Another amazing update, Tanzhang. I will be impatiently awaiting the next update with anticipation.
Interested to see what becomes of Ramsay MacDonald and the Labour Party during these post-war years.
I'm terribly sorry to have kept you waiting impatiently with anticipation for so long! :blush:
Good old Ramsey MacDonald, the quintessential Christian socialist of the first half of the twentieth century! I wonder what effects the alternative timeline war would have had on the social gospel movement that drove political reformism in both the United States and Canada in the first half of the twentieth century? After all, a certain Prairie Preacher in western Canada would have never had his formative beginnings without that background!
Interesting question! I think that in a world where you have a greater level of poverty and devastation due to an extended war, and where "Godless" ideologies such as Syndicalism are in the ascendant primarily as a reaction to said conditions and said war, that Canadians and Exiles would be even more interested in ideas such as Liberation Theology or the general application of Christian ethics to Earthly problems as a kind of religious alternative to combating both social ills and the rise of a Godless alternative to combating said ills than they would be in our time.
In America, I'd expect the Social Gospel movement to have a particularly strong political base among the Baptist communities in the South, where Syndicalism isn't particularly strong, but where the
fear of Syndicalism (I shan't give anything away to those unfamiliar with the KR timeline...) is
especially strong.
That detail.
Sterling as usual. You're building some stuff that rationalizes some of the radical changes in the KR canon. The late 20s and early 30s are going to be.... interesting to explain, to say the least.
And now look. The stage is set for a Labourite resurgence. All that remains is for Churchill, the King, and Co. to decisively drop the ball on handling it.
Perhaps it shan't be they who drop the ball... :ninja:
Ah yes, how all of Europe cheered, socialists included, as they sent the workers to die to the trenches.
The true heroes of the wars are always those who refuse to join the slaughter.
Perhaps, although there certainly is something to be said for choosing to fight for one's beliefs, even if said fighting involves actually fighting in a war.
As I say, you've done a great job of making me really dislike Lloyd George. Criminalising conscientious objection is certainly bordering on tyrannical – though one would assume it was a mere formality anyway, of one takes the treatment conchies received anyway into account. That said, I can't say that you've had the same effect on me with McDonald. Despite his new pseudo-martyrdom, I can't help but find him a little dull. Maybe you could convince Lord Russell to come and join the political fray? (Though, even with as limited a knowledge of the canon as mine, one would hazard that such a mice would be unwise...)
To say I'm looking forward to what's to come for Britain would be a grave misstatement, but I'm certainly looking forward to your next update.
I'm afraid to say that Lord Russell shall have no great part to play in British Politics for the immediate future: that however is not to say that he definitely won't play a political role elsewhere.
If you've found my portrayal of Ramsay MacDonald to be rather dull, then you've found it to be rather accurate; I take that as a great compliment.
Bloody Cowards.
And on another note, a fine update. However, I still hate MacDonald. And the Tories don't look good enough. And the lack of Jews is disturbing.
But besides that, a fine update indeed.
I'm afraid that Zombie Disraeli has no great part to play in the Kaiserreich canon; you'll just have to make do with Leslie Hore-Belisha.
I'm wondering whether you are going to have MacDonald die early or jump on those boats for Canada when the Revolution comes after a rightward political development. From what I remember of KR canon, I don't think he is really around in post-Revolutionary UoB (although I may have forgotten).
Something I've never quite been able to understand about the KR world is why Ramsay MacDonald gets to be
persona non grata as far as the UoB is concerned, while Phillip Snowden, who arguably was more of a traitor to the cause of British socialism than MacDonald was in our timeline, gets to be the head of the bloody CTU! He doesn't feature at all in the official canon, but a rather modest MacDonald does have a walk-on part to play in Meadow's AAR, in which he offers a decisive endorsement to his old comrades Snowden and Clynes at the 1931 congress, thus helping them to defeat the Maximists. I assume that apart from that final moment of glory, he basically becomes a sort of a Puyi figure: an anonymous man in a land he once ruled.
He's certainly not too unlikeable at the moment!
Neither was Clegg prior to 2011....
You've also left me with a 'Freeeeeeeeeee Ramsay MacDonald' song in my head
.
Aided the causes of the TUC,
Only one man who opposed the army,
Are you so blind that you cannot see?
Are you so deaf, that you cannot hear his plea?
I'm betting MacDonald plays Kerensky in this English retelling of the October Revolution. I'm not up on KR lore he seems the perfect man to bugger up post-war reform and throw it to the Syndicalists
Interesting theory you have there, Jape, although I'd certainly like to think that MacDonald was a lot less of an opportunist than Kerensky was.
I'm finally catching up on some reading here. As always, I love the detail, even if I don't easily follow British politics (even alt-history ones).
Thanks for putting in the effort!
Though I imagine the Tory 1922 Committee will be rather short-lived in this timeline
On the contrary, it might not even exist in this timeline.
Alright can't wait for this to resume!
Hoping you do decide to continue!
Same!
Do it if you want, don't if you don't. Just remember, if you force yourself to do it, it will show in your work. Either way, I'll be waiting.
Joining as well !
I hope you continue as well.
Thanks for your support! Apologies for the long delay, but this update was hell to write at times. The next one will be much more exciting and have way more pictures, I swear.