TLIAD: Shuffling The Deck
- Thread starter Meadow
- Start date
Oh this is very very nice.
Shut up you smug git, you should be working on Bayonets
Oh piss off...
Look what you've got me into lads.
Shut up you smug git, you should be working on Bayonets
Oh piss off...
Look what you've got me into lads.
Well Meadow, this just goes to show you haven't written a bad TLIAD yet. This is fantastic work once again, congratulations.
I'll echo the others in saying I feel sorry for alt-Atlee, but I'm excited to see where this is heading. Roll on the next update!
EDIT: And the others! Sorry guys!
I'll echo the others in saying I feel sorry for alt-Atlee, but I'm excited to see where this is heading. Roll on the next update!
EDIT: And the others! Sorry guys!
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Interesting. It seems that there's something of a reversal going on: Home and Eden, neither of whom are remembered particularly brilliantly by history in OTL, have largely successful alternate premierships, whilst Attlee and Churchill, OTL's heroes, are notably less successful.
Also, is that William Graham of A Greater Britain fame? Isn't he dead before the POD?
Also, is that William Graham of A Greater Britain fame? Isn't he dead before the POD?
Ah yes, that's a symptom of Jack's love of hat-tipping to EdT whenever he can. I'll expunge it, well-spotted.
Your pattern-spotting illicits no comment from me
Ah yes, that's a symptom of Jack's love of hat-tipping to EdT whenever he can. I'll expunge it, well-spotted.
Your pattern-spotting illicits no comment from me
'Mistakes? What mistakes...?"
Very kind of you to say, Lord Roem is an excellent writing partner. He's done the bulk of the detail so far, I must admit, though we have both been planning out the arcs and ideas for some time. It's just him helping with this one, by the way - The Red isn't involved, he just has a cameo in the opening
Thande
Donor
I'm glad my guess as to the concept of this TL when you mentioned the title to me by PM has turned out to be accurate. Shows you how our images of politicians and other historical figures could've been very different if the circumstances had been different. I'm sure there are potential TLs where Gordon Brown became PM after John Smith's death in office and is widely respected for keeping the government going in a time of crisis or something.
I like how the same is happening in America--strikes me that an American-focused counterpart of this TL giving the presidents limelight would also have potential.
I like how the same is happening in America--strikes me that an American-focused counterpart of this TL giving the presidents limelight would also have potential.
1957-1964 James Callaghan (Labour)
The King of Diamonds
The Sunny Face Of Post-War Prosperity
For the so-called ‘Baby Boomer’ generation, one man epitomises the optimism and zeal that emerged during the 1950s. Although the economy had spluttered into life during the Home years, and begun to experience genuine growth during the brief, unhappy, Attlee government - it was ‘Sunny Jim’ who was to be the face of the “British Economic Miracle”, just as the long-serving Tanzan Ishibashi was for Japanese liberalism, and Kiesinger for the German Exchequer. The dominant personality of the ‘Post-War Consensus’ - Callaghan came into office as a surprise choice, narrowly beating his more experienced rivals in the leadership race caused by Attlee’s resignation. Instinctively on the soft-right of the Labour Party, he kept the defeated Richard Crossman as Foreign Secretary, moving Harold Wilson from No. 11 to the Home Office and shunted George Brown to Chair the Council of Europe.
Prior to his surprise elevation to the Premiership, Callaghan had been a reforming and passionate Education Secretary, bringing in the tripartite system of schools that had been proposed in 1944’s Maulding Report. However, he resisted calls from the left of the party to abolish fee-paying schools - lambasting it as “a typical example of placing ideology above commons sense”, much to the chagrin of his great friend and rival, Michael Foot - who came close to resigning over the issue when Parliament resumed after the Easter recess.
That he chose not to was as a direct result of Callaghan’s affable nature and strong-arm in Cabinet. Although certain historians of the period have argued that any man serving as Prime Minister during the time was bound to enjoy an easy life with the runaway economy, Callaghan never took his position for granted. People were tired, he often said, of the aristocratic, Oxbridge educated dominance of British society. ‘Sunny Jim’, the son of a Royal Navy petty officer who could not afford to go to university, was always proud of his working-class roots. His memoirs pay homage to that, noting that he rarely had difficulties in besting the intellectuals and scholars that surrounded him on the Front Bench. The Home Service’s popular ‘Geezil Show’ had an episode entitled “The Navy Lark!” wherein a young bosun, adopting a thick South Coast accent, is revealed to be in control of the entire fleet by utilizing a complex system of telegraph machines, tin cans and a number of increasingly ostentatious costumes.
Indeed, as the long, hot “Summer of Contentment” dragged on throughout 1957, Callaghan resolved to find a mandate of his own. The Conservative Party, still adjusting to the power vacuum of Opposition, had moved a couple of social strata down for their new leader - but were still harangued as out-of-touch and elitist during the election campaign and few people outside the letters page of the Daily Telegraph were surprised when the government was re-elected by a landslide. The Conservative campaign was not helped by the announcement, shortly before the writs were dropped, that the last of the wartime restrictions on sugar and confectionary were to be abolished by the end of the decade - the ubiquitous posters of a beaming Callaghan, with the slogan ‘Rationing? What Rationing?’ became a familiar sight across the country and remains a phrase oft-associated with the late-fifties zeitgeist.
Callaghan’s government remained widely popular as the new decade approached. With living standards continuing to rise and with Britain maintaining its position as the second-fastest growing major economy in Europe after West Germany, the 1961 Election resulted in another comfortable Labour victory, although there was a marked swing to the Unionists in Scotland and the newly established National Party in Wales.
A reflexive traditionalist in many respects, Callaghan’s third government was one that was beset by the growing calls to reform labour relations. Despite coming from the moderate wing of the party, the Prime Minister - like many on the centre-right - was a Trade Unionist to the core, and the Employment Secretary’s mooted reforms to collective bargaining agreements, which proposed to set quotas of seats for workers on Company Boards in exchange for outlawing the closed shop proved very problematic for Cabinet integrity. Callaghan backed Crosland to the hilt, although he was unable to prevent Barbara Castle and Manny Shinwell from resigning over the issue in February 1963. The fallout from ’In Place of Discord’ added to the impression of a government that was over-reaching itself, and in the subsequent Budget, the Chancellor was forced to postpone his mooted decimalisation of the currency and formation of the ‘Dollar Sterling’ to replace pounds, shillings and pence.
Callaghan’s background made him the last man one would expect to see become embroiled in a internal party debate about the future role of the House of Lords. And unlike the intellectual left of the Party, he had no interest in doing so himself. However, events would force his hand in 1963, when the unexpected death of Revd. Michael Wedgwood Benn, 2nd Viscount Stansgate, catapulted the sitting Postmaster General into the House of Lords.
Anthony Wedgwood Benn was a modernising and radical force within the Labour Party, and had been expected to receive a major promotion in the run-up to the next general election. When he found himself in the Lords, the Labour whips contacted him about when to advance the writ regarding his disclamation. They were astonished to hear that he had no plans to do any such thing. After many sleepless nights, and a deal of consultation with his family, Wedgwood Benn declared he found himself unable to ‘turn his back’ on his brother’s name and what was now ‘the family role’ in the House of Lords. In the three years since their father’s death, Michael and Anthony had regularly lunched together in Parliament, and many of Anthony’s illusions about the House of Lords had been shown to be false by his dutiful brother. Having wiped away his tears, the 3rd Viscount Stansgate threw himself into the work of a hereditary peer and would, over the years to come, become one of the most popular and effective Labour Lords. While a rational democrat, he remained a champion of the value of having a reviewing chamber ‘unmolested by public opinion’, and was at the forefront of the campaign opposing the reduction in hereditary peers in 1996.
Back in 1963, however, the fallout from Wedgwood Benn’s ‘Moving House’ (the name of his published diaries in this period) was wider than expected. Callaghan offered him his position as Postmaster General, but informed him that a great office of state would now be out of his reach (barring the FCO, perhaps, many years in the future). Wedgwood Benn accepted these terms, but was alarmed when some of his Cabinet colleagues did not. Specifically, Michael Foot once again began stirring up trouble. A lifelong opponent of the Lords’ very existence, he had been bitterly disappointed in Wedgwood Benn’s decision, and decided now was the time to formalise the role any Labour government could ask a Peer to take. Callaghan was not about to have his party descend into a navel-gazing scrap on the matter, and told Foot to get into line and follow collective responsibility. Foot promptly resigned, ending the friendship between the two men overnight. His resignation statement, while an outstanding display of oratory, did not create the waves he hoped - at its heart, the cause over which he was resigning was not one that anyone else in the House was prepared to stake their careers on.
Despite the growing divisions within the Cabinet, Labour still enjoyed a small, but sufficient lead over the Conservatives. The England football team’s victory in the previous year’s World Cup in Argentina had proved to be one of the highlights of Callaghan’s Premiership and there was considerable press speculation that the Prime Minister was on the verge of calling a snap election to capitalise on the public goodwill. While 1963 passed without a surprise announcement, the year ended with a summit meeting with President Nixon and General Secretary Brezhnev to formalise the division of North and South Vietnam, where Callaghan spoke privately of the need to “shore things up a bit” before trying to secure an historic fourth term.
The snap election of 1964 is widely considered to be a strategic blunder by the Prime Minister. Recalling Parliament during the Easter Recess was considered to be poor form by many of the more religious members of Parliament, and attracted negative headlines from the majority of Fleet Street. Despite the release of positive balance of trade figures during the campaign, it was clear that the fight was not in the hearts of many Labour activists, whilst the Conservatives were rested and eager for the chance of returning to power. On election night, the Tories scraped a narrow majority in the House of Commons, although many commentators felt that - thanks to an especially fractious 1922 Committee - the new Prime Minister would find himself reliant on the support of the Liberal Party for contentious legislation.
Despite calls for him to step down, the former Prime Minister stated his intention to remain as Leader of the Labour Party - at least in the short term. The Callaghan government is to this day seen as a popular and professional administration, and ‘Sunny Jim’ often comes to the lips of older Britons asked to name a favourite Prime Minister. Academically, the consensus is more mixed. Some point to the failure to advance social liberalism as a weakness on Callaghan’s part, while others say that what followed the election called Callaghan and Wilson’s economic credibility into serious question.
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Assuming that the theme is 'different times, different reputations', I'm guessing we'll be seeing the left goalpost of the Tories either come up next, or even be the emergency Prime Minister mentioned (assuming it's not just a crackpot scheme by Cecil King). This is great fun to read, especially in seeing the little nods at OTL and other TLs, and the balance in detail is enough to welcome most readers.
I was going to comment on how Lord Salisbury was one of Eden's favourites, and thus might have had a shot, but then I recalled that the reason Salisbury didn't get the Foreign Office IOTL was because Eden was nervous about a member of the Lords in this day and age getting the job and chose Macmillan instead, so it would make a lot of sense that Eden would go for someone close enough to the same brand of politics but still in the Commons. It'll be very fun, once we get to the more modern Prime Ministers, as it seems that Britain is seeing a reverse version of the 'stop-go' pattern IOTL, to go along with the theme of this TL.
Can't wait to see more.
I was going to comment on how Lord Salisbury was one of Eden's favourites, and thus might have had a shot, but then I recalled that the reason Salisbury didn't get the Foreign Office IOTL was because Eden was nervous about a member of the Lords in this day and age getting the job and chose Macmillan instead, so it would make a lot of sense that Eden would go for someone close enough to the same brand of politics but still in the Commons. It'll be very fun, once we get to the more modern Prime Ministers, as it seems that Britain is seeing a reverse version of the 'stop-go' pattern IOTL, to go along with the theme of this TL.
Can't wait to see more.
AndyC
Donor
This is bloody brilliant - details like the Tories having a welfare state (which are very compatible with their OTL strategy, which was - as you quite correctly point out - watered down by Churchill) are superb.
I love little details like the Butler report becoming the Maudling Report
And Callaghan having a "Summer of Contentment"
I look forward to the Thatcher Premiership (that's got to be next, right?)
Followed by Heath (replacing her because although she's remembered fondly for the slow but steady growth, there was a need for firm leadership ...) and then Wilson?
I love little details like the Butler report becoming the Maudling Report
And Callaghan having a "Summer of Contentment"
I look forward to the Thatcher Premiership (that's got to be next, right?)
Followed by Heath (replacing her because although she's remembered fondly for the slow but steady growth, there was a need for firm leadership ...
) and then Wilson?
Thande
Donor
I was thinking of what the first Blackadder series does with their 'secret history' of Richard III...
Love the ironies with Tony Benn and the House of Lords.
'64 seems too early for Thatcher. I would guess Heath next, though Heath's long time in Parliament suggests they could also use him very late on as an elder statesman safe pair of hands figure.
Love the ironies with Tony Benn and the House of Lords.
This is bloody brilliant - details like the Tories having a welfare state (which are very compatible with their OTL strategy, which was - as you quite correctly point out - watered down by Churchill) are superb.
I love little details like the Butler report becoming the Maudling Report
And Callaghan having a "Summer of Contentment"
I look forward to the Thatcher Premiership (that's got to be next, right?)
Followed by Heath (replacing her because although she's remembered fondly for the slow but steady growth, there was a need for firm leadership ...
'64 seems too early for Thatcher. I would guess Heath next, though Heath's long time in Parliament suggests they could also use him very late on as an elder statesman safe pair of hands figure.
