The Last Night for the British Right(?)

The thought of Milburn in Number 10 always sent shivers down my spine during the Blair years. There had to be someone better than that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Mandelson

But seriously though, I think it's impossible to predict how events a decade down the line will play out. Really, just as OTL it all depends on Iraq; if there is no Iraq ITTL then I think Labour really could be in for a very long time. They'd almost certainly win in 2009/2010.

(If Milburn did become PM, and that is a massive if, then I think he would wipe the floor with the Tories. Much less so the rest of the Blairite usual suspects.)
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Mandelson

But seriously though, I think it's impossible to predict how events a decade down the line will play out. Really, just as OTL it all depends on Iraq; if there is no Iraq ITTL then I think Labour really could be in for a very long time. They'd almost certainly win in 2009/2010.

(If Milburn did become PM, and that is a massive if, then I think he would wipe the floor with the Tories. Much less so the rest of the Blairite usual suspects.)

Mandelson had disgraced himself by the time Milburn was being talked about. And I always found Milburn to be grotesquely rightist (to the point of making Blair look like Jack Jones) and a slimy, unpleasant operator. Can't quite see him taking on Cameron and winning, myself. But who knows? Perhaps it's worth a brief TL.
 

Thande

Donor
Oh, I was talking in an OTL sense, whereby Milburn, not Brown, succeeds Blair.

I don't think Milburn would have been a particularly good PM, but I'm not sure if it's even physically possible to do worse than Brown.
 
I don't think Milburn would have been a particularly good PM, but I'm not sure if it's even physically possible to do worse than Brown.

YMMV on Brown but I'm inclined to agree. My problem with Milburn is his politics, then his competence.
 
Mandelson had disgraced himself by the time Milburn was being talked about.

I was being flippant. Though actually Milburn was the original 'anyone but Brown' candidate. He was being talked about as such, in tandem with Steve Byers, in the first term, pretty much as soon as he made the cabinet.

The sensible money, though, both ITTL and IOTL, would be on Blair grooming Miliband to take over. Auto-propel his career, put him in as foreign secretary in 2006 or so, give Blair another three years after that and let the economy (and Brown's credibility) tank, and I think he would be a serious candidate rather than the unrealistic Blairite great white hope of 2007 OTL. Not sure he would have the balls or the political dogfighting ability to pull it off though. Crucially it would depend upon him distancing himself, at least to some degree, from Mr Tony Blair - that he is the change candidate and a different quality from both Blair and Brown. Which I don't think David Miliband has the political understanding or tactical ability to do. In fact he gave every indication in 2010 of being physically incapable of doing that. Literally.
 
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A Worse '97

I once put the 1995 local election percentages - Labour 47%, Conservative 25% and Liberal Democrats 23% through the number cruncher and produced this:

Labour 463 seats
Conservative 103 seats
Liberal Democrats 63 seats

That's an overall majority of 276. Among the Tory losses would be Ken Clarke but Hague, Howard and Lilley would all survive to fight out the leadership. I think Howard would win and steward the party until a second but less savage defeat in 2001 after which Hague would take over.
 
I think under those circumstances Labour would split sooner or later:

Why? Because it has to be, purely because the electoral system has to be 'righted'? (on your own subjective terms) That's not how real politics works. There is no god of Whig history pulling the strings. (Quite apart from the ancestral hatred of splits within Labour itself which renders this a null poss)

That's an overall majority of 276. Among the Tory losses would be Ken Clarke but Hague, Howard and Lilley would all survive to fight out the leadership. I think Howard would win and steward the party until a second but less savage defeat in 2001 after which Hague would take over.

I'm not sure Howard would keep his seat on those figures. (Though curiously there was seemingly no tactical voting in his constituency in 97 and the Labour and Lib Dem vote was almost equally shared) In any case I think it's Hague all the way; I can't see any reason to suppose a bigger defeat (and it's worth putting in perspective that 1997 was clearly seen as the massive rout that it was at the time) or Clarke out of the way would help Howard. (Actually, thinking about it, getting Clarke out of the way would probably only help Hague; he could concievably cruise it in the first round IMO in that situation)

Though consider how delightful the Kensington and Chelsea by-election would be ITTL if Clarke, Portillo and Howard all lost their seats in 1997. There were already about 100 candidates, among them 10 former MPs, up for the selection in OTL.

If Hague does make that modest revival in the heartland seats that was talked about earlier in the thread, though, then he can probably stay on after 2001. This would not be a good thing for the Tories. Certain internal bloodbath situation in the 2001 parliament worse than that suffered by IDS as a consequence of that, probably with modernisation discredited certainly in the short-term as the ultimate result.

Hmm. That would probably all depend on Portillo being selected at K + C though. Which I don't think is a cert with Clarke in the competition as well. Hmm. I'd have to have a think about this.
 
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