Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-10975360-20131216191302/@comment-32656-20131219094629

Churchill win? Not entirely impossible had he actually run a campaign instead of the madhouse that he did otl. But a large majority? No way. There is quite literally no way that the Conservatives, considering how far back they were in the polls, could have managed that.

No health service like that. As was noted by his party in that election, they couldn't afford it. Have a look at the difference in their reactions to the Beveridge Report - Conservatives and Liberals agreed with its contents in this regard, but Labour wanted to have a state-run health program instead. The difference should have been emphasized at the time, but was not - again, poor campaign.

Atlee probably would not have been ousted.

Agreed on home-building. War repairs would have been a priority.

Such a date for India was not "originally" planned - at least not until Labour took power, anyway. You'd not see that under Churchill - rather, a more measured, slow, and reasonable approach. Definitely less bloodshed. Same goes for the Middle East.

Whether he would win the next election - probably in 1949, not 1950 like otl - is up for debate. Heck, there's even a chance he loses power before then because of by-elections.

As for the Beveridge Report being adopted by the Conservatives, they agreed with most of it, and had actually promised to implement the majority of it. And, as I noted, Labour disagreed with about the same amount of it as the Conservatives did.

Not even a question of them adopting more "Socialist" ideas - they in fact did. Just didn't make it all that obvious, in a lot of ways.

You can argue that the Conservative Party in the UK is "bad" at administration, but unless you back that up with actual evidence, then that is partisan opinion. Remember that, guys.

As for the colonies, you'd see a far less rushed pullout than otl. The party was much more in favor of them than Labour, and you'd not see near as much of a financial need for it.

Otl, Churchill campaigned on what amounted to a "we won the war" concept. While they said what they would do afterwards - in many ways, the same thing as Labour - that was not the emphasis. Big mistake, and not one that got repeated (insomuch as that was possible) in the next two elections by Churchill.

Had he not run what is, arguably, one of the worst, if not the worst, election campaigns of all time, he'd have had a fair chance of winning. But he didn't.