TLIAW: För Storbritannien i Tiden

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Utgard96

Utgard96

Anyone want to take a guess at who our Löfven is? (Owen will no doubt remember proposing the person in question)
 
Callan

Callan

Ares96 said:
Anyone want to take a guess at who our Löfven is? (Owen will no doubt remember proposing the person in question)
Click to expand...

alan-johnson_1406262c.jpg


Total stab in the dark, based on the fact that they were both Trade Union leaders.

This TL is grand, by the way.
 
OwenM

OwenM

It is good. Really learning a lot about Sweden.
So the UUP act as the Christian Democrats, I'd wondered about that. Any equivalents to the Pirates, Feminists, and June List?
Also, rereading Prescott, I hadn't realised that the Swedish Greens were a split off the People's Party the Liberals.
And I do remember.
 
Utgard96

Utgard96

OwenM said:
Also, rereading Prescott, I hadn't realised that the Swedish Greens were a split off the People's Party the Liberals.
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They weren't, or at least, it was a lot more convoluted. See, they were founded by Per Gahrton, the former Liberal Youth chairman and certified angriest man ever to wear knitted sweaters to Parliament. He was sort of a Liberal David Owen, a perpetual rebel, except insofar as he was miles to the left of the establishment rather than miles to its right, and quit the Riksdag in 1979 to write a sociology dissertation on... his time in the Riksdag, which definitely wasn't meant as an indictment of the Liberal leadership of the time. No siree, nothing of the sort. He then went off to found the Green Party, thinking we needed more sensible issues-focused politics, which is ironic because the Greens in the 80s were perhaps the most personality-focused party ever seen at the time.

My decision to have them split off from the Liberals in protest at not-Leijonborg's leadership was basically a kneejerk reaction to my realisation that "oh shit, I don't have any Greens, and I bloody can't have not-Löfven coalition with the Party of Not-Björklund".
 

Makemakean

Ares96 said:
They weren't, or at least, it was a lot more convoluted. See, they were founded by Per Gahrton, the former Liberal Youth chairman and certified angriest man ever to wear knitted sweaters to Parliament. He was sort of a Liberal David Owen, a perpetual rebel, except insofar as he was miles to the left of the establishment rather than miles to its right, and quit the Riksdag in 1979 to write a sociology dissertation on... his time in the Riksdag, which definitely wasn't meant as an indictment of the Liberal leadership of the time. No siree, nothing of the sort. He then went off to found the Green Party, thinking we needed more sensible issues-focused politics, which is ironic because the Greens in the 80s were perhaps the most personality-focused party ever seen at the time.
Click to expand...

Yes, there is this famous exchange in the Riksdag from when Gahrton had been Green MP for a couple of years, and it was the tenth anniversary (or something like that) of him leaving the Liberal People's Party, and Gahrton made a little speech which he concluded with saying that leaving the Liberals was "without a doubt the best decision I have taken in my life."

Immediately after, the leader of the Liberal group requested to be allowed to give a reply, the request was granted, and he said "On account of the entire Liberal group, I would like to say that we agree with Per Gahrton. Leaving the Liberal People's Party was without a doubt the best decision he has taken in his life."
 
Dave Prentis (2014-)
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    • Utgard96

    Utgard96

    fsit-prentis.png


    Dave Prentis (Labour-Green coalition)
    2014-
    The Incumbent​

    When Labour lost its second election in a row in 2010, it was felt they needed a break with their past image of grey bureaucrats who cared more about holding power than they did making policy. They needed a firebrand, a genuine left-winger who could enthuse the people once again and pave the way for the triumphant return to Number 10 that everyone knew was coming. So they turned to John McDonnell.

    Eighteen months later, McDonnell's leadership had left the party divided and facing a polling disaster. The government had started winning by-elections, and Labour spent more time on internal quarrels than they did opposing the Alliance. It was now felt they needed someone who embodied the exact opposite qualities from the ones McDonnell had been associated with.

    So they turned to Dave Prentis, the General Secretary of NALGO. Prentis had the credentials to please both wings of the party – for the left, he was a longstanding, successful union leader with a broad Yorkshire accent, and for the right, he had strong credentials for industrial harmony, cooperating with the state to secure economic prosperity. More than everything else, in his union positions he'd taken a technocratic bent, keeping well outside the internal conflicts of the TUC and the Labour Party. His leadership bid was somewhat damaged by not being an MP, but immediately upon his election a member for East London stood down, triggering a by-election that Prentis comfortably won.

    Prentis was not a particularly skilled debater, but much like Henry Plumb before him, gained a reputation as an underdog when compared with Cameron's Eton-Oxford education. Labour's election campaign in 2014 played heavily on these differences, with one notable PPB featuring Prentis touring the places of his childhood in working-class Leeds. Overall the campaign was significantly more positive than the 2010 one, though it was still criticised internally for “accepting the Cameronite consensus” by refusing to take stands on private welfare or pledge the reversal of Alliance tax cuts. Party strategists had set a target voteshare of 35%, a figure that would've meant conceding defeat as late as ten years prior, and even this was not reached. However, the National collapse and British Democrat surge still left him at the head of the largest party by some margin, and after some negotiations he ended up forming a coalition government with the Greens (the first Labour-led coalition since Ramsay MacDonald).

    In some alternate universe, this might've been a great reforming government, elected as it was on the promise of reducing Britain's unemployment level to be the lowest in Europe by 2020. However, as the parliamentary situation stood, such was not going to happen. The government had the direct backing of less than forty percent of the Commons. They sought the backing of the Socialist Left, conceding several policy points including an independent inquiry into private welfare, but this still did not win them a majority. Fortunately, this would not normally be a problem, as the Alliance was even weaker, and the British Democrats wouldn't work with them or vote with them on the budget – the hope was that they'd abstain just as they'd done the Alliance budgets. This hope was not to be, in spite of the fact that the Alliance agreed to match Labour's integration spending level in order to prevent the British Democrats from siding with them. The very first budget was defeated in the Commons, and within months of the General Election, Britain faced a government crisis.

    However, as things stood there was very little appetite for early elections from either the government or the Alliance. The National Party was still in disarray after Cameron's sudden departure, and with the British Democrats continuing their poll surge it was looking unlikely that they'd stand to gain from fresh elections. Chloe Smith, who was more or less the de facto leader of the Alliance as leader of its second-largest party, negotiated a deal with Prentis whereby the Alliance parties would abstain on supply and confidence for the next four years, effectively giving consent to Labour rule. However, when those four years were up, an election would be held, and if the Alliance were the biggest bloc then, Labour would have to reciprocate. Under these rules, Labour were able to pass a budget, and the governance of Britain carried on as usual.

    However, the year and a half elapsed since has seen unprecedented upheavals, from the refugee crisis to the heightening tensions between the West and Russia, to the explosion of the British homeless population (largely EU migrants), and the British Democrats continue to surge in the polls. The Liberals, facing irrelevance, have rebranded themselves the “Liberal People's Party”, a move that kept them in the headlines but ultimately had little effect on their poll ratings. The Greens have hit a slump, brought on by their perceived powerlessness as Labour's junior coalition partner, and in their place the Socialist Left under Corbyn's leadership have risen to become the dominant force of the “plural” left. Fuelled by the bitterness that prompted her to leave the Socialist Left while still its leader, Diane Abbott has founded a “Rainbow Alliance” campaigning on issues of racial equality, a platform that wins her plenty of attention but ultimately not much support outside the major cities. Iris Robinson, the new Ulster Unionist leader, is pledging “No Surrender to Labour”, likely meaning her party will refuse to adhere to the agreement and vote down the next Labour budget, and the new National leader seems to be sympathetic to the idea.

    It remains to be seen whether Prentis and his government will even last until the hypothetical 2018 General Election, or whether he'll stumble and fall on a budget vote before then as the right increasingly comes to realise that the allure of power may be worth shedding some righteous indignation and making a deal with the British Democrats. A line of Labour Prime Ministers, from treacherous Ramsay Mac to beloved Attlee, to long-serving Wilson, to firebrand Benn, to reformer Dobson, to power-broker Prescott, look down from the walls of Number 10. How long before Prentis joins them, and will he do so at a time of his choosing or in ignominious defeat at the hands of his enemies? Time, alone, will tell.
     
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  • Index
    • List and conclusion
  • Index
    • Utgard96

    Utgard96

    And th-th-th-that's all folks! 70-odd years of Swedish history is done, or at least it's going to take a little while before we have anything further to add. Thanks to all the loyal readers for making this one of the more enjoyable writing experiences I've had. I'm glad I finally finished something.

    Here's a complete list of Prime Ministers and leaders going into elections in TTL:

    1945-1950: Clement Attlee (Labour)
    1945: Winston Churchill (Conservative), Archibald Sinclair (Liberal)
    1950: Winston Churchill (Conservative), Clement Davies (Liberal)
    1950-1971: Harold Wilson (Labour)
    1955: Harold Macmillan (Conservative), Clement Davies (Liberal)
    1960: Harold Macmillan (Conservative), Jo Grimond (Liberal)
    1965: Reginald Maudling (Anti-Pension Conservative), Derick Heathcoat-Amory (Pro-Pension Conservative), Jo Grimond (Liberal)
    1970: Derick Heathcoat-Amory (Centre), Arthur Seldon (National), Jo Grimond (Liberal)
    1971-1978: Anthony Wedgwood-Benn (Labour)
    1975: Henry Plumb (Centre), Keith Joseph (National), Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal), Dennis Skinner (Communist)
    1978-1981: Henry Plumb (Centre-Liberal Coalition)
    1978: Anthony Wedgwood-Benn (Labour), Keith Joseph (National), Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal), Dennis Skinner (Communist)
    1981: Alan Beith (Liberal)
    1981-1982: Henry Plumb (Centre-Liberal Coalition)
    1981: Anthony Wedgwood-Benn (Labour), Keith Joseph (National), Alan Beith (Liberal), Dennis Skinner (Communist)
    1982-1986: Anthony Wedgwood-Benn (Labour)
    1982: Keith Joseph (National), Henry Plumb (Centre) Alan Beith (Liberal), Dennis Skinner (Communist)
    1986: Norman Tebbit (National), Paddy Ashdown (Liberal), Henry Plumb (Centre), Dennis Skinner (Communist)
    1986-1991: Frank Dobson (Labour)
    1991-1994: Michael Portillo (National-Centre-Liberal Coalition)
    1991: Frank Dobson (Labour), Paddy Ashdown (Liberal), John Gummer (Centre), James Goldsmith (New Democracy), Dennis Skinner (Communist)
    1994-1996: Frank Dobson (Labour)
    1994: Michael Portillo (National), John Gummer (Centre), Paddy Ashdown (Liberal), Diane Abbott (Socialist Left)
    1996-2006: John Prescott (Labour)
    1998: Michael Portillo (National), Diane Abbott (Socialist Left), John Gummer (Centre), Brian Paddick (Liberal)
    2001: Iain Duncan Smith (National), Brian Paddick (Liberal), Diane Abbott (Socialist Left), Annabel Goldie (Centre), collective leadership (Green)
    2006-2014: David Cameron (National-Centre-Liberal-Ulster Unionist Alliance)
    2006: John Prescott (Labour), Annabel Goldie (Centre), Brian Paddick (Liberal), Dave Nellist (Socialist Left), collective leadership (Green)
    2010: Harriet Harman (Labour), collective leadership (Green), Michael Gove (Liberal), Annabel Goldie (Centre), Nick Griffin (British Democrat), Dave Nellist (Socialist Left)
    2014-: Dave Prentis (Labour-Green Coalition)
    2014: David Cameron (National), Nick Griffin (British Democrat), collective leadership (Green), Chloe Smith (Centre), Jeremy Corbyn (Socialist Left), Michael Gove (Liberal)
     
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  • Index
    • KingCrawa

    KingCrawa

    Very very nice work. I really liked how this sounded plausible despite the transplant.

    However you appear to have missed off McDonnel and Cooper from the list in your last post.
     
    OwenM

    OwenM

    Bendigedig.
    KingCrawa said:
    Very very nice work. I really liked how this sounded plausible despite the transplant.

    However you appear to have missed off McDonnel and Cooper from the list in your last post.
    Click to expand...
    Only leaders who went into an election count.
     
    EvilSpaceAlien

    EvilSpaceAlien

    Well this certainly was a very fun ride all the way through, no doubt about that. There's some quite inspired choices for analogues, and I'm not even counting the one I recommended. ;)

    I definitely would never have thought of Dave Prentis as a Löfven analogue and probably would've gone with the easier and less fitting choice of Alan Johnson if I had done it, so this was a really great read.
     
    Utgard96

    Utgard96

    EvilSpaceAlien said:
    Well this certainly was a very fun ride all the way through, no doubt about that. There's some quite inspired choices for analogues, and I'm not even counting the one I recommended. ;)
    Click to expand...

    I'm particularly grateful when people who know Swedish political history like it, because it means I probably (hopefully) haven't been going too far outside the bounds of probability.

    EvilSpaceAlien said:
    I definitely would never have thought of Dave Prentis as a Löfven analogue and probably would've gone with the easier and less fitting choice of Alan Johnson if I had done it, so this was a really great read.
    Click to expand...

    Like most of the particularly good ones, someone else is to blame for that one - namely Owen, who suggested him when I lamented that both McCluskey and Ian Lavery were too openly left-wing to fit as Löfven analogues.
     

    Ivir Baggins

    Masterful.

    But even here I doubt Nick Griffin would end up so "influential". One of the wingKips, maybe, but The BNP Himself? Is the OTL leader of the SDs really that mental?
     
    Utgard96

    Utgard96

    Ivir Baggins said:
    But even here I doubt Nick Griffin would end up so "influential". One of the wingKips, maybe, but The BNP Himself? Is the OTL leader of the SDs really that mental?
    Click to expand...

    Well, not quite - Björn Söder might be a better fit for Griffin. I just don't know enough people on the British far right, and Farage definitely doesn't fit the bill. Perhaps Paul Nuttall, but I don't think he has the charisma. (cue Makemakean ranting for several hours about how Jimmie Åkesson doesn't have any sort of charisma either)
     
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