alternatehistory.com

Alec Douglas-Home was a Conservative (Scottish Unionist) Prime Minister from October 1963 to October 1964, following the resignation of Harold Macmillan. In 1964, he was beaten by Harold Wilson's Labour Party (though, Wilson's majority was surprisingly small given the circumstances).

None of the above might have occurred had he not survived an operation upon his spine in 1940...

Wikipedia said:
Dunglass had volunteered for active military service shortly after Chamberlain left Downing Street. The consequent medical examination revealed that Dunglass had a hole in his spine surrounded by tuberculosis in the bone. Without surgery he would have been unable to walk within a matter of months. An innovative and hazardous operation was performed in September 1940, lasting six hours, in which the diseased bone in the spine was scraped away and replaced with healthy bone from the patient's shin.

So, what if the "innovative and hazardous operation" had seen Alec Douglas-Home (known as Lord Dunglass at the time) left dead upon the operating table? How would the next twenty-five years have panned out for the Conservative Party?

The biggest butterflies would really have begun during his OTL time as Foreign Secretary from 1960 to 1963, but the crucial question is who would have succeeded Macmillan had the Prime Minister decided to step down at roughly the same time? What figures might have replaced the absent Douglas-Home ITTL?
Top