TLIAW: The Curse of Maggie

[OwenM]

I love how (presumably) butterflies from Major's anti-paparazzi campaign mean Angus Deayton is still hosting HIGNFY to this day.

 

[Thande]

I love how (presumably) butterflies from Major's anti-paparazzi campaign mean Angus Deayton is still hosting HIGNFY to this day.

Is the right answer.

 

[Makemakean]

But I don't even like gin!

"We must be mad, literally mad, as a forum to be permitting the inflow of some handful of Swedes, who are for the most part totally indistinguishable from one another! It is like watching a forum busily engaged in heaping up its own!"

Anyway, almost forgot. Praise, praise and praise for your timeline! In particular liked the fact that you attempted to deconstruct the trope of "The happy marriage of Labour and Liberal Democrats and the subsequent perpetual coalition government".

 

[Whanztastic]

This TL did a really good job highlighting people who could never be President but could be PM (Cook, for example). And arguably for the better.

 

[Meadow]

I love how (presumably) butterflies from Major's anti-paparazzi campaign mean Angus Deayton is still hosting HIGNFY to this day.

Is the right answer.

I just applauded. Flawless butterfly execution.

Thande: A Cut Above

 

[Zachanassian]

Brown referred to Uxbridge as ‘that picketed woman’ in a manner that was perceived as dismissive or insensitive.

Well, I understood that reference, so all hope is not lost.

So, in this world:

• No UKIP
• British Rail remains government-owned
• No 9/11 and no GWoT
• The UK has a much less acrimonious relationship with the EU
• The British tabloid press is brought to heel
• And most importantly, Spitting Image is never cancelled

Did you set out to make this a utopian timeline, or was that a side effect?

Anyway, a good read. The fact that an Unknowing Outsider like me can read and enjoy it is a testament to your writing skills Mr. Thande.

 

[Puget Sound]

Great timeline, Thande! Also, what was Major's reaction upon learning that Grant was PM?

 

[steve_wilson]

Great timeline, Thande! Also, what was Major's reaction upon learning that Grant was PM?

Well, in OTL we won the 2005 Ashes and Bloomberg reported:

"Among the spectators over the past five days were former U.K. Prime Minister John Major, U.S. film director Ron Howard, actor Hugh Grant and Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger."

I think he'd be pleased.

 

[Heavy]

Though the TLIAD format obviously imposes quite a few constraints vis-a-vis space for lateral development and world-building, I think Major going after Fleet Street could have been a pretty fun timeline in itself.

 

[Utgard96]

Mick Jagger should've been PM.

More seriously, this is one great piece of work Thande. I've been thinking of doing a Swedish Shuffling the Deck, only to be disillusioned by how little there is to work with, but perhaps this could be a more interesting bandwagon TLIAD to adapt…

 

[Heavy]

Mick Jagger should've been PM.

Mick Jagger was quite keen on the idea of going into politics when he was at LSE, and his parents were active Tories, weren't they?

 

[RossN]

Wonderful timeline Thande.

Any chance of a comeback for John Major in 2018 then? If Gordon Brown can do it...

 

[steve_wilson]

No, in 2018 the Prime Minister is - Margaret Thatcher! And her first words to the press: "Brainsssssssss, need brainssssssss"

 

[LancyIain]

Is the right answer.

I see what you did there.

A very enjoyable read. Not too predictable either. I liked it a lot.

 

[idumea]

*applause*

 

[Ed Costello]

This TL basically kept me sane over the past two days. Thank you very much; this is delightful.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Wow, just wow! I join the chorus of praise and astonishment at this TL. Thande blows us all away. AGAIN!

Comments on the whole thread, as I seem to have gotten way behind.

Also, what does the green arrow thingamabob to the left of both this and LTTW signify?

You may choose an icon for your message from the following list:
... Includes the green arrow
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NEIL KINNOCK
(Labour)
1992-1994​

You forgot to black out the required tooth for a MAD cover..,

But of course one cannot discuss Kinnock’s premiership without his shocking assassination on February 19th 1994. A Cabinet meeting to discuss Europe and the economy was held in Downing Street and from a neighbouring roof a group of IRA terrorists attacked the building with a mortar.

I can just imagine Lamont saying that the ERM crisis would never have happened if there had been a Conservative Chancellor.

of course

Launching the mortars from a rooftop rather than a van presumably improved the accuracy. It was a miracle no-one was killed in OTL's attack.

I like the way we can read tea-leaves, and turn a misremembering into a deliberate plot point.

---------------------------------

emperorJulian seems to have done this, to some extent, already in his Ruins of an American party System. Something like 10 presidents in 16 years(counting Wilson before he died) and laGuardia in 1936), 4 in one term, I think? Whoever would try an American one needs to view EmperorJulian as the leader in the clubhouse.

her, I believe. The tag under the name is "apostata" not "apostatus", for instance.
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JOHN MAJOR
(Conservative)
1997-2000​

This Grey Spirit​

....
Major’s chief asset was his background. Though some might dismiss him as ‘the only man ever to run away from the circus to become an accountant’, his credentials as a working-class kid from Brixton who rose to the premiership were a neat contrast against Blair, whose PR-conscious and vaguely-locationless image meant he came across as fake and untrustworthy to some working-class swing voters.

I don't remember seeing that quote before. But it does fit his image, doesn't it?

Labour did at least have one consolation prize, as the second London Mayoral election was held on General Election day and Ken Livingstone won a second three-year term, defeating the Tory candidate Jeffrey Archer. One remarkable occurrence was that the Green Party of England and Wales stood Robert Llewelyn of Red Dwarf fame largely as a vanity exercise, and he ended up capturing a surprise 15% of the vote and coming close behind the Liberals. The other parties observed and took away the lesson that the London electorate, at least for this office, seemed particularly enthused for ‘wacky celebrity’ candidates...

Love the storm of speculation this launched.
BTW. We've enough Spanish commentors on this board that confuse the cognates (major and mayor), that I had to consciously check several times to make sure that the correct word was used throughout the TL. Which of course it was.

One of the first crises Major was forced to deal with was the tragic death of Princess Diana. Having divorced Prince Charles the previous year, the charity campaigner was secretly filmed committing a sexual act with Dodi Fayed, son of Mohamed Fayed of Harrods fame, and took her own life the day before the pictures were published. The resulting shock was felt not only in the United Kingdom but across the world, for a global audience had been following the fairy story that turned into a Gothic horror.

Oh my. Will a circulating sex tape damp Diana's image down to real world proportions?

Cracking down on the paparazzi is great (especially the obnoxiously intrusive British tabloid ones) but I do worry a little about free speech here.

It seemed that Major had brought stability after the chaos of the last Labour government’s many changes of power, but at a charity cricket match in September 2000, he was struck in the head by a cricket ball and fell into a coma. He would not awaken until six years later—by which point many had written him off as a vegetable who would never regain consciousness, so his awakening reignited a debate about euthanasia—by which point the premiership had been held by six other people...

Too bad you didn't follow this up with what he said then....

----------------------

MARJORIE “MO” MOWLAM
(Labour)
2002-2004​

Mo-Mentum​

....
suggesting that the money spent on the “Millennium Dome of Discovery” would have been better spent on replacing Buckingham Palace with something more modern.

Is this an OTL building, or a different one?

Mowlam’s premiership was noted for a number of events, including the election of a Socialist President in France for the first time since Mitterand, the announcement of a new high-speed rail network for the UK, and the eastward expansion of the European Union to take in former Eastern Bloc states. Controversy would never be far away concerning the role of Russia and Turkey as observer member states and potential future members, with Eurofederalists worrying about the loss of a European identity for the alliance and some Eurosceptics delighting in the idea.

High speed rail? More than OTL?

Turkey iOTL is a candidate for EU membership (in rather permanent limbo now, but still officially there). But Russia? Fascinating.

She might have been a Marmite politician, but those who loved her did so wholeheartedly.

Sorry. Marmite politician? What's that, for this poor transPondian?
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It's interesting that Supermarkets use Loyalty Cards to monitor what people buy, but that is seen as less Big Brotherly than ID cards.

The connotations of loyalty to a supermarket chain are very different from the connotations of loyalty to the government.

The difference is that Supermarket Cards reward you with savings AND are optional. If ID cards saved you on taxes and were optional, that'd be a lot more palatable. Heck, you can even game the system by switching supermarkets or not using your card if you don't want certain purchases to show up. Rather harder to do that with a Government ID card.

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ROBIN COOK
(Labour)
2004-2006​

Nonetheless one should not imagine that all Cook’s initiatives met with failure. Foreign policy had several triumphs under his tenure, including the first state visit to the Republic of Ireland by the British monarch since its independence, the accession of Ukraine, Russia and Turkey to the EEA as a prelude to EU membership

WHAT!!!! And no one else commented on this?!?!?

and, most importantly, ‘Only McCain Could Go To Iran’. It was Cook’s patient work both as Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister that led to the unlikely warming of US-Iranian relations with the return to power of President Khatami and an olive branch by the onetime war hawk and new President John McCain. Only Cook, with his in-depth knowledge of the intricacies of the American political system and those who inhabited it, could have achieved such.

Fascinating.

He also presided over the first UK Eurovision win since Bucks Fizz in 1981, with Jessica Garlick’s Don’t Leave Me topping the scoreboard at the 2005 contest in Warsaw. While attending the Manchester-hosted 2006 contest, Cook was almost run over by an out-of-control security van but was dragged out of its path by the Conservative Shadow Media Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. Reporting of the incident was notable for an unfortunate typographical error by the Guardian, which led Charlie Brooker to joke that they had accidentally transposed a programme description from the part of the TV guide dealing with the Fantasy Channel.

Yes, yes, this is a nasty stab at 'The Grauniad', but WHAT typo? I'm missing something.


------------------------

Oh dear God, Fungus. At least he was another one of the temporary stopgaps.

Fungus? Why Fungus. Looking at the picture, is it his facial hair?

-------------------

I once had a boss who had previously worked in Standard Chartered Bank when John Major was employed there prior to 1979. The two weren't close colleagues but worked in departments that collaborated on international finance projects. The story is that when JM got selected to fight Huntingdon constituency for the Tories, he bounded in to the office to tell everyone the news. He allegedly claimed that he had been selected because "the selection panel thought he had the potential to be a senior cabinet minister and that would be good for the constituency".


Everyone politely congratulated him and, after he left to return to his office, burst out laughing at the very idea of Major in the cabinet. Nice guy they thought, no way a minister though. However, they did reckon Major's departure from the bank to be an MP would raise the average IQ at both StanChart and Westminster - they might have been right in that.


Of course, as my boss said in 1990, the joke was really on them.*


* Especially as Major turned out to be a reasonable PM and slightly more adventurous in his personal life than anyone would have guessed. Still waters run deep

Heh. Yes, indeed. Thanks for the anecdote.

-------------------

This makes at least the second TLIAD/W with a Doctor as PM. (First was Techdread's "From the Ashes".)

What? I'm confused. What Doctor?

-----------------

DAVID CAMERON
(Conservative)
2010-2010​

Crystal Clear​

David Cameron seemed born to the Tory leadership, and in some ways that was the problem. He was an Old Etonian and regarded as having a privileged, even posh, background. His grandmother had been the niece of the 1930s Conservative politician Duff Cooper, to whom he bore a striking resemblance. Another odd doppelganger emerged when Cameron, as Foreign Secretary, flew out to America to pay his respects after a school shooting at DeWitt Clinton High School in New York in which a British exchange student was killed. Despite the sombre occasion, many could not help remarking on the fact that Cameron had spoken at the memorial service under a two-century-old painting of what appeared to be himself. Cameron was descended from one of William IV’s illegitimate daughters. He was emphatically of the establishment.

e.g.

GORDON BROWN
(Labour)
2014-???? ​

Brown But Not Out​

cute

This led to vigilante attacks on identified individuals across the country, and one high-profile case where the house of one Janine Uxbridge was surrounded and besieged by vigilante protestors who surrounded it with makeshift barriers. It transpired that Uxbridge had in fact been identified in the list as a witness to a sex crime and was entirely innocent. When speaking of the incident in Parliament, Brown referred to Uxbridge as ‘that picketed woman’ in a manner that was perceived as dismissive or insensitive.

THE END​

Cute, again.

----------------
totally out of order.

JOHN SMITH
(Labour)
1994-1996​

An Honest Man Needs No Alias​

...
It would be another Thatcherite who would be an embarrassment for Smith, however. In an attempt (suggested by Peter Mandelson) to build Labour’s connection to the youth, he created the office of Media Secretary and sent its inaugural holder, Chris Smith, to the 1995 BRIT Awards. The latter Smith (Private Eye also had fun with their common surname) had a drink thrown over him by Geri Haliwell, then lead singer of the popular girl group Touch, who then issued a rant broadcast live on national television about the alleged sexism in Parliament and contrasted it to Mrs Thatcher holding the highest office in the land. Controversy over this led to Halliwell leaving Touch (being replaced with Michelle Stephenson) and becoming a solo artist, as well as Chris Smith eventually being reshuffled to MAFF.

What? No Spice Girls? Ginger Spice never exists (and quits early)? Does not Posh Spice still marry David Beckham?

 

[Utgard96]

Sorry. Marmite politician? What's that, for this poor transPondian?

A "love 'em or hate 'em" sort of politician. From Marmite, a British sandwich spread that famously inspires similar feelings.

What? I'm confused. What Doctor?

The Doctor. As in Doctor Who.

 

[dilbert719]

Yes, yes, this is a nasty stab at 'The Grauniad', but WHAT typo? I'm missing something.

I don't know if this is referring to an OTL incident (though I believe it is), but the typo would be an unfortunate substitution of the first letter of Jeremy Hunt's last name.

What? I'm confused. What Doctor?

The timeline to which they were referring featured David McDonald as PM, who is better known OTL as David Tennant, the Tenth Doctor.

 

[Zachanassian]

Is this an OTL building, or a different one?

It is an OTL building.