I'm not sure I understand where you were going for with this. The way it was structured made me think that we were meant to think it was Blair and Brown at first (referring to him as being orange, etc.) and I'm guessing it was meant to be a big reveal that it was Robert Kilroy-Silk, but the title and the poster at the beginning give the game away.
Good concept, by all means, but I think it falls down there.
Fair point. I wasn’t really trying to go for anything in particular (cue Peter Snow- “Just a bit of fun! Just a bit of fun!”), and the poster is a bit of a giveaway, I agree. I figured that most people would get the reveal before it came up in the text. Couldn’t resist it though!
It's strange, apart from Kosovo, Kilroy-Silk has actually created a New Labour that I could see myself as part of, though he may be more economically left-wing or perhaps a pro-Section 28 man in office which is slightly worrying. He's mostly done what I thought Blair should have in the first term but seeing him at this personal level and his motives make me almost want Brown to win, though Howard taking charge would be the better option.
It’s certainly all the authoritarian, populist side of New Labour turned up to 11, with added Euroscepticism; it will leave the Conservatives with some interesting options I think, in terms of whether they position themselves as the socially-responsible libertarian alternative or try to tack even further to the right than OTL. The Lib Dems will be laughing- could see them getting a chunk of the OTL post-Iraq war vote in 2001 rather than 2005. Charles Kennedy is tailor-made to appeal to the Guardian-reading sorts who are disgusted by Kilroy.
Saying that, I have the feeling that Good Friday is in the realm of non-existence, the Labour landslide is more around 90 seats and that Silk is personally hated, or strongly disliked, in the left and centre of the Labour Party but is tolerated for his high public approval. A New Labour of a different coat.
That all sounds about right.
Sorry if I'm being stupid or rude but have you finished that sentence?
Apparently I haven’t! Sorry, it’s been a long week…
Timeline In A Day, Meadow did one about Major winning 1997 and the consequences of it and was pretty good and non-ASB, well for a Major wins 1997 TL.
Thanks, shall take a look!
Fun fact: I live in what was Kilroy's old constituency, Knowsley North (now just Knowsley). That also includes Harold Wilson's old constituency of Huyton. It seems that, in this TL, my grey little corner of Merseyside might have an aura of apparent political importance...
Actually, that's an interesting off-topic thought - have there ever been two PMs elected from the same constituency or its direct successors?
That’s a very good question, actually. Certainly from a quick scan of the lists of PMs, there doesn’t seem to be an example but I’m sure somebody can correct me…
I'm really enjoying this little project of yours, Ed; when can we expect another?
Nice to see you enjoyed it- not sure when there will be another, but I have some ideas so probably next week, possibly over the weekend depending on how the muse strikes me.
Beat me to it, and you're too kind. You can read it
here if you missed it, if you'll forgive such a public plug. I'm hoping TLIAD will catch on, or, if not the acronym, the practice - short, sharp, one-shot or vignette TLs are great fun to read and write.
Cool, thanks! It’s a very good thing to try and encourage, I agree- I know a lot of people are intimidated, either in the writing or the reading, by long TLs, so it’s a nice way to get into the subject in bite-size chunks, as well as to deploy ideas you like, but don’t want to spend the resources on doing a proper TL about.
Very chilling. The poster somehow actually looks more more believable with Kilroy's face than it ever did with Blair's. I almost want to hide under the covers now and I don't even live in this timeline (for which I am very greatful).
Amazing how much impact you can get out of such a short vignette.
The demon eyes suit him somehow, don’t they? Mind you, the original photo they chose of Blair somehow managed to accentuate the creepiness; I wondered if they had subtly stretched it or retouched somehow in the production process.
It’s a nice change to do a short, sharp vignette like this actually. The difficulty is finding an excuse for the exposition and not doing an information dump.
A very good concept/impact piece.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
Kilroy-Silk really doesn't possess the collegiate, self-aware skillset for a Labour leader though; Said he would live in his constituency, then bought a big house in Buckinghamshire, said he wanted to be PM as soon as he made the Commons. Even the non-militant members of his association were fed up with him in the end. I suspect he jumped before he was pushed when he resigned.
I entirely accept that this scenario is at the lower end of the probability scale, although hopefully it’s still within the bounds of plausibility. I entirely agree that he’s not a team player; as I understand it, one of the things that really burned Killroy’s bridges with Labour IOTL was that Kinnock poured in major resources and effort to help him reign in the Knowsley constituency party, at which point Killroy thanked him by resigning with no warning whatsoever. If he ends up in charge of the party, I suspect he will royally piss everyone off very quickly- the question is, if he keeps winning elections how long will Labour grin and bear it?
He's a natural populist, a real populist, and that is something that doesn't really fit in with British politics as we know it; he's temperamentally closer to Beppe Grillo and Ross Perot than he is Tony Blair. I think you need the stars to be alligned correctly in a system crisis period for Kilroy to really be a power in the land.
I think Killroy is like Mosley in many ways, and both of them are basically temperamentally unsuited for office, though both of them would have been interesting had they made it that far. In both cases, if you want to do something meaningful, the TL is contingent on them remaining disciplined enough to reign in their personalities long enough to get into power. This was always the problem with A Greater Britain too, frankly (and to a lesser extent, FaBR); these interesting figures didn’t end up in charge for a very good reason, so how do you keep them in the mainstream, and prevent them from self-destructing, long enough?
I love the Beppe Grillo comparison, btw- very apt.
