I can live with gradual change, and so could most Tories (especially now that the BNU has siphoned off the hard right...), but we plead that the changes be gentle, and well thought out.
Actually, had Attack NOT created the BNU, the Tories would have tied Labour for votes, and seen an increase in conservative power. Had the BNU not materialized, the Conservatives might have been able to ally with the dispossessed liberals and unionists to form a government. The split was always going to damage the right.
Bringing up the BNU is not helping your argument that he isn't favoring the left.
Just read his descriptions of the parties at election time. Somehow, Labour doesn't hate religion, but the BNU is full of religious hatred. Somehow the BNU is MOSTLY populated by aristocrats, despite the reality that most fascist movements in history have been backed by the working man. For some reason, the Conservatives backed a retraction in voting rights, when a D'Israeli government would NEVER have countenanced such a move.
It's a lot like reading an El Pip or Draco Rexus AAR...you know Britain is going to win. Or Weltkriegshaft...you know the Germans are going to succeed with their cross channel invasion, because the British navy will somehow be kept from intervening.
In this one, you know that the parties on the left are going to be favorably treated, while conservative parties are made to appear worse than reality. It's bias. Pure and simple. I'm letting Attack know that the bias is creating an irritation to me as I read.
Well, I didn't actually create the BNU just to help the left wing parties.
It was an idea I thought was interesting and wanted to explore in the AAR. I also decided that I wanted the Conservatives to be a bit stronger and thought that jetisoning the radical fringe might help (after I made them go for a bit of reaction in 1858 their support divebombed). I certainly expected the Tories to do better than they actually did. But, I think we can safely assume that the creation of the BNU didn't make the Tories any less appealling to the moderate centrist voters - indeed, getting rid of the radical fringe surely made them a more appealling ticket. They still failed at the polls.
I think I made it pretty damn clear which parties would favour which coalition at the start of the election update. So any talk of being suprised that the Coalition Liberals sided with the Coalition is a bit weak ...
What would ever make you think that Labour would be filled with religious hatred? Remember this is a moderate ticket that they are trying to put across and at this time Labour would be filled with Christian Socialists and rely on a majority Christian voter base amongst the workers. So of course they aren't going to sprout any hatred against Anglicans or whatever you expect them to. The only 'anti-religious' policy I think I ever remember them having in this AAR was the serperation of church and state idea.
The BNU, as you mentioned are Fascists. Hatred is sort of their thing. I thought you were a Tory anyway, so surely getting rid of the hate filled radical fringe would benefit
your party by making it appealling to the moderate voters?
I never said the BNU was populated by aristocrats. Its just led by an aristocratic military leader. Not exactly the most suprising thing for a right wing populist regime. I also tried to hint at the support base of the BNU being elements of the lumpen and middle classes rather than the basic factory worker image they were trying to get across. Remember, this is a very young fascistic movement - it hasn't managed to get itself into the mainstream just yet (perhaps this election will help). If you don't think that fascist movements don't try to build up their support in the lumpen then your dead wrong.
I don't remember having a Disraeli government propose withdrawing voting rights. I do remember having a Disraeli government proposing to limit some freedoms to combat the socialists. Even if Benjamin himself wouldn't have liked the idea (I think I alluded to this in the AAR) he could hardly ignore the radicals within his party and was forced to go where the flow of the party was going. Believe it or not, but I tend to be influenced in the AAR by what people's comments in the thread are - and there were plenty of Tory supporters who wanted strong action against the socialists after the Commune. After that move failed for the Tories I moderated them but left an outlet for the fiercest anti-coms.
I assume your getting annoyed at the fact that the Liberals and Tories have both experienced splits, but Labour haven't. Perhaps you haven't been payng attention to the idea of a split within the party I've been building up for some time .... It might have happened soonder but election results made it seem unlikely.
You know, the good thing about an interactive AAR is that I don't actually get to decide who wins. The voters get to. Don't forget that we had a very successful Disraeli government that was the first to last the full term in office - or was I biased there too?
Now, if I have a brief trip down memory lane to see what happened during the first term of the Labour government:
They didn't get involved in war, so they can't be criticised either way for that.
They succeeded economically - so a tick for that.
They only managed limited reforms - so clear criticism for that.
They had an isolationist foriegn policy that left Britain in a slightly weaker geopolitical position - criticised for that.
They didn't really react to the BNU - mild criticism for that.
Now Disraeli:
Success in economy - got praise.
Good geopolitics - got praise.
Centralising policies in Ireland caused a little conflict - I guess you could say I was biased here, but do we really think that trying to centralise power in Ireland in this situation woulnd't cause a bit of resistance? Anyway, the situation resolved itself within the update reasonably well.
Bloody war with Turks that gained Cyprus - mixed reviews. Perhaps another source of my 'bias'?
Perhaps the worst thing I've done was make the Liberals split in 1858 over the issue of whom to align with. But tbh, I couldn't think of a better solution at that time. There was no way in hell that the Liberal Left would accept an alliance with a Tory party that was supporting cutting freedoms, however the Liberal Right was probably not going to accept an alliance with Labour. Perhaps the election results show that I should have split it with a little less on the Coalition side.
o
Still, of course this AAR is going to include plenty of class analysis - thats how I look at history. But I try to keep it from being biased. I hope you don't give up on this AAR. There might be a chance for your right wing parties to rise again after the inevitable Labour split (I've now had to spoil the suprise. :/).
Attack
