shocked when the first vote of MPs went 12-6-6-5, with the tailing candidate of course being…
 
Well, Rhodesia is going to be someone else's problem then?
Home is (as in OTL) really just trying to get a quick resolution to the problem.

Writing this update actually, a rather different course of events occurred to me - had Grimond actually gone for a coalition deal we would probably see Thorpe pushing the Wilson government towards an even harder position on Rhodesia - and military intervention in Rhodesia really deserves it's own timeline.
 
Home is (as in OTL) really just trying to get a quick resolution to the problem.

Writing this update actually, a rather different course of events occurred to me - had Grimond actually gone for a coalition deal we would probably see Thorpe pushing the Wilson government towards an even harder position on Rhodesia - and military intervention in Rhodesia really deserves it's own timeline.

Something which could have gone wrong in so many different ways really.
 
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