TLIAW: Shuffling A Deck, One Of Those With Junkers On the Back

Thabo Mbeki as a Steve Bikoesque martyr? Interesting detail.

I'm afraid I don't have anything more intelligent to contribute than saying how much I enjoyed the timeline, but there you go.
 
Don't really have much to say, except that was a great TL. Nice touch shuffling the familiar pre-war figures and then using obscure post-war figures.
 
My idea for what happened after the end of the TL.

Anthony Eden becomes leader of Centre after WWII, as he is able to counteract the Lloyd George-ite taint that still clings to the party, as he was a notable opponent of appeasement. He continues the extension of the welfare state that had been begun by Balfour at the start of the century, establishing the British Health Board which is funded on similar lines to the Central Electricity Board. He also nationalises some utilities. However, the deepening of rationing in the post-war as well as the clearly diminished role of Britain in the world leads to him narrowly losing the 1948 election, and Labour has a nail-bitingly small majority. The National Liberals are formally absorbed into the Labour Party, and the radicals who are determined to forge an independent path stay on the outside, which conveniently allowed the Communists to take their place as Britain's third party. MacDonald is pushed aside in 1953 by Butler's radical social reforming government. Butler struggles with the fragmentation occurring in much of the Imperial Commonwealth, and ultimately brings about America's ire by choosing to repudiate the white minority regimes in Southern and Eastern Africa. Butler continues the post-war consensus economically and is brought down by his foreign policy decisions, handing over to Tory grandee and economic reformer Ben Thorneycroft. His attempts to privatise what is now seen as traditionally nationalised, slash welfare and make swingeing cuts to public spending cause an economic crisis that almost splits Centre, and lead to Labour winning in a landslide in 1966.
 
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