TLIAD: From the Despatch Box not the Press Room

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Oliver Letwin (Conservative): 2011 – 2013

Nobody had ever expected Oliver Letwin to end up as Prime Minister, - as he admitted in his memoirs later on least of all himself – but the results of the 2011 general election had been uncertain to say the least. The Conservatives were the largest party but were still twenty seats short of a majority. Even with Ulster Unionist support they couldn’t quite make the numbers. A confidence and supply deal was forged with the Liberal Democrats, but a new leader was needed to replace Michael Howard.

The problem was nobody wanted a job that was A: Going to be horribly unpopular and B: would probably last three years at best. With more well-known candidates such as Phillip Hammond and Chancellor Theresa May deciding to keep their powder dry, the 1922 eventually contacted President of the Board of Trade and Tory blue sky guru Letwin and asked him to make the ultimate sacrifice for the party and for the country. Reluctantly Letwin agreed and travelled to the palace.

Letwin’s government was largely concerned with attempting to solve the financial crisis and involved itself little in international affairs, though he did do his bit to try and help other EU countries that had been hard hit by the recession.

The Letwin government decided that austerity was the name of the game when it came to restoring economic stability and in their vein cut subsidies and funding to public services across the board including to the MOD. Local government found its funding cut by almost 40% and benefits were also cut heavily leading to an increase in food bank usage. Letwin came under attack from the newly revived Opposition who pointed out that the government had increased taxes on almost everything but big business. The government’s response was that this was necessary to restore consumer confidence, though Andrew Marr was quick to point out in an interview with the Chancellor that as people had no money to spend in the shops, this seemed rather pointless.

Letwin was always in a rather precarious position and when papers he had written during his time in Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit – including a paper which some took as suggesting the NHS should be privatised – his numbers began falling into single digits. With the markets still looking precarious, Letwin’s position looked more and more tenuous every day.

To this day no-one is quite sure who decided to table the Graduate Tax increase, a Lib Dem red line which they had made clear they would resign over. With the bill defeated by a wide margin, Letwin surprised many by calling for a vote of confidence in his own government. Predictably the government lost and Labour was swept back to Number 10 under a much more charismatic leader.
 
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David Miliband (Labour): 2013 – 2016

Former Shadow Foreign Secretary David Miliband had taken over from John Reid after the 2011 election. A long-time advisor and friend of Tony Blair and a charter member of the Third Way pressure group, Miliband was a big supporter of what was known as the Project, a program of modernisation that in the eyes of its supporters would turn Labour into the UK’s natural governing party.

Replacing the ailing Letwin government in 2013, Miliband immediately starting putting the Project into action. However what distressed Labour MPs the most weren’t the changes Miliband was making to the party, but rather that a man with such impeccable left wing credentials was suddenly acting so much like a Tory.

Refusing to replace austerity, Miliband did however reverse cuts to the mainstream public services and double NHS funding. However this was at a cost to infrastructure and most importantly the railways, a long time Labour love that saw its subsidies cut nearly in half. There was also a temporary reduction in the amount the UK sent to the EU, to the consternation of several EU heads of state including Chancellor Steinbruck who argued both in public and in private that “socialists don’t act this way.”

One area where Miliband did excel was foreign affairs. As a former Shadow Foreign Secretary, he had a good understanding of the global situation and a good relationship with foreign heads of state, especially President Kaine who came to power the year before Miliband did. Most historians agree that the Miliband government’s finest hour was in late 2014. A group of generals believed to be backed by Russia, staged a coup in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Within days a European force headed by up by Britain and organised by Miliband and his foreign secretary Alan Johnson had removed the plotters and restored the original government to power.

However just because Labour MPs were worried about Miliband’s policy decisions didn’t mean they weren’t concerned about the Project. Determined to make Labour a party fit for the 21st century, Miliband was keen to make full use of the modern media. He chose to announce policy from the Number 10 press room rather than from the House and the cabinet often found that decisions had already been made, before they arrived, usually by the Prime Minister’s cadre of special advisors. He made an effort to appear on TV on a regular basis either giving interviews or being photographed at some event, usually sans tie.

By 2016 the omens were obvious. While Labour was still popular, Miliband’s numbers were down compared with his opposite number Phillip Hammond. The public saw him as immature and superficial, and there were concerns he hadn’t done enough to try and fix the economy. After a series of whispered conversations in the Committee corridor and the tea room – where the PM rarely ventured – the cabinet followed the example of their Australian cousins, and Miliband found himself – and the Project – sent back to the backbenches after a mere three years in power.
 
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Jon Cruddas (Labour): 2016 – Present

Jon Cruddas, Work and Pensions Secretary and Labour’s policy guru, was the man who agreed to wield the knife against Miliband, not really believing that he would get to wear the crown. The cabinet had hoped the leadership contest would force Miliband to roll back the Project and focus on governing rather than showboating. Instead MPs and other supporters defected on mass to Cruddas handing him victory.

The first act of the new government was to reverse the government’s austerity policy. Cruddas believed that a government could not cut its way back to economic success. Instead he immediately reinstated the fifty percent tax bracket and restored full funding to both local government and the rail network. His next act to was to institute a major policy of public works -both national infrastructure such as the new HS2 and local amenity projects -, modelled on FDR’s New Deal and designed to put people back into work. While these policies have yet to bear much fruit the government is hopefully that they will prove successful and will serve as a model for future economic planning.

Cruddas is a major proponent of the new Blue Labour ideology created by Labour peer Maurice Glassman. While the more conservative aspects have lost Labour some support in the more metropolitan areas, its tenets of “faith, family and flag” have resonated well in northern England. This is an area where in recent years Labour has lost votes to Eurosceptic groups such as the British Independence Party. Blue Labour’s emphasis on community cohesion and community identity has seen these groups begin to return to Labour.

This has also played into Cruddas passion for devolution. Taking Smith and Brown’s policies one step further, the Department for Communities and Local government have recently tabled plans for regional assemblies which will replace local councils yet wield much greater powers. These will initially be focused around the big cities of Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol and then rolled out across the rest of the country. Cruddas has also begun the process of turning Labour into a more federal entity, seeding more control to regional parties and allowing them a much freer hand with regards to policy and candidate selection.

The decision to focus on home affairs has also led to a rolling back of the UK’s international commitments and Cruddas is seen abroad much less than many of his predecessors, though new foreign secretary Ed Miliband still has quite a busy schedule. It has been announced that Cruddas will be making a state visit to Washington early in February next year to meet with newly re-elected President Kaine as well as one to Germany shortly after. Rumours abound however that his relationship with President Juppe of France could best be described as “frosty”

It remains to be seen whether the public will approve of Cruddas’ policies or not. Labour is currently polling well against Phillip Hammond’s Conservatives, but the real test will be next year’s general election. If he fails however Miliband and his supporters are waiting in the wings, ready to retake power.
 
Cruddas is a major proponent of the new Blue Labour ideology created by Labour peer Maurice Glassman. While the more conservative aspects have lost Labour some support in the more metropolitan areas, its tenets of “faith, family and flag” have resonated well in northern England. This is an area where in recent years Labour has lost votes to Eurosceptic groups such as the British Independence Party. Blue Labour’s emphasis on community cohesion and community identity has seen these groups begin to return to Labour.

I love this.
 
Epilogue

Westminster November 2016

Jon Cruddas put down the biography of Anthony Greenwood, slumped back in the car seat and sighed contentedly.

Six months into his premiership and things were beginning to look promising. The economy was beginning to turn around and the long term forecasts coming out of the Treasury were looking very promising indeed. Every time he saw Healey the man had a smile a mile wide. Their popularity numbers were climbing every day and the party was more united ever, especially since he gave the regional parties so much control and responsibility over their own actions. At this rate even if they lost next year, he’d go down as one of the most transformative leaders in Labour history. Yet somehow he didn’t think they would lose.

On top of all of that Ed was doing an excellent job selling the UK as a major world player. He was looking forward immensely to his meeting with President Kaine next year and a meeting with the German Chancellor had been lined up for shortly after that.

Of course David and his little band of merry men were still agitating from the back benches. Jon began chewing his lip in a thoughtful manner. He would have to do something to get David out of the way or else he would be no end of trouble. The Secretary-Generalship of NATO was coming up soon. Maybe he’d be interested in that.

He sighed and shifted in his seat. What the acolytes of the Project had never seemed to understand was that the general public didn’t want a media star for Prime Minister. They didn’t want to see the man they had elected on TV all the time. What they wanted – what he believed they wanted anyway – was a sensible solid government that got on with the business of governing rather than showboating in public.

That was the point of representative democracy. By and large the general public just wanted to go about their day to day lives, going to work, watching TV and enjoying themselves, safe in the knowledge that someone somewhere was making the difficult choices that would keep the water coming out of the taps. They didn’t want to have a beer with the Prime Minister, they wanted him to lead.

That was what David had always seemed to miss. If the Prime Minister was always worried about how his decisions would affect his popularity then he would never be able to make the tough decisions that only he could make. That was his downfall, never being able to see past the polling numbers. But that was all going to change now. In the history of the Labour party, the Project would just be a minor blip.

As the car pulled into Downing Street, Jon smiled. In his wildest dreams he had never really believed that he would end up as Prime Minister and he probably never would have done, had another man named John not been elected some nineteen years before.

Fin
 
So here's a list of world leaders in this time line. The trick (as @Uhura's Mazda guessed fairly early on) was an exploration of a world without spin or a media obsessed political class. The title comes from a line in "What if John Smith had lived" chapter of Prime Minister Portillo where it is said that John Smith would have run the country "from the despatch box of the House of Commons rather than from the press room of Number 10"

Labour Leaders

John Smith: 1992 – 1999

Gordon Brown: 1999 – 2006

John Reid: 2006 – 2011

David Miliband: 2011 – 2016

Jon Cruddas: 2016 – Present

Conservative Leaders

John Major: 1990 – 1997

Michael Portillo: 1997 – 2001

Michael Howard: 2001 – 2011

Oliver Letwin: 2011 – 2013

Phillip Hammond: 2013 – Present

Liberal Democrat Leaders

Paddy Ashdown: 1988 – 1999

Charles Kennedy: 1999 – 2006

Vince Cable: 2006 – 2013

John Pugh: 2013 – Present

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

John Major (Conservative): 1990 – 1997

John Smith (Labour): 1997 – 1999

Gordon Brown (Labour): 1999 – 2006

Michael Howard (Conservative): 2006 – 2011

Oliver Letwin (Conservative – Liberal Democrat Confidence and Supply): 2011 – 2013

David Miliband (Labour): 2013 – 2016

Jon Cruddas (Labour): 2016 – Present

President of the United States

Bill Clinton (Democrat): 1993 – 2001

Al Gore (Democrat): 2001 – 2005

John McCain (Republican): 2005 – 2013

Tim Kaine (Democrat): 2013 – Present

Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany

Helmet Kohl (CDU): 1982 – 1998

Gerhard Schroder (SPD): 1998 – 2005

Angela Merkel (CDU): 2005 – 2013

Peer Steinbruck (SPD): 2013 – Present

President of the French Republic

Jacques Chirac (UMP): 1995 – 2007

Segolene Royale (PS): 2007 – 2012

Alain Juppe (UMP): 2012 – Present
 
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I want to make love to your newsletter and make it my wife.
I wrote that line with you in mind actually. I already had Cruddas in mind and I wondered "what would make Comisario actually pass out"

PM Cruddas reading a Greenwood biography.
 
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Sideways

Donor
I wrote that like with you in mind actually. I already had Cruddas in mind and I wondered "what would make Comisario actually pass out"

PM Cruddas reading a Greenwood biography.

That bit was Comisario porn, yes.

Very good. Very enjoyable. Though I think Cruddas reaches the wrong conclusion. Yes the public say they want someone to quietly get on with things. But unless someone is seen to be getting in with things nobody believes it

I very much enjoyed this though, a solid, complete project that's interesting and unique in many ways.
 
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