WI 1945 Tory victory in British general election.

[pipisme]

In the 1945 general election in OTL, 15 Independent MPs are elected (including one Independent Conservative). The total number of MPs are 640. If say the Conservatives win 315 seats and gain the support of 8 Independents, they will have a majority. In OTL 12 Liberal MPs are elected. At least one, Major Gwilym Lloyd George, Pembrokeshire, held office in the shortlived Conservative Caretaker government which took office on the ending of the war time coalition. He was elected as an MP without Conservative opposition. If he and two or three other Liberals support the Conservatives, this will increase the Conservative majority.

In OTL, Churchill had some degree of political friendliness with the Liberals, as an anti-Socialist party. In this scenario, he (or whoever is Conservative leader), in return for Liberal support promises legislation introducing the alternative vote for parliamentary elections. He also promises to abolish the business premises vote, under which owners of businesses had an additional vote in respect of that business. It was predominantly Conservative and contributed to a majority of the electorate in the two-member City of London constituency, which always returned Conservative MPs. He also promises to implement the Beveridge Report.

Sir William Beveridge, Liberal lost his seat at Berwick-Upon-Tweed by 1,962 votes (6.9%) to the Conservatives. The Labour candidate polled 20.3% of the vote. So if he holds this seat, he could be appointed as Minister of Pensions and National Insurance in a Conservative/Liberal coalition government.

Sir Archibald Sinclair, Liberal, lost his Caithness and Sutherland seat in a very close three party race. He was in third place only 61 votes behind the winning Conservative. Some Conservatives did not want to put up a candidate against him. He was Secretary for Air in the wartime coalition government. He would have won easily in a straight fight with Labour.

In OTL the Liberal party had a net loss of 8 seats. A net loss of 2 to the Conservatives and 6 to Labour. If the Conservatives are the largest party, with or without an overall majority, it is at least possible that two or three more Liberals would be elected.

The Liberal party's belief in economic freedom put them on common ground with the Conservatives. However they regarded the Conservative party as being in favour of freedom for 'Big Business' only.

A projection of gains in Conservative seats in The British General Election of 1945 shows that a swing from Labour to Conservative of 7.5% would increase the number of Conservative MPs to 327 - an absolute majority.

 

[V-J]

I suspect it was more than the Tories attitude to Beveridge that lost them the election. The Tories were largely held responsible for Munich and the Norway fiasco, the war had brought about a great deal of social mobility, industry was largely state directed (not the same as state controlled) people were collectively minded and didn't want a repeat of 1918 with a return to class conflict i.e pay cuts and unemployment when demobolisation occured. A lot of servicemen voted Labour to get demobbed.

All perfectly true, which is why I would regard a Tory victory as pretty much ASB. By 1945, the Tories just had too much baggage behind them - they were worn out as a party.

Also, all this speculation about a 'progressive Tory agenda' rather ignores the fact that the party already had that in OTL. The balance of control in the party had already began shifting to people like Butler - Education Minister since 1941, and who had implemented the socially reformist 1944 Education Act - and it was committed to some form of implementation of the Beveridge proposals as a whole. The public already knew and could see that the Tories were socially reformist, and they still said 'No Thanks' in the biggest way possible.

It's worth remembering that Labour won by over 13% in that election - we are not talking about a situation which gives itself to a 'jigger about with a few things and the Tories get returened' analysis, we're talking about the modern equivalent of the Tories winning in 1997. And like 1997, there were just far too many systemic factors working against the Tories for them to be competitive.

 

[Wozza]

This is quite a challenge. To have a start several things are needed:

1. Stay more political during the war, eg keep the branches more active and hold as many conferences as Labour, rather than just the one.

2. Retain the initiative as the war is politicised. Opinion started to shift dramatically in about 1942, partially through military education programmes encouraging people to think about the future. The Conservatives were constantly on the back foot in this process, and don't begin to think about social and economic policy until about 1944, by which time a new narrative has been written and from which the Conservatives have already started to be excluded.

3. As stated - run a better campaign in 1945.

Against all this are some real problems to overcome:

1. Being continuously in power since 1931, and less than 3 years out of power since 1916.

2. The natural leftward bent of some military educationalists

3. The rise of natural Labour issues (ie social policy) in importance

4. Increasingly negative perceptions of the 30s

 

[V-J]

2. Retain the initiative as the war is politicised.

I'm not really sure how the Tories could do this, tbh, since the whole narrative of the war from about 1942 onwards increasingly, and probably inescapably, became 'Socialism good, Fascism bad.' In between the increasing confidence in the 'Socialist Planning' techniques at home, and the pro-Soviet propaganda films which the US and Britain were quite content to churn out for the viewing pleasure of their domestic publics, I'm not really sure where Conservatism - any kind of Conservatism - really stands.

If the war is reasonably short, (I'd say ended by 1941 at the latest) indeed, potentially short enough that a 'national coalition' situation is even avoided, then the Tories would be in with a chance. Any later than 1942, though, is, I would say, a write-off.

 

[perfectgeneral]

Early Iron Curtain - slightly drawn

I can see how ditching any pro soviet propaganda would help (except some kind of 'strange bedfellows', the enemy of my enemy is my friend, kind of film). How about a voting pact where Liberals and Conservatives don't oppose each other? I'm sure we could get some hard data on how that would change the results (even without any change of campaign or policy). 1945 was the first big win for labour. That and the slap in the face for Churchill tend to over emphasize the scale of the win. If the conservatives and Liberals only need 7.5% more to win then this was no Blairite landslide.

I'd like to thank Mike for his encouragement, but I don't think I'll be murdering this time line with my prose until I can see a clear path for it to take. This thread won't dictate the plot as such, but it will help define the world that the characters will live in.

Edit: I've looked at the first quarter of the results (constituency alphabetical order) and the Conservatives gain 12 and Liberals gain 4 while Labour drop by 15. I think that a Con-Lib pact might win. Endorsements from the other half of the pact might not ensure all the votes transfer, but campaigning resources could be focused on fewer (higher quality) candidates.

http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/ge45/results.htm
General Election, 5th July 1945:
The final number of seats won by the parties was:
640 seats:
Lab 395¹ Con 215² Lib 12 Others 18³
¹ [SIZE=-1]Includes 2 Independent Labour[/SIZE]
² [SIZE=-1]Includes 9 Ulster Unionists, 13 Liberal National, 2 National, 2 Ind Cons, and 1 Ind Ulster Unionist[/SIZE]
³ [SIZE=-1]Includes 1 Common Wealth, 2 Communist, 10 Independents, and 2 Irish Nationalists[/SIZE]

So that's roughly: Lab 335¹ Con 263² Lib 28 Others 14³
Hmmm. Labour clearly benefited from the split vote, but their campaign and policies were stronger too.
I think a name change to the National Liberal Unionists might be in order. What do you think, would that make things better or worse?

What if the pact were announced as a merger of parties with a new manifesto that included STV proportional representation and continuing reforms reflecting the Beveridge Report (Sir WH Beveridge now in the NLU and likely to be re-elected). Labour can't use the Beveridge report against the party and the NLU are distanced from the actions of the Conservatives. If the least Radical wing of the old Conservatives refuse to follow and break away this will put more distance between the NLU and the past.

 

[V-J]

If the conservatives and Liberals only need 7.5% more to win then this was no Blairite landslide.

Errr, yeah. No offence, but have you ever actually looked at British general elections? By the standards of the time, a 13% lead was massive. Absolutely huge. No party had won on such a huge share of the vote in modern times - IIRC, the Liberals in 1906 only won their landslide by about a 7% margin over the Tories.

We're accustomed to huge victories, but back then, they didn't really happen. There was less of a 'swing vote', and people were decidedly more partisan, so victories of that order simply didn't happen in the normal order of things. That margin of victory would only be repeated again in 1983.

Oh and yes, 13% is almost exactly the same margin by which Blair won over the Conservatives in 1997. So we're talking of pretty much the same sort of task.

Edit: As for a Lib-Con pact, I'll have to look at my stuff, but I'm positive this came up at some point historically in this period (No, I'm not thinking of the L-g period), and, to paraphrase John Morrison, 'the chaps wouldn't have it.'

 

[pipisme]

In the 1945 election in OTL there was a swing of about 12% from Conservative to Labour compared with 1935.

The Liberals would not have agreed to a national pact with the Conservatives, because they wanted to maintain their independence. Howver if there had been such a pact with one Conservative or Liberal candidate in each constituency, or one of each party in double-member constituencies, and all the Liberal voters and all the Conservative voters had voted for the joint candidate, the Conservatives would have gained 67 seats and the Liberals 3 seats from Labour. The composition of the House of Commons would be Labour 325, Conservative 282, Liberal 15, Others 18.

In the double-member Dundee constituency in 1935 and 1945 there was only one Conservative candidate and one Liberal candidate. In 1935 they both won. In 1945 they both lost to the two Labour candidates. So there might have been a Conservative-Liberal pact in that constituency. A scenario in which there are local pacts is possible.

 

[perfectgeneral]

Errr, yeah. No offence,

taken. You know you are causing offence if you expect it.

but have you ever actually looked at British general elections?

As usual the offensive remark adds nothing to the strength of the point. I've ran in British elections, not that that makes me any kind of authority. (against Graham Stuart in Cambridge - less than 100 votes in it)

By the standards of the time, a 13% lead was massive. Absolutely huge. No party had won on such a huge share of the vote in modern times - IIRC, the Liberals in 1906 only won their landslide by about a 7% margin over the Tories.

We're accustomed to huge victories, but back then, they didn't really happen. There was less of a 'swing vote', and people were decidedly more partisan, so victories of that order simply didn't happen in the normal order of things. That margin of victory would only be repeated again in 1983.

Oh and yes, 13% is almost exactly the same margin by which Blair won over the Conservatives in 1997. So we're talking of pretty much the same sort of task.

1945 Swing of 10.8 (Lab + 10%, Con -11.6%) National V Labour swing 11.85 (Lab +10%, Nat -13.7%) - since ten years before
http://www.election.demon.co.uk/geresults.html
1997 Swing of 10.23 (Lab + 9.11%, Con -11.34%) - since 1992
This pdf shows elections between 1945 and 1997 in more detail:
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2001/rp01-037.pdf
On the face of it a similar result, if not better than 1997, but I think that the 1945 win had less weight behind it. Labour lost in 1951 with a larger share of the vote.

Candidates 1945 Con/Nat Lib/Nat 618 Labour 603
Seats Won 1945 Con/Nat Lib/Nat 210 Labour 393 (1.87 times as many seats as the Nationals)
Nationals won about one in three of the seats they contested (96.5% of the 640)

Candidates 1997 Con 648 Labour 639
Seats Won 1997 Con 165 Labour 418 (over two and a half times as many seats as the Conservatives)
Conservatives won about one in four of the seats they contested (98.3% of the 659)

It is seats won in excess of the opposition that defines the strength of the win.

Edit: As for a Lib-Con pact, I'll have to look at my stuff, but I'm positive this came up at some point historically in this period (No, I'm not thinking of the L-g period), and, to paraphrase John Morrison, 'the chaps wouldn't have it.'

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...s-too-good-to-be-a-prime-minister-618724.html
This was not true of Butler, who was passed over in 1957 and 1963 and could have been a plausible candidate to succeed Churchill in 1955. He was treated shamefully by the party establishment. But I am not sure that the backbenchers ever really wanted him. As John Morrison, the then chairman of the 1922 Committee, put it: "The chaps won't have you."

"The chaps" were a liability. Churchill would have been better off with more Radical candidates standing - like Butler

I don't expect anyone to buy this paper, but the abstract has some good points:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/668444971-58021902/content~content=a794458458~db=all
The Conservative Party went into the 1945 election with a number of liabilities: its organisation had atrophied, and it had not developed a coherent set of policies during the war. Its election campaign failed at all levels and it did not convince the electorate, which was deeply concerned about post-war reconstruction, that it would follow through in its promises. However, the scale of the party's defeat was exaggerated by the electoral system and the post-war world proved to be highly conducive to its rejuvenation.

The election results for 1945 certainly show that the Tories failed to get their voters out to the polling stations.

 

[perfectgeneral]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberal_Party_(UK)#Liberal_National_Party_.281931-1948.29.2C_National_Liberal_Party_.281948-1968.29

Proposals emerged again for the party to reunite with the independent Liberals, but these founded on Brown's insistence of supporting a revival of the National Government once the Coalition broke up, which the independent Liberals rejected.

Notable National Liberals: Michael Hestletine, Gwilym Lloyd George, David Lloyd George and Winston Spencer Churchill.

The key difference between the left of the Conservatives and the Independent Liberals seems to have been free trade. A National Liberal and Unionist party would have to embrace free trade. Not something the 1922 chaps would be prepared to do, but many conservatives would. Neville Chamberlain had been inclined towards tariffs, appeasement and signing away the treaty ports to Ireland. Churchill was against these things. A clear division between old-style pre war conservatism and new National Liberal and Unionist policy would do better in the polls, I feel. How much of the party was made up of defected National Liberals and One Nation Tories?

 

[Wozza]

[ David Lloyd George and Winston Spencer Churchill.

Sorry, when were these two members of the national liberal party?

 

[pipisme]

The Liberal party 1945 General Election manifesto was not particularly leftwing. Here are extracts from the manifesto (http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/man/lib45.htm )

It states that the party was prepared to continue with the wartime Coalition until October when a new electoral register would be ready. (The Labour party was hostile to the Coalition continuing). It claims that

Freedom from Want can be achieved by Social Security - a defence against unmerited misfortune from sickness, accident or unemployment and from loss of earning power through old age.

In the section on Industry the manifesto calls for Works Councils and profit-sharing. It states that

Liberals believe that the controversy for and against nationalisation is out of date. They approach industrial problems without economic prejudice, and since they represent no vested interest of employers or employed, they alone can plan in the interests of the whole community.

With regards to trade the manifesto proposes that

We should [...]press on vigorously with the conclusion of agreements with America and other countries for the progressive elimination of tariffs, quotas, exchange restrictions and other barriers to trade[...]
The traditional policy of the Conservative Party to build up a system of economic isolationism within the Empire is inconsistent with our obligations under Article VII of the Lease-Lend Agreement.

It calls for a fairer voting system and in the section on civil liberties affirms that

In the next Parliament, whether in or out of office, we shall continue to do our utmost to safeguard and enlarge civil liberties.

An area of agreement with the Conservatives would be as a progressive non-Socialist alternative in opposition to the collectivism and trade union dominance of the Labour party.

 

[perfectgeneral]

Sorry, when were these two members of the national liberal party?

Interbellum coalition government. It's in the link.

In the 1923 election about half the former National Liberals lost their seats or failed to get re-elected including Winston Churchill.

Eventually, despairing of capturing the official party organisation, the Prime Minister decided that he needed to set up his own party. A meeting was held in London on 18-19 January 1922. A National Liberal Council was formed. For all practical purposes the division was complete.
After the Conservative Party withdrew from the Coalition, Lloyd George resigned as Prime Minister on 19 October 1922. The 1922 general election that followed was disastrous for both Liberal parties. Only 62 Liberal and 53 National Liberal MPs were elected.
With the end of the coalition the National Liberals had lost their reason for existing as a separate party. However, the bitterness caused by years of internal struggles made immediate Liberal reunion impossible and two parties retained their separate party organisations .

1922 was an interesting time for politics.

 

[perfectgeneral]

Veteran's Bill (Demobilisation) 1945

I don't think we can build all these houses and schools without some kind of Veteran's Bill. The GI Bill offered housing loans, grants for higher education and a year of unemployment income.

'We' shall be providing:

• A minimum income to all British subjects (if fit, under retirement age and not the caring parent of under sixteen year old children, they will have to work for it).
• Higher Education loans (at base rate) for honourably discharged British veterans.
• Housing loans (at base rate plus 1%) for honourably discharged British veterans.
• Demobilisation on completion of over eighteen months active service, four years wartime service or twelve years peacetime service (or a pro rata combination) or when 31 years old or more.*
• Additional demobilisation (down to required levels) into reserve units for twelve years or until 31 years old.*
• A pair of shoes, socks(3 pair), underwear (3 pair), raincoat, suit, shirt, tie and a set of work clothes for all discharged veterans. (Demob Civvies)
• Transport (or fare) back to your home town on demobilisation for all discharged or reserved veterans.

*exceptions for some specialities and higher ranks

Edit: I'm getting ahead of myself here. There should be some social legislation in response to the Beverage Report in 1944 (after Falaise pocket).

 

[Wozza]

Interbellum coalition government. It's in the link.

But you've put them in the same list as members of the National Liberal party of 1931, which was a completely different organisation, and which LG deliberately chose not to be part of.

 

[perfectgeneral]

But you've put them in the same list as members of the National Liberal party of 1931, which was a completely different organisation, and which LG deliberately chose not to be part of.

A mere technicality. I'm consensus building here. Anyone in the right ball park will do for a sense of party identity. After all Hestltine and Churchill left to join the Conservatives. I'm looking to unite the conservative-Liberal/liberal-Conservative centre ground on a common policy of reform and free trade. An anti-social alliance would be a bad name for it.

 

[Wozza]

A mere technicality.

No, it's not, it's the whole point.

At the beginning of the 30s both Churchill and Baldwin wanted to be in coalition (partly in order to exclude each other) but they wanted to be in coalition with completely different people - Churchill with LG and Baldwin with his actual national partners. The fact that at different times these groups used the same name is the technicality.

I'm consensus building here. Anyone in the right ball park will do for a sense of party identity. After all Hestltine and Churchill left to join the Conservatives. I'm looking to unite the conservative-Liberal/liberal-Conservative centre ground on a common policy of reform and free trade. An anti-social alliance would be a bad name for it.

The National Liberals 1931-1948 did join the Conservatives in the end, and Churchill would indeed have been delighted to have the rest of the liberals as well.

 

[perfectgeneral]

Wozza

Looking at this constructively, can you see any approach that might have worked for Churchill (or even Eden)? I'm not sure that we can rule out dissent completely, but given the will of the people was against the conservatives, surely some of them beyond the reforming radicals would have seen the merit in reinventing the party. Churchill carried the Old Guard radicals with him and Eden (and Chamberlain) the Glamour Boys. How many of The Chaps©1922 could see the writing on the wall and were willing to pull together with the Liberal Party? Do you think many would run against the party/coallition candidate (with Baldwin as ringleader perhaps)?

 

[Michele]

This is quite a challenge.

Just to say I agree with this (and with the rest of the message I snipped).

 

[Wozza]

Looking at this constructively, can you see any approach that might have worked for Churchill (or even Eden)? I'm not sure that we can rule out dissent completely, but given the will of the people was against the conservatives, surely some of them beyond the reforming radicals would have seen the merit in reinventing the party. Churchill carried the Old Guard radicals with him and Eden (and Chamberlain) the Glamour Boys. How many of The Chaps©1922 could see the writing on the wall and were willing to pull together with the Liberal Party? Do you think many would run against the party/coallition candidate (with Baldwin as ringleader perhaps)?

Do you mean a coalition before the 45 election? As they already had the National Liberals that would seem superfluous. I expect the Conservatives could have been persuaded to take the rest of the liberals in 1948, but would thr Liberals be up for it?

 

[perfectgeneral]

Do you mean a coalition before the 45 election? As they already had the National Liberals that would seem superfluous. I expect the Conservatives could have been persuaded to take the rest of the liberals in 1948, but would thr Liberals be up for it?

Yes. Even Baldwin was (off the record) interested in this. I'm reading 'Burying Caesar' - Graham Stewart next to find out more.