Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom
David Lloyd George (Liberal-Conservative Coalition) (1915-1917)
Herbert Asquith (Liberal Minority) (1917)
Andrew Bonar Law (Conservative Minority) (1917-1918)
Ramsay MacDonald (Labour Minority) (1918-1919)
Andrew Bonar Law (Conservative) (1919-1923)
George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (Conservative) (1923)
Ramsay MacDonald (Labour Minority) (1923-1927)
Austen Chamberlain (Conservative) (1927-1931)
Philip Snowden (Labour) (1931-1934)
Winston Churchill (Conservative-Silver Shirt Coalition) (1934-1944)
Horace Wilson (Conservative Minority) (1944-1945)
Herbert Morrison (Labour) (1945-)
Immediately after the armistice, Lloyd George tenders his resignation to the king, who sends for Asquith to form a caretaker government. The elections of October 1917 prove indecisive, but the Conservatives are able to form government with the support of the Liberals, who hope that responsibility for the coming treaties with the Quadruple Alliance will cost the Conservatives public support, and lead to a swift Liberal recovery.
Instead, the treaties of Potsdam and Philadelphia prove survivable for the Conservatives, as the government's main negotiation goals of keeping the Suez Canal, avoiding a tonnage restriction on the Royal Navy, and preventing any territorial concessions to Germany are accomplished. When Liberal confidence expires after the signing of the treaty in June 1918, the July elections that follow see Labour win second place, while the Conservatives hold most of their ground.
Asquith, hoping again to outlast the other parties, now commits to supporting a Labour government on the basis of free trade. Initial expectations of a botched time in government quickly subside, as the first MacDonald ministry survives for nine months before the Liberals pull the plug. This proves to be an almost fatal error, as the Liberals themselves suffer the most from the election they caused, with a Conservative landslide and Labour entrenching itself as the main party of the left.
Law's Second stint in government sees Britain through the end of the decade, with the worst domestic impacts of the war largely subsiding, ensuring a broadly peaceful early-1920s compared to the French and Confederate experiences. Law's on-schedule cancer and resignation throw a wrench into things however, as public disapproval of his successor Curzon's membership of the House of Lords, rather than the Commons, leads to a brief constitutional crisis that sees Labour return to power, now as the largest party in parliament.
The question of supporting the Labour government splits the Liberal Party, with right-wing dissidents forming the National Liberal Party as the left-of-centre rump ensures a working majority for Labour in the Commons. MacDonald's second premiership maintains the decade's course, cautiously re-arming and reaffirming ties to the old Entente, while implementing popular but moderate domestic reforms. Public pressure to implement protective tariffs ultimately prove the government's undoing, as the Liberals withdraw support and the Conservatives return to power.
The Chamberlain Ministry enters office just in time to face two interconnected crises; the global Business Collapse, and the rise of Actionism in Oswald Mosley's Silver Shirts. The government's response to both is ultimately perceived as weak, and though neither hit the country as hard as in France or the Confederacy, Chamberlain still bears the brunt of the blame. Opposition Leader MacDonald's assassination by a non-Silver Shirt far-right assailant proves the final straw, as the government with its slim majority ultimately falls due to a revolt among the Conservative ranks by those hoping for a National Government under MacDonald's moderate successor as leader of the Labour Party.
Philip Snowden however would face his own intra-party challenges, as he finds himself at the head of a parliamentary caucus well to his own left. The debacle surrounding Snowden's refusal to adopt protectionism mark an inauspicious start to his premiership, and internal conflict becomes rife, with several MPs defecting to both the New Party (the Silver Shirts' parliamentary wing) and the Independent Labour Party. Ultimately, the government breaks in early 1934, as a full-blown revolt sees Snowden out of office, both as Prime Minister and Labour leader.
The election that follows is inconclusive, with no party receiving a majority, and seemingly the only viable paths to government going through the Tories. declining to form a coalition with a leftward-drifting Labour, the Conservatives instead offer Mosley the Chancellorship in exchange for a coalition. Mosley accepts, on the condition that Winston Churchill be made Prime Minister. The marriage seemingly made in hell proves remarkably stable, as the government pursues an aggressive rearmament policy and makes it to the next election, where the Conservatives receive an outright majority on their own. Churchill, perhaps shrewdly, instead of dismantling the coalition, an act which might see his own party boot him from Downing Street, simply reassigns Mosley to the Ministry of War, in preparation for the global conflict on the horizon.
Five years later, and Britain is in ruins. London, Norwich, and Brighton experience atomic hellfire, and both the parties of government are soundly discredited. Horace Wilson's emergency Conservative Caretaker government lasts only long enough to restore civil authority across most of Britain before being turned out of office by the largest landslide in modern British history. The Tories are reduced to a double-digit parliamentary rump, as Herbert Morrison takes the reins of a broken country.