The North Star is Red: a Wallace Presidency, KMT Victory, Alternate Cold War TL
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What are you talking about? Look how happy Stalin is, he's having the time of his life.
Chapter 43 - The 1955 United Kingdom Elections
The 1955 United Kingdom Elections
As the night rolled on, it became increasingly clear that Winston Churchill was indeed not senile. Labour first became spooked very early on in the night, when Labour ridings were simply not producing margins that Labour was originally used to. 1955 became a clash of two different waves: a blue wave bolstering Winston Churchill clashing with the Lib-Lab coalition's efficient vote distribution. The supposed third force, nearly a hundred "Progressive Conservatives" who stood, quickly faded as not a single one was re-elected. Notably, the Blue Wave washed over both the Industrial North and the Tory heartland in the South. By the end of the day, Winston Churchill had taken the Conservative Party to its highest share of the popular vote since 1931, and before then, since the famous Khaki election of 1900. By the end of the night, despite having earlier suffered through one of the worst military catastrophes in British history, the Tories had expanded their share of the vote to 47.9% (from 44.1%), but actually lost 24 seats, dropping down to 295/630 seats.
However, with a clear plurality in the House of Commons, Queen Elizabeth II naturally gave Winston Churchill the first crack at forming a government. Churchill believed that 1) an election do-over would be disastrous in a time of war, 2) war was obviously the most important political issue, and 3) the anti-war Liberals had to be excluded from government at all costs. The conventional wisdom was at the time was that Winston Churchill would fail to form a government and that a Lib-Lab coalition would take power. Churchill was to prove them wrong.
Contacting Labour, Churchill was ready to deal. His terms were simple: the Conservatives would support a Labour government contingent on Labour continuing the war effort across the world - in short, fulfilling their campaign goal of a "responsible settlement." Naturally, neither Churchill nor Attlee would actually serve in the cabinet, with both men aging and ready for retirement. The Conservatives would presumably receive several cabinet positions with regards to foreign affairs and immigration would be put on the back-burner, to be discussed after the war. After a contentious Labour Party meeting, the MPs put the proposal to a vote. Hugh Gaitskell lobbied furiously in favor (it was presumed he would become Prime Minister), while Aneurin Bevan furiously opposed. Most notably, several of the trade unions were striking at the time against the war effort, an event that convinced many Labour moderates, including Gaitskell, that only another National government could keep the country together. Gaitskell was also keenly aware that junior partners in coalition tend to suffer. The proposal easily passed, although almost 90 Labour MPs voted against and led by Bevan, walked out of the conference, declaring that they refused to take part of a "Second National Government." In contrast, several Conservatives threatened to walk out, but they were mollified, largely because many of the political novices selected by Churchill to run against the Progressive Conservatives were generally not particularly independent and the possible revolters realized that few would follow them.
The Gaitskell Ministry ended up being one of the most complex ministries in British history, as Labour and Tory power-fights quickly tangled into each other. In the aftermath of the election, the Cabinet positions were doled out as follows:
Prime Minister: Hugh Gaitskell
Deputy Prime Minister: Anthony Eden
Chancellor of the Exchequer: George Brown
Foreign Secretary: R.A. Butler
Home Secretary: Chuter Ede
Colonial Secretary: The Lord Salisbury
Commonwealth Secretary: Herbert Morrison
Scotland Secretary: Selwyn Lloyd
Minister of Pensions: Hugh Dalton
President of the Board of Trade: Reginald Maudling
Minister of Labour: Alfred Robens
Minister of Defense: Harold MacMillan
Minister of Public Works: James Callaghan
Minister of Education: Viscount Kilmuir
Minister of Agriculture: Tom Williams
Minister of Housing: Enoch Powell
Minister of Health: Jim Griffiths
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Interesting, I can’t wait to see how the Second National government handles foreign affairs.
I'm really getting the impression that SA is the part of the world hit by the least butterflies, so I'm kind of still looking to see if there's anything that SHOULD change there. Any suggestions?
There still long time before otl coup. Unless Allende wins the presidency earlier.
I assume there would be different regimes rising and falling in the countries, based on the change in US politics (more/less intervention and influence there).
Maybe eventually, but this soon in the TL, I'm not sure I see it.
I'm thinking more, considering that NATO is in direct conflict with the USSR.
Definitely more nationalist populist. They were at their high in the '50s and only deminished after a lot of coups in the region. But keep in mind that a lot of coups in south america started by action of local elites and were helped out after the fact by USA. So a lot of times US government didn't plan the coups but helped the resulted regime after the coup, marking the new regime their conditions. But to the local population that didn't make a difference. Coups like the one against Peron in 1955 may happen, as it was mainly done by the catholic church, the landowners, and the military. But USA and UK sure assisted the new regime, in fact Churchill said he was personally proud of his roll in the coup against Peron and that it was one of his greatest victories. But I think in the current circunstances of tito-stalin war I think USA and UK may be more accepting of non communist populist leaders. In fact, with an aggressive Stalin ruled USSR on the roll argentinian elites and the anglo powers may be more likely to accept Peron social justice as the "solution against communism" but in otl they saw Peron as an opportunistic agitator who oppened the door to communist and a nationalist who threatened american and english interests in latin america, so who knows?
Also Argentina and other food producing countries in latin America should get an economical boost similar to the WW2 one but smaller (for now). Specially Argentina was having a hard time in Peron's second term (1952-1955), europe was recovering from WW2 so they lost interest in argentinian products and at the same time there was some years of severe drought so the only export sector of the country was hurt in productivity and at the time the country needed the foreing currency to keep expensive imports of machinery for heavy industrialization. In Peron's first term light consumer industry growed a lot and he wanted to build the heavy one in his second term but neither the State nor the local bussinessmen had the capital for that so he was trying to make ammends with USA to get some foreing capital. I can see him proposing to support Tito in exchange for american support in industrialization. This could calm things a lot at home and he could spin it as helping out "a fellow non alligned" as Tito (in otl he liked Tito quite a lot) against soviet aggresion, so he wouldn't get accused of "kneeling to the yankis".
I got an idea with France in the 50's, how about the 13th May coup was successful and imposed a right wing government headed by one of the French generals to preserve French Algeria. The coup could be successful thanks to the CIA and maybe MI6 (to stop decolonization which Churchill and Russel agreed was a good idea).
Yes, it teached him that racism is useful for people who don't believe their own bullshit.
Yeah, Chile is a long way off. SA obviously gets hit with butterflies by 1970 or so. Or even in 1955 because of the Yugoslav War. But I was wondering if there are things that need to happen before 1955 that I've missed.
Yeah, I agree with the fact that the US wasn't exactly necessary in most coups - the overwhelming majority of coups in Latin America were undertaken by domestic political forces that certainly appreciated US support but didn't necessarily need it. The only one in the 1950's that I think truly changed because of US intervention was Guatemala, and that did get butterflied.
Upon thinking, I do think there are modest changes. 1) Guatemala doesn't happen and 2) No Korean War export boom in 1950, though there is a comparable Yugoslav export boom in 1954. The timing of that may have some ramifications. I will have to think about it. My thoughts now are that I'll probably have a very short update that glosses over the butterflied changes in most of LatAm (since they'll be relatively minor pre-1955).
Interesting idea that I considered, but the various coup plans in France, including the one that ultimately brought Charles de Gaulle to office, probably gets butterflied out in a world without the Battle of Dien Ben Phu and French withdrawal from Indochina. It was French defeat/withdrawal in Indochina that made many in the army suspect France's civilian politicians would withdraw from Algeria.
ITL, as of 1955, the colonial power facing defeats abroad isn't France, but rather Britain. In fact, the French Union in Indochina is proving an expensive cost, but it's nowhere near the catastrophic defeat of OTL. In OTL France, colonial defeat led to a semi-coup and the end of the Fourth Republic. In ITL Britain, colonial defeat led to political upheaval and party fragmentation, but ultimately the maintenance of democracy under an unusual Butskellist national government.
OTL Churchill apparently did say "Keep England White is a good slogan", but I'm not sure if that's an endorsement of the policy or just acknowledgment that it might be electorally popular. Charitably, I interpreted Churchill as the latter, which means ITL Churchill is willing to use it as an electoral tool in order to win an election (that he believes is necessary to winning the war against Stalin).
I wonder how Afghanistan, the Kingdom of Afghanistan at this point in time, will be effected by South China’s presence since they share a land border in the form of the Wakhan Corridor?