Suppose Lord Halifax had managed to get appointed in 1940 but he did NOT do a deal with the Nazis.
We are without the Churchill personality.
1) Without Churchill are the Fascist beaten sooner, his actual military judgement is at least sometimes disputable?
2) Do the Tories lose more heavily in 1945?
3) other impacts on the influence of the House of Lords
4) Anything else,
This 'POD' is pretty much how I believe things would have panned out had Halifax taken the job.
While I can see Halifax being far more likely to be looking for a peaceful end to hostilities in May 1940 - he would still be a PM in a situation where the peace Germany would offer would be no where near something that was acceptable to Britain and so even with Halifax at the helm - he would still have been PM of a Nation at war.
1) Yep - much as I admire his superb leadership and 'Special Relationship' with the US he was no military genius - I would expect Halifax to be less likely to make those 'from he heart' decisions that made no or very little impact on the conduct of the war (in many cases a detrimental impact) - and Churchill had already proven that he was unfit for the task of First Lord of the Admiralty where he had interfered with an already rushed plan for the sending of troops to Norway - in one case resulting in one Brigade, that had been loaded onto 3 Cruisers - being turfed off in a hurry when Winston sent the 3 Cruisers off on a fools errand - the Battalion's and sub units of said Brigade ended up arriving peace meal without much of their equipment (which had been left on board the Cruisers).
Maybe less adventurism in places like Greece would see the Commonwealth armies not having to absorb the unnecessary loss of a Division+ of troops plus 4 divisions worth of Artillery, trucks and equipment as well as multiple fleet and air force assets desperately needed elsewhere at the time.
That 'up to' 4 divisions of equipment might have been useful in North and East Africa at the time!
2) I don't see why they should - Britain voted for a Socialist government due to the austere conditions in which they had been living and who can blame them them after years of such privation! I don't think it was anything to do with the Conservatives conduct over the previous 10 years.
3) I think that the example of Halifax taking the position of PM in this POD would be seen as an 'extraordinary' act during 'extraordinary' times with regards to the normal activities of both Houses and therefore very unlikely to be repeated.
4) The only issue is that 2 or 3 weeks of 'wobble' around the period when France fell. Churchill deserves his reputation for that period alone when he managed to keep firmly in the war. This would be my only concern. Not that I believe that Britain would have made peace at any cost.