AHC: "Gaullist" Britain
- Thread starter Jape
- Start date
money
After the war the UK owes the USA a significant ammount of money [not sure how much but I seem to recall it wasnt paid off untill the late 1980's]
So how do you see the UK being more independent ? how do you avoid Suez or something like it?
After the war the UK owes the USA a significant ammount of money [not sure how much but I seem to recall it wasnt paid off untill the late 1980's]
So how do you see the UK being more independent ? how do you avoid Suez or something like it?
Hendryk
Banned
This possibility was discussed on a previous occasion. The thread went political rather fast, but you might find some relevant stuff in it.
While Britain would have been better off adopting some form of dirigisme it would have needed a radical change in the mindset of British business leaders. Britain didn't have the same tradition of technocracy that France has, British businessmen of that period were notoriously unwilling to adopt new techniques and were highly complacent, there's an apocraphyl storey of how one senior manager at British Motor Corporation in the 1960's told staff not to worry about Japanese cars because they were just "motorised rickshaws." 
I've done some reading on this and I think that for a mire Gaullist Britain to develop you need a PoD well before WW2 in which the Government decides to get industry to sort itself out, how you bring that about I honestly don't know given the prevailing economic views of the time.
I've done some reading on this and I think that for a mire Gaullist Britain to develop you need a PoD well before WW2 in which the Government decides to get industry to sort itself out, how you bring that about I honestly don't know given the prevailing economic views of the time.
Grey Wolf
Donor
Have Churchill win the 1945 election. Truman is more likely to write off a high proportion of British debt in the negotiations because his administration is not going to view it as money going to proto-communists (which is how they saw Attlee's Labour administration). Britain would then be in a better long-term financial position. Couple this with the independent nuclear arsenal which is OTL history, and all you need to do is factor in a successful Suez analogue.
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
While Britain would have been better off adopting some form of dirigisme it would have needed a radical change in the mindset of British business leaders. Britain didn't have the same tradition of technocracy that France has, British businessmen of that period were notoriously unwilling to adopt new techniques and were highly complacent, there's an apocraphyl storey of how one senior manager at British Motor Corporation in the 1960's told staff not to worry about Japanese cars because they were just "motorised rickshaws."
William Rootes, the owner of the Rootes Group was given the opportunity of taking on the VW Beetle which he turned down saying it 'had no value' - value of hindsight and the fact his company later sold the Hillman Imp
William Rootes, the owner of the Rootes Group was given the opportunity of taking on the VW Beetle which he turned down saying it 'had no value' - value of hindsight and the fact his company later sold the Hillman Imp
Yep, that is up there with the record company who turned down The Beatles! ( no pun intended!!
)
Yes, but to an extent. de Gaulle reflected a decidedly French view of things. The competing ideologies of Republicanism and Bonapartism form one of the crucial French political conflicts. This conflict manifests itself in de Gaulle, who in many respects was a neo-Bonpartist. He was a powerful executive who argued for a largely centralized state.
Great Britain lacks that same history. Therefore, when I think of a Gaullist Britain, I think more along the lines of a strongly independent and powerful nation who thought of itself as a "first among equals" within Great Britain. A Powell figure could certainly do this, although he largely argued for less state intrusion and was anti-European, something that de Gaulle was not. He was also somewhat less socially conservative than de Gaulle, a man who grew up in a pious middle class family.
I think Churchill followed by a series of strong, Britain-first Prime Ministers (Eden, Gaitskell) instead of more Euro-centric PMs (MacMillan, Wilson, Heath) would largely accomplish the task.
While full of Gaullism with it's embrace of technocracy is unlikely a more "third way" foreign policy is entirely plausible not least with AH.com's favourite alternate UK Prime Minister Enoch Powell who managed to be a Goldwater-esque anti-communist while remaining an ardent Russophile.
Thande
Donor
Pretty much everything Powell believed seems contradictory when you try to force it into normal categories, he was very much his own man on everything. The same is true of his great friend Michael Foot (and the fact that they were friends is itself an example of this). There are few politicians who can pull that off. From my recent reading I've learned that Lord Palmerston was another: ardent opponent of reform at home, but adamant that the UK should support radical revolutionaries in Europe, popular with young liberals even though he was an old conservative (see Ron Paul?), practiced a practically psychotic foreign policy that scared the shit out of every other politician and the Queen, yet the public were convinced he was the only person who could run the Foreign Office competently.
Funny enough I was thinking the other the similarities between Powell and Paul, both libertarians with isolationist foreign policies, although Powell's economic policies were probably more coherent. Also they had the ability to inspire fanatical loyalty from some people while causing others to regard them as dangerous lunatics, no one was ever ambivalent about Powell or Paul!
Personally I don't think Powell would ever have made PM as he was too impersonal and inflexible in his views to build the sort of personal alliances you need in the British system. He was the closest thing Britain ever had to a De Gaulle but in order to make him more electable you would need to do almost a complete personality transplant on him and change the majority of events in his life.
BTW Powell was my local MP for the first 11 years of my life.
Personally I don't think Powell would ever have made PM as he was too impersonal and inflexible in his views to build the sort of personal alliances you need in the British system. He was the closest thing Britain ever had to a De Gaulle but in order to make him more electable you would need to do almost a complete personality transplant on him and change the majority of events in his life.
BTW Powell was my local MP for the first 11 years of my life.
Funny enough I was thinking the other the similarities between Powell and Paul, both libertarians with isolationist foreign policies, although Powell's economic policies were probably more coherent. Also they had the ability to inspire fanatical loyalty from some people while causing others to regard them as dangerous lunatics, no one was ever ambivalent about Powell or Paul!
Personally I don't think Powell would ever have made PM as he was too impersonal and inflexible in his views to build the sort of personal alliances you need in the British system. He was the closest thing Britain ever had to a De Gaulle but in order to make him more electable you would need to do almost a complete personality transplant on him and change the majority of events in his life.
BTW Powell was my local MP for the first 11 years of my life.
Well, you know, Powells an odd one. I read Simon Heffer's biography of him some time back an it's apperant that after 1945 his personal views were very much sensitive to the radical changes of the day such as the process of decolonisation and general end of empire, the Cold War, and so on. Alternate development in an Alt TL could play a very significant view on shaping his political policies.
Russell