TLIAD: The Quiet Death of Liberal England

[AndyC]

Just caught up with this - excellent premise and well written. Let me join my voice to those welcoming you out of lurking!

One question - in 1996, where did the non-BigTwo votes go? We've got 81% for Con and Lab, plus 3% for the Libs - so Nats plus Others comes in at 16%.

So there might be either a multitude of splinter (<1% - 2% support) parties (plus the Nats, but I can't see them getting much over 7% in total), or one or two larger "other" parties.

 

[Agent Boot]

Interlude

Excerpts from:
Electoral Dysfunction: The role of the protest vote in a majoritarian duopoly
by Edward S Wei.

​

“With this year's election resulting in the first hung parliament since 1974, it is perhaps time to ask, “is time running out for the big two?”. For much of the past century political power has alternated between the Labour and Conservative parties. These two parties have carried much of the popular vote at every general election since the war, never once dropping below a combined 70% vote share. It has long been a truism that first-past-the-post electoral systems perpetuate two party systems – certainly a rule that holds true across much of the western world. Exceptions, where they exist, can generally be attributed to federal structures, or to religious or cultural divides. The UK, relatively homogeneous by global standards in both culture and ethnicity, and being one of the most centralised states in Europe, lacks many of the electoral niches key to the survival of “third parties”.

* * * *
​

Looking back over the period from 1945 to the present day, the two party system is clearly the norm. Minor exceptions do exist, most notably in the 1970's (often attributed to the extreme global economic turbulence of that decade), but the general characteristics of duopoly can be said to be consistent throughout. For the purposes of analysis, this author chooses to divide the history of duopoly into five roughly defined periods; zenith (1945 - 1970), chaos (1970 -1979), resurgence (1979 - 1992), challenge (1992-2004) and collapse (2004 – present). Each of these periods, and their typical voting patterns will be discussed in turn.

* * * *
​

Challenge (1992-2004)

On the surface the 1990's appeared to be a period of calm consensus. With the Cold War over, the world was entering its longest ever period of both peace and sustained economic growth. The great ideological divides which had characterised the 20th Century at last appeared to be closing. It was, as one rather presumptuous commentator declared, the “end of history”. Nowhere did that appear more true than in British Politics. The “Davies-Patten Consensus” (a term later inaccurately extended to include Davies' successor) was never the intention of either of its architects, yet between them they succeeded in uniting much of mainstream British political opinion under one very broad tent.

Unfortunately there were some who were excluded from that tent; those whose interests were not addressed by this national consensus. By the late nineties, the old generalised British political identities were increasingly breaking down. No longer could a psephologist describe a “typical” Labour or Conservative voter. While superficially, in seat totals alone, the elections of the nineties resembled those of the fifties, in reality their results hid a much more complicated picture. While many voters, especially the over-65s, remained tribal in their party allegiances, many others did not. Labels such as class, occupation, and even neighbourhood were no longer the clear identifiers of voting patterns which they had once been.

Firstly there was the “Left” - from unreconstructed Communists to those who had spent the eighties anxiously worried themselves sick over unilateralism and writing unread pamphlets on social democracy. When Labour had been in opposition it was easy enough to appear all things to all people – Healey would keep the ship steady while Skinner reassured the coalfield traditionalists and Cook charmed the intelligentsia. In government it was considerably less easy. It is perhaps an unfairly partisan jibe to accuse all Labour voters of being creatures of knee-jerk opposition, and yet for their most electorally successful leader in history, Davies lost the party a lot of votes. It was one thing to vote Labour to “get MacGregor out”, it was quite another to keep voting for them once dreams of “full communism in 24 hours” had been dashed on the rocks of reality. A yet further incentive to stray from the flock would follow going into the '96 election, as it became clear from early polling that Davies was back in Downing Street regardless. Absent the fear of letting the hated Tories back in, otherwise loyal voters could confidently register a risk-free protest.

Turning to the Conservative benches; while the period 1992-1996 - the much lamented reign of the “Grey King” - was an unprecedented bout of indulgent political blood-letting, from a point of historical perspective it had the advantage of being over fairly quickly. Scores were settled with the efficiency of true free marketeers, and in the relative privacy or obscurity of opposition. Even so, the party was to lose votes at the following election, many of which it never regained. The subsequent ideological shift under Patten left many more traditionalists stranded on the wrong side of history. Some continued to trudge to the polling stations, to vote for candidates they considered to be “Conservative In Name Only”. Others sought out alternatives they could trust to bring back the birch and to govern in the name of common sense.

When the election came in 1996, 629 of the 659 total seats would be won by either a Labour or a Conservative candidate, equivalent to some 98% of seats across England, Wales, and Scotland. It was a seemingly unbreakable level of dominance. And yet the combined Labour and Conservative vote would only add up to 81%. A full fifth of British voters would therefore go under- or unrepresented. Further, turnout had fallen to a then historic low of just 71%. The two party duopoly was therefore sanctioned by barely more than half (58%) of registered voters.

Putting aside non-voters for a moment, what do we know of those who did vote for an alternative, the 19%? Some can be assigned fairly easily – the 3% for instance, who still placed their faith in the Liberal Party. At the time that peculiarly British anomaly was very much on life support, with no anticipated recovery. As the party that had last been in government when wing collars were in fashion, its continued existence in the decade of BritGrunge seemed especially archaic. Already the Liberals had begun to fracture into its many autonomous and single-issue successors – to whom much of the party's remaining vote initially flowed. In a few isolated regions – Rural Scotland, Wales, the South West – the party faithful trudged onwards, armed with their leaflets and their petitions, still preparing for government. The party still held council seats across the country, and it would be many years before their supporters became fully accustomed to “split-ticket” voting. Obscure parliamentary candidates clung to the coattails of popular, if often eccentric, aldermen. This, with two hundred or so candidates still standing for Westminster seats, and the perennial election of “national treasure” Sir Alan Beith, was enough to account for the 3%.

Northern Ireland, with its alien political landscape, would account for around 2.4% of national turnout. A further 3.5% can be attributed to other nationalist/regionalist parties, predominantly the Scottish Nationalist Party and Plaid Cymru. The SNP and Plaid had long pulled themselves from the electoral nadir of the early eighties. As parties of explicitly localised geographic support, they capitalised very effectively on FPTPs disproportionality. Playing a somewhat cynical game of positioning themselves as the “real” alternative in the safer Welsh and Scottish seats, they would see their vote share grow significantly. A further political boost came with the rise to power of an exclusively unionist political leadership in Westminster, or at least one that was perceived to be so. Devolutionist sentiment was growing in both Scotland and Wales, a fact often overlooked (or worse, denied) by more Anglocentric commentators. While the majority of Welsh and Scottish voters were happy with the policies of the Davies government, a significant number would drift to the nationalist side.

But what of the remaining 10% of the vote? One in ten votes cast at the 1996 General Election would be for a party or individual which gained no representation in Westminster. Looking through old election returns produces a list of parties several pages long. The relevant Encyclopedia Britannica entry lists every single one from the eventually mainstream Green Party (1%, no seats) down to the forgotten “Marxist-Leninist Commune of Balsall Heath Solidarity Party” (14 votes, no deposit). The list is a who's who of British minor parties, each representing either an overlooked interest or a cynical new bid to capture the illusive protest vote. In places these parties had some success – edging into third or even second place on the back of several thousands of votes. More often they served only to split votes and create unlikely marginals, or to simply crowd returning officer's stages and prolong announcements.

But why had this happened? What had caused this sudden appearance of the unrepresented 10%? In the past the “protest vote” had always belonged to the main party of opposition, or in rare cases to the post-war Liberal Party. A number of mid-century byelection victories for the Liberals – in hindsight mere stays of execution – had come off the back of that protest vote. Now, with the party of Gladstone sinking forever from view, the unrepresented and the eternally unsatisfied needed a new voice. So it was that local “Independent” campaigns sprung up. These would often be single issue concerns attached to a local school or hospital; or instead run by the optimistic, the naïve, or the politically ambitious. Several minor socialistic parties, each claiming a different factional or ideological heritage, clamoured for new members, voters, and people to buy their magazines. As Lenin's body was being forever removed from public view, the moribund Communist Party of Great Britain found itself with an unexpected and unsettling trickle of new members. On the right, the “Heron Putsch” had finally shattered the ghost of the National Front. In areas of high unemployment, of urban poverty, and of cynically stoked racial tension, various successor groups would spring up – each claiming not to be a racist party, while doing and saying very racist things. Of all minor parties, some of the most successful were those which could be identified as “Liberal successors”. Accruing a combined 2.5% of the national vote, these parties could attribute much of their success to preserving the old local Liberal Party shell – the networks of volunteers, the printing presses, the years of accumulated campaigning wisdom. While none were successful nationally, they did manage to capture several new council seats.

The effect of all of this minor party activity was ultimately negligible. With dozens of minors, often competing against one another in the same seats, the wider electoral result was analogous to background noise. In only a few cases could the minor votes be seen to have any “spoiler” effect. For the most part they were dismissed as symptomatic of a completely transient phenomenon. Had this “Unrepresented 10%” been united under a single banner, it is possible that their voice might have been heard. Instead, though the divide-and-rule of First Past The Post, they were ignored.

In future elections these protest voters would become better consolidated around more electable candidates. The number of minor candidates would be greatly thinned. Many of the discontented voters would cease to vote altogether – general election turnout dropping to only 50% in the 2010s. Others would grudgingly return to the big party fold, whether by opting for the “lesser evil” in closer election cycles, or by passively accepting the status quo. The 1996 election was ultimately an anomaly. At every election since, the collective Labour plus Conservative vote share would rise, even as their absolute vote totals fell. Yet in delivering a huge majority for Labour, the 1996 election also displayed just how weak the foundations of that duopoly were – showcasing their lack of both popular and democratic legitimacy. However eternal the two-party system appeared on the surface, its foundations would never be rock solid again.

* * * *
​

1996 General Election
​

[Photo credit: Andy Rain/EPA]​

 

[Agent Boot]

Responses to comments

Its been a few days, for which I apologise. Unexpected guests plus real world distractions. Thank you all for your comments on the timeline so far. I shall endeavor to answer questions as best I can:

@Meadow

STV and disproportionality - The best part of FPTP is that it doesn't even tend towards proportionality when an election is reduced to only two parties. When you completely decouple vote % from seat %, there's not even that guarantee certainty that the winner of one will win the other...

DBWIs - The problem with DBWIs as I've seen them is that, as with any shared world project, everyone needs to be pulling in the same direction for it to work. When they're about removing/reversing hindsight bias to get an insight into how likely an event from OTL actually was, they can be great. I have a significant advantage here in that I (mostly) know my own mind.

"Hipster PMs" - I like that term. I plan to use it more often. Its half indulgence and pursuit of originality on my part, half deliberate avoidance of the known politicians on the basis that most OTL PMs would have faced obscurity or much lower positions barring some often very specific contingencies. The very rough draft I had for this had names like Heseltine, Portillo, Gould - all hideously cliche (if arguably more plausible). I've tried to go for people who, based on their OTL careers up to and beyond the POD could feasibly have climbed the extra distance their OTL counterparts did.

@Turquose Blue - I'm pro-Europe myself, though I know a few of hard left people who rail against the EU (usually framed in anti-capitalistic or anti-imperialist terms). [Insert standard disclaimer about how TTL is not wish fulfilment]. I just find it interesting how the most Eurosceptic of the two parties, over the course of a few decades, swung round to being much more pro-Europe.

@LancyIain - Somewhere on a "common AH cliches" page I saw something about "inevitable third party phenomenon" - basically the general appearance and growth of some form of SDP/Liberal Alliance or other third party in any post-79 timeline. I found myself lapsing into it in another roughly sketched timeline - without stopping to wonder if and why it would actually occur. The writing prompt for this timeline was basically to avert that cliche. As for Ireland and the wider world, i'm sticking to 1) the general TLIAD framework of general vagueness with scatterings of context-free implication-loaded references, and 2) writing what I know. Given that I have very little knowledge of Irish politics, I'm afraid that I can't offer much in the way of speculation on that topic.

@Andy C - Vote shares: Very well spotted. The vote shares of the big two are creeping up, well above what would generally be required these days for a landslide. As someone conditioned through years of obsessive modern poll-watching to regard mid-30s as "pretty good" and 40% as "phenomenal", the percentages I estimated didn't take account of the squeezed Liberal vote. So yes, there are votes "missing".

The "Interlude" post is me taking that mistake as a writing prompt, to explain it "in-universe" in a way which shows both the continued death of the Liberals and the growing unfairness of the electoral system. I could have claimed it as a typing erro and amended the percentages up a few points , but where would be the fun in that? My next timeline has a proper spreadsheet and constituency-level results, so it won't happen again.

@kingclumsy, @Ed Costello, @Turquoise Blue, @AndyC, and others - Thank you all for your very kind encouragement.


Now proceeding to get on with it...

 

[Agent Boot]

2000

Despite broadly successful efforts by Patten to modernise his party and bring it into the 21st Century, it would be Prime Minister Davies who would lead the Labour party to an unprecedented third term. Though the popular vote totals were very close indeed, strong dis-proportionality in the electoral system (with generally lower turnout in Labour-held seats) resulted in the government being reelected with a comfortable majority.

Lab 361 (44%), Con 269 (44%), Lib 1 (1%)
Labour majority 63

In the months leading up to the election there had been growing internal Conservative Party anger towards Patten. Their leader was accused of selling out, of conceding too much, and of not looking out for “real” conservative values. It was a true case study in introspection. Had the party performed much worse in the 2000 election, that anger might have erupted in a repeat performance of '92. As it was, that anger became diverted instead towards the inherent unfairness of the electoral system. Accusations of gerrymandering and of electoral fraud flowed from the right-leaning press. The “over-representation” of Scotland and Wales was blamed, as was a perceived reluctance of the Electoral Commission to redraw boundaries to account for declining inner city populations. The Conservatives had won within a hundred thousand votes of Labour. Indeed they had won more votes than at any other time in the party's history. As contentious elections went, there were few at the time to rival that of 2000. Once Labour's clear victory became apparent, Patten stated clearly and publicly his strong intention to remain as party leader. Whether his determination and preemptiveness wrong-footed his opponents or otherwise, Conservative MPs would effectively assent. The old image of ruthlessness was slowly disappearing.

Content with being the most electorally successful leader in Labour Party history, and approaching his 65th birthday, Davies chose to retire in 2001. In a heavily contested leadership election it was Foreign Secretary Glenda Jackson (two years Davies' senior) who ultimately prevailed.

Glenda Jackson​

Jackson had first been elected to parliament in 1992. After a short period on the backbenches she would become a junior Minister at the Department of Trade and Industry in 1994. Following the '96 election Jackson entered cabinet as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, before moving to Education, and subsequently being promoted to Foreign Secretary in the 2000 post-election reshuffle. Having started her political career later in life, and surrounded by many young and ambitious junior ministers, Jackson was initially underestimated. Over two terms in government she would prove to be among the most competent and diligence of frontbenchers, adeptly managing the 1998 haulage workers strike and averting a potentially long-running dispute. In the Commons she would channel her long stage career, delivering the style of impassioned oratory increasingly absent in a chamber filled with of technocrats and PPE graduates. As ministerial resignations grew with the tenure of the the Prime Minister, there was always “room at the top”. To those who knew her, it was no surprise that Jackson climbed all the way.

In the eighteen months from her appointment as Foreign Secretary to the October 2001 leadership election, Jackson would establish herself as the figurehead of Britain's new “Ethical Foreign Policy”. This policy-shift marked a clear change from the “pragmatic isolation” of the early Davies years and was initially resisted by Foreign Office mandarin. Yet it was one which chimed with public feeling, after a decade of depressing news stories on atrocities in Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo. Britain would be a force for good in the world, and the old Cold War mantra of “my enemy's enemy...” was to be a thing of the past. Had the Prime Minister known the full scope of this new doctrine, he might have blocked it. Instead, weary of office and planning a retirement, the ropes were slack and there for the taking.

Jackson's public profile rose to its highest in these eighteen months. When a state-sanctioned terrorist attacks in Marseilles and a major bomb scare at the Berlin Olympics necessitated a NATO response, Jackson was thrown upon the world stage. Britain's interventions in Syria and Lebanon were limited and proportionate – the risk of escalation minimised through a policy of diplomacy-first. The cooperation of traditional allies could never fully be relied upon. The leaders of the rapidly integrating European Union, more comfortable with realpolitik and preoccupied with planning complete economic union, remained somewhat bemused at the optimism and idealism of it all. In Washington there was indignance at this upstart who asked awkward questions about friendly regimes, who threatened the balance of power and the post-USSR “understanding” with the Russian Union, and who generally upstaged both her own Prime Minister and the newly inaugurated President..

When the 2001 Labour leadership election came there was always going to be one clear winner. While multiple rounds of voting were required to seal it, Jackson was always the front runner. For many party members and MPs, the symbolism of the first female Labour leader and Prime Minister was too much to pass up.

Jackson's leadership was notable for a number of reasons. Firstly there was the new “Third Way” approach to foreign relations, an officially sanctioned continuation of the Jacksonian Foreign Office. British relations with Europe became warmer than they had under Davies and previous governments. New links were forged with the Russian Union, and with a rapidly developing China. Towards the US, Jackson remained critical, resisting calls for further Middle Eastern interventions and generally being a thorn in the side of the Alexander administration.

At home Jackson kick-started much of the UK's emerging “Green Industry”. In perhaps the government's most controversial move, this signalled an irreversible shift away from the old dependence on coal-fired power stations. It was a change that would hurt Labour most in its heartlands. An ambitious (and ultimately missed) target was set, for the generation of 15% of UK energy from renewable sources by 2015. Larger success came from policies designed to shift UK waste management from landfill to recycling. On the International stage once more, Jackson would play host to the 2003 Telford Environmental Summit. The quiet Shropshire town was transformed for a fortnight into a centre of statecraft and media attention. The location had been chosen by Jackson for a strong symbolic reason. Britain, as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, had a moral duty to take the lead on addressing the global issue of climate change. In was a call sincerely made and passionately argued, though one the world was ultimately not ready to hear. The summit accords were limited in scope and their support was far from unanimous.

Jackson also continued the Davies-era funding increases for public services. Wider university access, free at the point of use, and a unified National Care Service were among the products of this extra spending. Marking a departure from the Davies-led government, however, Jackson's Chancellors were less hesitant to make tax increases in certain areas, predominantly on income and capital gains. While income tax rises were carried out in a broadly “progressive” manner, many opponents were to criticise them for the later “brain drain” of Britain’s newly enlarged graduate population. “Hypothecation”, the earmarking of tax revenues for specific purposes, was also implemented for some heath and education spending. This latter technique had previously been favoured by the former Chancellor John Smith, who now fulfilled the role of behind the scenes advisor and confident to the Prime Minister.

Overall, the Jackson Premiership was characterised as a departure from the caution of the Davies years. While opposition rhetoric of a lurch to the “extreme left” was probably overstating it – the Jackson-led Labour Party's policies being well within the spectrum of fellow European social democratic parties – from 2001 onwards there was a clear move away from the late nineties consensus.

On the opposition benches Patten's Conservatives were making leaps and bounds in their public image. To the surprise of commentators and many of the party's own members, Patten had come out as fully supportive of the Government's environmental policies. On occasion he would seek to outflank Labour on social policies – channelling a message more liberal than conservative. A flagship policy going into the 2004 general election would be immigration reform – a policy not only popular with both business interests and liberal pressure groups, but also a counter to Labour's increasingly nativist stance. A further significant PR coup would come with the endorsement of former Home Secretary Lord Jenkins (at the time a crossbencher). For those traditional Tories on the right it was anathema. However barring the few fringe parties who increasing courted their support, those traditionalists generally had nowhere else to go. While Patten was increasingly in anticipation of a leadership challenge, none came. Conservative frontbenchers looked ahead to the election, optimistic that all they required was one last push.

AAH.com thread: DBWI: Glenda Jackson PM?

Ben_P: As it says on the tin. What if film star turned politician Glenda Jackson had become Prime Minister?

GoldenBrown: Glenda Jackson? The actress? Who's Deputy Prime Minister, Patrick Stewart?

Aethelred (banned): THEN I GUESS WE'D BE LIVING INA COUNTRY WERE WHITE MEN ARE 2ND CLASS CITIZENS, AND WHERE ANYTHINK NON-PC IS ILLEGUL!!

: Monkfish: Jackson's extreme left views would cause Labour to lose their biggest ever election defeat in 2004 – Patten would become Prime Minister and privatise everything including the NHS. In 2012 there would be a war with China over human rights.

SillyBilly: This is why I hate DBWI's...

 

[Thande]

STV and disproportionality - The best part of FPTP is that it doesn't even tend towards proportionality when an election is reduced to only two parties. When you completely decouple vote % from seat %, there's not even that guarantee certainty that the winner of one will win the other...

Here's a really strange factoid you might appreciate: there was a brief period in the 1920s in American history when the (FPTP) House of Representatives elections proportionately mapped almost exactly between popular vote and results. What was required to make FPTP proportional? Refuse to update now grossly outdated election boundaries and apportionment from 1912 for 20 years in the face of population growth and shifts, have one of the two parties have almost no presence in a lot of states (and vice versa), and have a lot of elections be unopposed. Somehow all of that cancelled out and produced proportionality. When the borders and seat numbers were finally updated in 1932/4 to be more equitable, the elections promptly stopped being proportional again. Funny old world.

 

[Ed Costello]

Prime Minister Glenda Jackson. That's a new one, and an interesting one at that. The DBWI just raises more questions...

Looking forward to the next update.

 

[Meadow]

Really cracking updates. The 'split' of the 'other' vote into basically meaningless chunks is a good move, makes for a different take to 'another party must emerge and hoover up third party discontent'. I second the praise for the Glenda choice.

 

[Wendell]

This is rather interesting.

 

[AgentRudda]

Very interesting timeline! I like the clear choices you've made that are quite a step away from regular alternative late-to-modern British politics. Glenda Jackson as PM, in particular. I've always considered Chris Patten to be a good choice for Tory leader as well.

 

[AltBBCGordon]

Grand story. Keep up the good and detailed work!

 

[Sanderford]

An interesting timeline. Alexander administration?

 

[Agent Boot]

2004

Although the Prime Minister was personally popular with the electorate, her government would suffer a number of scandals in its first three years. This combined with the ongoing “Internet Recession”, and a general public fatigue towards incumbents, made Patten's Conservatives the electoral favourites for the first time in many years. A small poll boost after the nationalisation of British Gas, and the successful diplomatic resolution of the Second Iran-Iraq war, led to Jackson calling a snap election in 2004. She had planned, successfully as it turned out, on catching the opposition off-guard.

Lab 333 (41%), Con 285 (45%), Lib 1 (1%)
Labour majority 20

Despite being 4 points ahead, and winning two million more votes, Patten's Conservatives fell slightly behind Labour in the seat totals. Heavily disappointed with the loss, yet satisfied with the progress of eight years, Patten chose to retire in favour of a younger leader. Had Patten's reforms been more weakly entrenched, this might have been the point where the Conservative Party made a shift back to the right. Instead, the modernising project would continue with renewed zeal.

Stephen Dorrell was a man firmly established as one of the modernisers of the “New Tory” movement. Under his leadership the Conservatives would be a relentless opposition throughout five long years of Labour government.

Stephen Dorrell​

Dorrell had first been elected to Parliament in 1979, becoming the then-youngest member of the House. During the Thatcher government he had served as a PPS, eventually being promoted to junior Minister at the Department of Health in the last year of the MacGregor government. During the King leadership Dorrell had stood out as one of the more level-headed of Conservative spokesmen, and one whom the public viewed most favourably. He stood briefly as a candidate in the 1996 leadership election, withdrawing early in support of Chris Patten's campaign.

Holding similar political views to Patten, Dorrell was soon promoted to the shadow cabinet. Thereafter a firm Pattenite, he served first as Shadow Heath secretary and later as Shadow Chancellor. Standing alongside Patten he made pledges to preserve the public service ethos of the NHS, while increasing both efficiency and health spending in real terms. In the run up to the 2004 general election he contributed to a statement condemning corporate greed and city excess. The party's traditional backers in business fumed and threatened to withdraw their considerable financial support. Patten and Dorrell held firm – corruption and greed, they argued, harmed the public image of business more that any socialist ranting ever would. When Patten retired, Dorrell was his natural successor.

The fourth Labour term continued much as the previous one had – with gradual tinkering around the edges of the social fabric, funded by stable if low economic growth. While some worried for the longer term, most ministers had grown comfortable in office, assured of Labour's new status as the “natural party of government”. Inflation crept steadily upwards as it had for much of the decade, something of increasing concern to historically-minded economists. Yet in the government's official responses such indicators were generally considered a “price worth paying” to minimise unemployment and bankroll slowly modernising national industries. A slow and ultimately botched response to the Estonian Crisis of January 2006 would cost much of the international goodwill accrued by earlier Jackson foreign policy. Isolated by President Geren in Washington and by traditional friends in Europe, it would cost much of Jackson's remaining political capital.

Prime Minister Jackson herself opted to retire in May 2006, on the day of her 70th birthday. Victory in the general election two years earlier had been against her private expectations. Publicly she expressed an unwillingness to lead her party through the next election, and therefore wanted to give a successor time to establish themselves. The party's eventual choice of successor, South London MP and Home Secretary Martha Osamor, came as a surprise.

Martha Osamor​

Born in Nigeria, Osamor had been a prominent community activist in 1980s London where she had campaigned against police brutality. Long before any political career began, she had established herself as a passionate advocate for the rights of black Londoners. Having been elected a councillor as an independent activist, Osamor joined the Labour Party in 1986. When Vauxhall MP Stuart Holland resigned in 1989 Osamor, with strong roots and personal support in the area, was a shoe-in for the selection.

After gaining prominence for her fiery speeches on the backbenches, Osamor became a junior Home Office minister in the second Davies ministry. For a junior minister, Osamor would appear in an unusually large number of television interviews – something generally blamed on the cynical tokenism of the Labour press office. Jackson's premiership saw Osamor promoted to a full Cabinet member as Education Secretary. It was during this period that she won most political credit for policies widening university access (with specific attention paid towards applicants from low socio-economic backgrounds and minority groups). Following the 2004 election, Osamor was further promoted to Home Secretary – a promotion greeted with praise by many social justice campaigners.

Following Jackson's retirement in 2006, Osamor seemed an unlikely successor. Though she was generally popular among the parliamentary and wider Labour Party, she was herself over 65 years of age and expected to step down at the next election. Further there was the unspoken speculation that maybe the British electorate just wasn't ready for a Black Prime Minister. While media commentators wrote her out of contention, Osamor quietly gathered nominations.

As the rounds of preferential voting progressed in Labour's Byzantine electoral collage, Osamor gradually exceeded and eliminated her competition. With victory over fellow young radical Jack Straw in the fourth and final round, Osamor became Britain's first Black Prime Minister (and the first to be born outside of the UK since Balfour).

Unfortunately fate was not kind to Martha Osamor, and she was destined to lead a declining government into its final years. High expectations, raised by Osamor's first conference speech, could never be met by a Cabinet of old and tired men. Scandals of personal integrity seemed to dog many of her junior (and some senior) colleagues. It was a constant drip feed which would start to blind the electorate to the governments remaining successes. Continual by-election defeats would gradually erode the already-slim government majority into nothing. Major reforms to the justice system - including the restructuring of the Home Office and the refocusing of the prison service towards rehabilitation after years of drift towards punishment for its own sake - rank among her greatest legacies. It would remain a bitter personal disappointment to Osamor that legislation, designed to address the long-standing educational under-attainment of students from ethnic minority backgrounds, failed to pass the Commons prior to dissolution.

In early 2009, the government would welcome delegates from the newly elected Anderton government of New Zealand. The optimism, enthusiasm, and legislative zeal of the visitors only served to illustrate the paucity of these qualities in their hosts.

 

[Meadow]

Brilliant. This is becoming my favourite TLIAD. It's just so different without being 'lol, quirky!'. An inspired idea, and well-executed in a rich and ever-changing world. Please write more.

 

[Lord Roem]

I very much agree with Meadow above - you have chosen a very interesting idea that I think has a lot of merit and is very well suited to the TLIAD format - I certainly have not seen it before!

You have also gone with a decent group of party leaders, I initially thought that Martha Osamor was a random choice for Prime Minister, but then again, she only lost selection because of Kinnock's mechanisations and behind-the-scenes dealings!

Look forward to reading more - well done!

 

[Meadow]

As a side note, it's obvious the Liberal parliamentary party is not in good nick, but how is the party generally? Is it just a fringe group now? Or worse, just the Berwick constituency organisation and nothing else? How is it doing in local government?

 

[Agent Boot]

2009

With the 2004 Parliament lasting its maximum duration, Prime Minister Osamor ultimately called an election for May 2009. With Labour having lagged in the polls for most of the past five years, it was the Conservative's election to lose.

Con 344 (50%), Lab 280 (43%), Lib 1 (1%)
Conservative majority 38

Under Stephen Dorrell the Conservatives became the first party since 1931 to win a majority of the popular vote. Yet growing disparities in the electoral system (exacerbated by a high differential turnout) resulted in the new Prime Minister only having a modest majority to work with. Dorrell had been a relentless campaigner through the five years of his opposition leadership – challenging and outflanking to the point where he was accused of stealing government policies outright.

The Conservatives arrived in office to find a rapidly overheating housing bubble – the results of early 80's council house sell-offs finally coming home to roost. The response was the biggest round of house building since the 1950's, combining urban redevelopment with new ecologically sound greenfield development. Manufacturing overproduction in the far east would touch off a global recession in 2011, although the UK's balanced economy would weather the storm better that most. A fresh initiative to join the booming eurozone was met with rejection however, a personal disappointment for the Prime Minister. The Treasury's rigid insistence on maintaining fiscal autonomy, combined with German reluctance to share a system widely seen as rigged in their favour, was enough to sink the bid.

Other highlights of the 2009-2013 term included the legalisation of same sex marriage and the opening of Britain's national high speed rail network. Following the “Maghreb Uprising” of 2012, Dorrell would order the RAF to provide full air support to the rebel factions.

Labour leader Osamor resigned a few months after election defeat. Aged 69 she returned to the backbenches and to a life of community activism in her constituency. As her successor the party opted for a “safe pair of hands” in the form of long-standing MP Robin Cook. Nominated unopposed, Cook became party leader without an election. As one of few Cabinet Ministers to see his public reputation grow throughout government, he seemed the ideal candidate to unite his party over the years needed to rebuild.

Robin Cook​

Cook made a valiant defence of his parties record in government. This at a time when many of his generation of MPs had already left the House for lucrative consultancies or directorships, or had simply lost the will to fight. It it testament to Cook's determination that many of the Davies, Jackson and Osamor governments' successes remained in place under the new administration. Cook, an MP since 1970 and an orator of high regard for many years, had often been overshadowed in government, in roles with limited public profile. As time passed, Labour would come to realise their hidden asset. The interim became the permanent by general assent.

Tragedy stuck however, when only two years into his leadership Cook was brought down by a massive heart attack. With initial reports played down the severity of the incident and most colleagues anticipating him returning to work, it soon became apparent that this would not be possible. Without the swift medical attention of a top London hospital it is possible that Cook may not have survived. At first determined to continue regardless, Cook would eventually listen to the advice of his doctors and choose to retire. Still lamenting their lost leader, and eager to stave off a divisive leadership contest only two years before a general election, the shadow cabinet rallied around Cook's Deputy – the now Acting Leader.

Mark Hunter​

Mark Hunter's political career began as a Liberal Party councillor in Greater Manchester. Manchester had been one of the Liberal Party's strongholds since the 19th Century, and it was among one of their last urban holdouts. In 1987 he sought election to Parliament under the Liberal Party banner, being unsuccessful in this endeavour as most of the party's candidates. By the mid-90's Hunter had begun to sense the way the political winds were blowing. As the Liberal Party starting to discreetly shift its diminishing resources away from hopeless Westminster elections and towards local councillors, Hunter like many others needed a new vehicle for his political ambitions. He would join the Labour party some time in 1993.

Hunter was eventually elected to Parliament in 2000, where he became PPS to Transport Secretary Lynne Jones. From 2004 he served as a Junior Minister at the Cabinet Office. Following Labour's return to opposition in 2009 Hunter, enjoying some popularity with many young grass-roots members, secured election as the Party's new Deputy Leader. His two years as Deputy were mostly quiet and low key, with Cook taking the more public profile. Cook's retirement changed this completely.

In the subsequent leadership election Hunter emerged as the Shadow Cabinet's consensus candidate. It was a smooth transition, and one deemed was necessary for the health of the wider party. His leadership opponents on the left and the right – gathering 30% of the vote between them – the only public symptom of deeper entrenched party division.

Yet Hunter was unprepared for leadership, and lacked both the drive and the inspiration to make something of it. With the government capturing most public and media attention, few were prepared to listen to the mostly anonymous Labour leader. A policy attempting to catch headlines, though swiftly mocked for its transparent populism, was the so-called "Phones Hotline". Intended to help members of the public report nuisance callers and salesmen, the campaign backfired when turned against the party's own phone canvassers. When the next election came, some 20 months later, the wider electorate were to find him uninspiring and ultimately wanting.

 

[area11]

This is a brilliant TL though it really is stretching the definition of a day.

 

[Agent Boot]

Responses

I think I've stretched the definition of "in a day" past breaking point (barring some distant tidally locked future). Most of the remaining timeline was "finished" as of a week ago, I've just been putting off the final edit/proofread and posting. A number of excellent TLIADs have appeared on the board in that time, all of which have been cracking distractions.

@Meadow - Its the standard balance of plausible at the risk of being predictable, cliche, or too parallel vs. original but seemingly random. What I've sketched out is probably not the single most likely outcome of a Liberal-free Britain, but (hopefully) one which has the right amount of "mildly interesting". The TLIAD format is one which I hope allows for that kind of narrative liberty. As for the Liberals - the final posts will give some more hints and exposition.

@Lord Roem - My general rule here for Alt-PMs is to take the OTL equivalent, then work back to the POD and plot their seniority at that point. Under different circumstances its hopefully not too difficult to image a contempory figure making an equivalent climb up the ranks. Most of my choices I hope are no more far-fetched than the OTL office holders would have seemed a few decades before the fact.

Apart from Glenda Jackson. That one was an admittedly partial indulgence on my part.

For Osamor its a far fetched twist of fate - but hopefully no more far-fetched than the circumstances between '97 and '01 in OTL Witney and Tatton that led to both David Cameron and George Osborne being elected in 2001 in those respective seats. Here as you say its an episode of internal Labour Party politics that I've chosen to butterfly away. There's also some "rule of cool" going on.

EDIT: @area11 - As above. Distractions galore, combined with proofreading being rather less fun than writing new stuff, in addition to just having to get down that other "really good" idea that floated into my head the other day. Will try harder in future.

 

[Agent Boot]

2013

Having successfully pushed through a constituency boundary reform derided by the Labour opposition as “gerrymandering”, Dorrell called an early election in 2013. With boundaries redrawn and the number of Commons seats reduced to 600, the Conservatives succeeded in maintaining their majority on a lower vote share.

Con 319 (48%), Lab 259 (44%), Lib 1 (1%)
Conservative majority of 38

Following the election, internal party pressure forced Hunter to step down in favour of a new generation of Labour politicians. After a wide open three month leadership contest, the party was to opt for its third female leader.

Rachel Reeves

​

Reeves had first become an MP in 2009, after a successful career in finance and having stood unsuccessfully in a number of by-elections. Identified as firmly on the Right of the party, she rose within the Shadow Cabinet under the lacklustre Hunter leadership, finally reaching the position of Shadow Chancellor.

It was a position which earned her few friends in the parliamentary party or in the membership, as Reeves sought to rein in Labour's previously generous spending commitments. At her only conference speech as Shadow Chancellor in 2012, Reeves was booed by delegates, and accused by colleagues in the press of “kowtowing to the interests of global capital”. The pledge that a future Labour government would stick to Tory spending plans was attacked as a betrayal, with many believing it contributed to the party's defeat in 2013.

Reeve's election as party leader came as a shock, coming mostly through support from fellow MPs against union and membership opposition. In the years that followed there was renewed pressure for reform to the electoral collage – in his last public appearance prior to his death, Tony Benn effectively relaunched the old Campaign for Labour Party Democracy. Veteran MP Alastair Darling – long associated with the revolutionary left – was overheard to lament that he didn't spend ten years of his life trying to oust “that woman”, only to have her clone become Labour leader. As it was, Reeves won the leadership election with 52% of the combined vote, edging out opponents Dan Norris and Maldwyn Smith. Over the next five years she set about transforming the Labour Party in her image.

Prime Minister Dorrell retired in 2015, after eleven years as party leader. Internal party pressure, combined with a slowing economy, had persuaded him not to serve a second full term in Downing Street. It caused little surprise among Westminster insiders when Dorrell was succeeded by his Chancellor Steve Webb. After years of tabloid jokes about “The Two Steves”, it was Steve Minor's chance to shine.

Steve Webb​

Having worked as a policy advisor to the then Conservative leader Chris Patten, Steve Webb was elected in his own right at the 2000 general election, succeeding Sir John Cope as the MP for Northavon. Webb was granted a number of Shadow portfolios throughout the Patten leadership. In 2004 he backed the leadership bid of the Patten protégé Stephen Dorrell. Dorrell in turn rewarded Webb with promotion to the position of Shadow Chancellor; a brief Webb held throughout the remainder of the party's time in opposition and which he carried through into government.

For much of his six years as Chancellor, Webb kept a low public profile, only coming to the fore during the Beijing banking crisis and the subsequent nationalisation of HSBC. Webb also pushed strongly for a cut in oil and gas windfall tax rates, the intention being to speed deepwater exploration in the offshore North Atlantic.

For nine months in late 2012 through to early 2013, Webb faced in his parliamentary opposite the rising Rachel Reeves. While Reeves often out-spoke and out-debated the Chancellor, it was to the Conservative Party's satisfaction that she chose to do so on their terms.

Webb followed Dorrell into Downing Street as the clear favourite among his colleagues. Such was the unanimity of Conservative MPs, that the leadership election might as well have been carried out by voice vote. Though long mocked in satirical media as a sock-puppet under the control of Dorrell, Webb was successful in exuding an image of quiet understated competence.

The threatened recession was averted though stimulus spending, though inflation began to edge upwards. The Webb premiership was best characterised as one of consolidation of the Dorrell years; a bookend to the post-92 consensus. Webb was the driving force behind reforms to the UK's century old state pensions system – reforms that shifted the system away from one funded by present day taxation towards one funded through longer-term saving. Such a shift was credited with ensuring the solvency and affordability of pensions through into the second half of the 20th Century.

Webb also oversaw the roll-out of the National Fibre-optic Network – something he had supported from his time as Shadow Chancellor. Development of the Network was widely understood as key to Britain's place in the digital economy, even as its cost-effectiveness was questioned in more rural areas.

AAH.com thread: More “Boomer” Prime Ministers?

LostGeneration: Given how much the internet likes the rage about the disproportionate influence wielded by the “Baby Boomers” in politics and economics, does anyone find it odd how few British Prime Ministers came from that age bracket?

gavin: How are we defining “Baby Boomer”?

LostGeneration: D.O.B from 1945 to 1965.

gavin: Well OK, so you have Dorrell (1952), and arguably Webb (1965). I'd attribute the absence of Boomer PMs before then to the long premierships of Thatcher and Davies. Basically any younger candidates remained in junior roles. Lots of political leaders went from young hope to elder statesman without wielding any real power.

SillyBilly: British politics doesn't really have that obsession with "youth" that you get in the US, so there's less reason for younger contenders to rise to high office so early in thier careers. Maybe if you changed that culture, though I don't see how.

LordFrome: You also have the succession to the Labour leadership of progressively older people like Jackson and Osamor. All of their leadership opponents were born in that 45-65 time period.

bingobob: Things did get a bit Soviet in those days didn't they? Viva la Gerontocracy

IngridJX: I think that was the gist of an unofficial Conservative campaign broadcast. Fortunately it was never used - criticising political leaders for belonging to the highest voter turnout demographic is never a good strategy.

Slugline: Don't forget the number of ministers who retired or resigned from the Davies Cabinet, many of whom could have fit in this age bracket.

gavin: That's true. From memory you had Gould who went to New Zealand, Smith who retired to spend years walking across the Highlands, Brown who went back to academia (Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, iirc?), any others?

Ben_P: Didn't Tony Blare (sp?) leave for a legal practice in New York? Maybe he could have fitted the bill?

AlBore: Nah, Blair was too unpopular with the party's base. He turns up in a lot of AH lists, but I think people just like picking obscure candidates.

 

[Sanderford]

This is all very fascinating. I almost feel sorry for the Liberals and their one remaining MP, doggedly hanging in there like a champ.