The Granita Explosion

No-one is quite sure how the fire started.

Some say a stressed waiter lit a cigarette while on his way to the back door and some stray ash set alight a pile of dishcloths. Others believe a gas leak was ignited by a fire in a waste paper basket. The police investigation ruled out foul play, but this has not ended suspicion of gangland racketeers, dissident Republicans or even conspiring operatives of MI5 as the sources of an explosive device.

However it happened, that night's news in 1994 would quickly become the most dramatic in recent British history, and indeed until 11 September 2001. What began as a third-up story on the 9 O'Clock News reporting an explosion that had gutted an London Italian restaurant became an instant newsflash around the country, and soon the globe, when the press office of the Labour Party issued the following statement at 9:31pm:

'It is with great distress that we must confirm that the Shadow Home Secretary and the Shadow Chancellor have not been heard from since six o'clock this evening. Mr Blair's wife has informed us that he had told her his plans this evening were to visit an Italian restaurant in the vicinity of the Granita, with Mr Brown in attendance. A third man, Peter Mandelson, also told friends tonight that he would be at such a restaurant. While we are not yet assuming the worst, we would implore anyone who has had any contact with any of these men to contact the authorities immediately.'

Within minutes the police presence at the site had tripled, and the search of the rubble for bodies intensified. At 10:17pm, a wallet containing the Labour membership card of Tony Blair was found. By midnight, the bodies of Peter Mandelson, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair were laid out in the street as ambulances queued up to take them onwards.​

The question is, dear AH.com users, what would happen next? This isn't a TL, just a creative way of opening a discussion. Smith, Blair, Brown and Mandelson disappear from the political scene forever in the space of a month - what for Labour in the future? How does the post-Smith leadership election go? Who wins in 1996/1997? What does Britain look like today?
 
Last edited:
No-one is quite sure how the fire started.

Some say a stressed waiter lit a cigarette while on his way to the back door and some stray ash set alight a pile of dishcloths. Others believe a gas leak was ignited by a fire in a waste paper basket. The police investigation ruled out foul play, but this has not ended suspicion of gangland racketeers, dissident Republicans or even conspiring operatives of MI5 as the sources of an explosive device.

However it happened, that night's news in 1994 would quickly become the most dramatic in recent British history, and indeed until 11 September 2001. What began as a third-up story on the 9 O'Clock News reporting an explosion that had gutted an London Italian restaurant became an instant newsflash around the country, and soon the globe, when the press office of the Labour Party issued the following statement at 9:31pm:

'It is with great distress that we must confirm that the Shadow Home Secretary and the Shadow Chancellor have not been heard from since six o'clock this evening. Mr Blair's wife has informed us that he had told her his plans this evening were to visit an Italian restaurant in the vicinity of the Granita, with Mr Brown in attendance. A third man, Peter Mandelson, also told friends tonight that he would be at such a restaurant. While we are not yet assuming the worst, we would implore anyone who has had any contact with any of these men to contact the authorities immediately.'

Within minutes the police presence at the site had tripled, and the search of the rubble for bodies intensified. At 10:17pm, a wallet containing the Labour membership card of Tony Blair was found. By midnight, the bodies of Peter Mandelson, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair were laid out in the street as ambulances queued up to take them onwards.​
The question is, dear AH.com users, what would happen next? This isn't a TL, just a creative way of opening a discussion. Smith, Blair, Brown and Mandelson disappear from the political scene forever in the space of a month - what for Labour in the future? How does the post-Smith leadership election go? Who wins in 1996/1997? What does Britain look like today?

Britain in 2010 looks a damn sight better for a start as we haven't had an over profligate bunch in charge. After all a rump Labour led by Beckett, Straw and Prescott would hardly do well at the polls. Oh and Harriet Harperson too my God what are people thinking voting for someone like that?
 
What happens in the Labour leadership election? Assuming Robin Cook doesn't change his mind (he'd ruled himself out on the grounds of being too ugly), then it's probably between Margaret Beckett and (don't laugh) John Prescott - although the likes of Jack Straw and David Blunkett would be tempted to throw their hats in the ring I would have thought.

If Prescott wins (not as ridiculous as it sounds, he has always been popular in the party and came second in the OTL election) then I can frankly see him being almost as disastrous a leader as Michael Foot, and quite possibly the only one who could lead Labour to defeat in the 1997 election.

Any of the others would be a safe pair of hands who could be relied on to win a general election, although without all the "brave new world" stuff. The majority would be much smaller though and, especially if Cook is Chancellor (the job he really wanted), the government is going to be a lot less "new" Labour and a lot more authentically left wing. This government will last one or two terms, tops. On the positive side, with Mandelson dead and Campbell presumably marginalised (as well as creatures like Balls and Whelan lacking the patronage of Brown to get them close to the top) then the degrading of British political culture that has been such a malign feature of the last 13 years will not have occured to anything like the same extent. Oh, and it's extremely unlikely such a government will commit forces to the Iraq War.
 
John Major's government was tired and the country was fed up with it. Labour would still win in 1997 but with a reduced majority. The Libdems would be the big winners here.
However, without the charisma of Blair they would be unlikely to gain a second term. A third term would be out of reach.
Prime Minister William Hague in 2001? How would that affect Britain's response to 9/11 and the war on terror?
 
Prime Minister William Hague in 2001? How would that affect Britain's response to 9/11 and the war on terror?

It's unlikely to be Hague. A significantly reduced labour majority means Portillo almost certainly holds on in Enfield North and becomes party leader. God knows he has his flaws, but he'll be much more credible as a PM candidate in 2001 than Hague.
 
Well, it wouldn't eventually become "Desperados" Mexican restaurant, with the most, shall we say, colourful, toilets in north London. It would be a significant loss to my occasional nights out on the lash on Upper Street.

;)
 

Thande

Donor
I don't think 9/11 would happen the same way with a POD in 1994.

As for the Labour leadership election: Prescott or Beckett win. With a traditionalist in charge, Labour has Kinnock 2.0. People still hate the Major government but aren't too enthusiastic about its replacement. Probable result: hung parliament and reluctant Labour-Lib Dem coalition or informal support. Labour may scrape a majority but it'll be a small one.
 
I don't think 9/11 would happen the same way with a POD in 1994.

I considered that, then thought no. What is going to be butterflied by this? Apart from, obviously, literal butterflies, which are somewhat pointless. A different Labour PM in 1996/97 isn't going to change the result of the 2000 Presidential Election, nor the ensuing terrorist attacks in September 2001. So no, I disagree with you there.

I think you may be onto something with the Beckett/Prescott lineup. But who from the right would stand? Surely somebody would throw their hat in - Straw wouldn't be very happy with a big bellied Union man and the female Michael Foot being the only contenders.
 
Bryan Gould will be kicking himself for his bad timing.

If the right needs a figure, Jack Cunningham:)
 

Thande

Donor
I considered that, then thought no. What is going to be butterflied by this? Apart from, obviously, literal butterflies, which are somewhat pointless. A different Labour PM in 1996/97 isn't going to change the result of the 2000 Presidential Election, nor the ensuing terrorist attacks in September 2001. So no, I disagree with you there.

Yes they will. For a start, who is in power in Britain will affect how the Balkan crisis is handled, which was fairly significant to Clinton's second term. Part of the divide between Bush and Gore (assuming they are nominated like OTL) was on foreign policy experience - and that was pretty much the only difference, people tend to forget nowadays that at the time Americans mostly dismissed Bush and Gore as virtually indistinguishable. Now if the Balkan crisis goes differently, as it probably will with a less interventionist and Atlanticist British PM, how Clinton and by extension Gore will be viewed with respect for foreign policy will be different. For example, events like the Srebenica Massacre only worse could be blamed on a lack of American interventionism without an Atlanticist Britain to work with, which could plague an election bid by Gore as he tended to paint himself as key to the Clinton White House's diplomatic efforts.

As for 9/11, it happened as it did in OTL mainly because Al-Qaeda failed with several other spectacular attacks involving planes, such as one aimed at the Eiffel Tower in 2000. These could easily be butterflied by a different British government, different relations with Europe and America, different transnational security protocols and so forth.
 

Thande

Donor
I stand corrected. Your mastery of geopolitical butterflies has put me to shame!

That's OK. It comes from the research I did for LTTW. You realise that even if you ignore chaos theory, once you start digging, bizarre copincidences crop up like a Chinese politician only going into his career because of a chance encounter with a western diplomat you just killed off a couple of months before his OTL death in the last chapter.
 

Tovarich

Banned
Donald Dewar goes for national leader rather than just the SLP?
Not so much Kinnock 2.0 as John Smith 2.0, quite smooth and reassuring to the electorate.
Robin Cook for Chancellor.
And keep Prescott as deputy as per OTL as an 'enforcer', he was actually quite effective when given something meaningful (and possible) to do. He only became a clown when he got bored.

Mid-'90s, the press still had far more influence than now, and it wouldn't take too much sucking of Murdoch to get them onside, because apart from anything else he likes his papers to be associated with winners, very much wanting another "It's the sun wot won it" moment, and nothing was going to rescue the Conservatives by '97, they'd totally self-destructed as being financially competent almost as soon as the '92 election was over by dropping their own 'tax whammy', and as for the 'Back to Basics'....I still rofpmsl every time I think about it:D

No reason that Labour can't win at least 2 terms, and if they keep us out of Iraq they could still be in now.
 
Does anyone wish to give me their thoughts on Gould, with regards to his prospects

I wasn't in the UK during the period he was prominent, but I was in NZ when he returned home and he had a reasonably high profile given his former success in the UK. I do remember reading an interview with him in a NZ newspaper where he said that he'd arrived in the UK as a young man with tory sympathies, but he quickly lost such sympathy once he saw the UK version of such
 
Yes they will. For a start, who is in power in Britain will affect how the Balkan crisis is handled, which was fairly significant to Clinton's second term. Part of the divide between Bush and Gore (assuming they are nominated like OTL) was on foreign policy experience - and that was pretty much the only difference, people tend to forget nowadays that at the time Americans mostly dismissed Bush and Gore as virtually indistinguishable. Now if the Balkan crisis goes differently, as it probably will with a less interventionist and Atlanticist British PM, how Clinton and by extension Gore will be viewed with respect for foreign policy will be different. For example, events like the Srebenica Massacre only worse could be blamed on a lack of American interventionism without an Atlanticist Britain to work with, which could plague an election bid by Gore as he tended to paint himself as key to the Clinton White House's diplomatic efforts.

As for 9/11, it happened as it did in OTL mainly because Al-Qaeda failed with several other spectacular attacks involving planes, such as one aimed at the Eiffel Tower in 2000. These could easily be butterflied by a different British government, different relations with Europe and America, different transnational security protocols and so forth.
An very good way to progress this timeline and look at the potential butterflies would be to watch Michael Sheen's trilogy of Tony Blair films.

"The Deal", obviously covering the Granita deal
"The Queen", covering the death of Diana (less important to this TL)
"Special Relationship", covering the relationship between Blair and Clinton, particulary with regard to the former Yugoslavia

Obviously works of semi-fiction and not a strict trilogy, but nevertheless good films in their own right.
 

Tovarich

Banned
Does anyone wish to give me their thoughts on Gould, with regards to his prospects
Truth be told Julius, nobody in the party really liked him very much.

He was just such a snide, false-friend to your face then slag you off behind your back, resented the very existence of constituency activists (I've canvassed, leafleted, and knocked-up for some really ungrateful gits in my time, but none as bad as him!) and continually revises everything he's ever said to paint himself in the best possible light.

To be fair, he hasn't played favourites over former shadow-cabinet colleagues; he's slagged every single one of them off in print, attacking their actual characters rather than policy-positions, at any given opportunity.
If he had remained in the UK and somehow fluked in at the 1994 leadership vote (practically ASB anyway, considering how total was his trouncing in '92) there would have been a shadow cabinet more divided and paranoid than the tail-end of Wilson's when he started to lose his marbles.

Add his role as a proto-Mandelson to the mix (ironic, since they hate each other's guts) and I think you can see why I'm glad he fecked off back to NZ.
I only hope, for the sake of kiwi students, that he was a more sympathetic vice-chancellor than he was an MP.
 
Last edited:
Truth be told Julius, nobody in the party really liked him very much.

He was just such a snide, false-friend to your face then slag you off behind your back, resented the very existence of constituency activists (I've canvassed, leafleted, and knocked-up for some really ungrateful gits in my time, but none as bad as him!) and continually revises everything he's ever said to paint himself in the best possible light.

To be fair, he hasn't played favourites over former shadow-cabinet colleagues; he's slagged every single one of them off in print, attacking their actual characters rather than policy-positions, at any given opportunity.
If he had remained in the UK and somehow fluked in at the 1994 leadership vote (practically ASB anyway, considering how total was his trouncing in '92) there would have been a shadow cabinet more divided and paranoid than the tail-end of Wilson's when he started to lose his marbles.

Add his role as a proto-Mandelson to the mix (ironic, since they hate each other's guts) and I think you can see why I'm glad he fecked off back to NZ.
I only hope, for the sake of kiwi students, that he was a more sympathetic vice-chancellor than he was an MP.


That is interesting to hear. He has now moved onto being a professional director I think.

Interestingly, it seems his brother is the guy who popularised Sudoku
 
It's likely New Labour might cease to be or be closer to Old Labour.
As for Iraq, it's VERY unlikely, even with Tory support!
 
Top