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Editor says, what if Attlee and Churchill had won the 1945 General election? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the August 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1945, in his first day in Downing Street, Clement Attlee confirmed that Winston Churchill would remain in his post of Minister of Defence, a position that he had concurrently held as War-time Prime Minister.
Attlee and Churchill win the Khaki Election of 1945
by Ed & Scott PalterDuring that time he had also been Leader of the Tories, but ironically, having crossed the aisle to switch parties twice before, this time "Winnie" had been unceremoniously dumped by own party. Having muscled into Downing Street only because Lord Halifax's peerage barred him from occupying the Prime Minister's office, Churchill still did not become Leader for six months until ill health forced Neville Chamberlain's retirement in October 1940.
Fortunately for Churchill's career, if the Tories hated him for supplanting Chamberlain, then the British electorate hated the Tories even more. Twenty Members of Parliament left the Conservative Party as well; these Churchill loyalists ran as National Commonwealth Party Candidates in districts where the Labour Party agreed not to field a candidate, much like the post World War agreement between the Liberal David Lloyd George and the majority Conservative Party. Crucially, they agreed to embrace the Beveridge Report and the result was a landslide victory for a new-style Government of National Unity. The Leader of the Opposition Anthony Eden had his work cut out to recover Tory fortunes before Churchill could destroy the Coalition from the inside.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Churchill, Eden, Britain, Attlee, World War 2. Editor says, in authoring this post with Scott Palter, we have repurposed content from articles on , Alternarte History 1 and Alternarte History 2.
~ Vote vote for clement Atlee, punch Old Churchill in the nose, if it wasn't for the king, we would do the bugger in
~ Churchill as MOD? I'm not sure that would be a good idea. The guy was brilliant, but erratic at best and not good at telling great ideas from bad ones.
~ Eric, this is a peacetime government. MoD has enough prestige to get Churchill to take the deal and little enough power in a massive postwar demobilization where he can do little harm. The beauty of the scheme from Labor's PoV is that the Tories without Winnie in 1945 were even more massively unpopular than they were with him. WInnie is also the matador's cape to them. Labor's gives Winnie and 20-30 of his minions 'tickets' - no Labor candidate in what would otherwise be safe Tory seats. Tories and Commonwealth beat each other to death in those contests and Labor loses nothing as these would be safe Tory seats either way.
~ I find this AH very believable. Well done!!!
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
