WI: Thatcher Waits?

WI: Margaret Thatcher waits till 1988 to call an election. However, unlike the bitter opposition to it, Owen reaches a deal with Steel & the Lib Dems are united under Owen (the more charismatic & telegenic of the two; It won't matter what the other concessions between them are). What happens?
 
David Owen could not unite the alliance or in fact the Social Democrat Party.

The figure who could have united the Alliance and been accepted as leaderby most liberals as well as soc dems was Shirley Williams (I write as Liberal ativists from that era)
 
The point was to ask how the seating would break down if Owen didn't fight the merger (The only way I see him doing so is if he leads th LD). I was curious about how an early & united LD does against Thatcher & Kinnock?
 
WI: Margaret Thatcher waits till 1988 to call an election. However, unlike the bitter opposition to it, Owen reaches a deal with Steel & the Lib Dems are united under Owen (the more charismatic & telegenic of the two; It won't matter what the other concessions between them are). What happens?

Sorry, the idea of David Owen leading a united Alliance is ASB, the Liberals wouldn't even remotely put up with it and I'm not convinced the SDP would either.

Now if you wanted a strong united Alliance, then I'd make the point of departure being to stop a car crash outside Truro in December 1986.
 
Essentially a comic opera outfit,the strongest SDP-Liberal Alliance possible would at best have won a dozen seats from the Tories, and maybe a couple or so from labout. No difference to the next or subsequent Governments. Speaking as someone, who, to my regret, joined the SDP in 1982. It seemed a good idea at the time!
 
1988..

To be fair, there were other events in 1987 which might have moved public opinion. The stock market crash in October and the big storm which ravaged the south might have enforced the perception that the Thatcherite economic miracle wasn't going to last or be built on firm foundations.

As Iain and others have argued, David Penhaligon would have been the obvious choice to lead the newly-merged Alliance Party and would, I think, have come over well on television as a more moderate voice beside Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock.

It would be complex - in OTL, the vote share was, if 42-31-23 or thereabouts. A split of say 37-31-28 would make a difference in terms of seats but I don't know how much.
 
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