Miscellaneous, Non-Frivolous ASB Ideas

  I suspect he would as it worked before and it might well work again.  Although if he avoided Thatcher's cuts to the RN - which he might well do based both on the desire to maintain employment in related industries and because he knows it 'happened' OTL - then the regime might well be deterred from making any such attack.  If not the RN is likely to be in a better condition to respond.  Possibly 'knowing' that no Soviet attack occurs - although he will have to consider butterflies - there are some cuts in the army to balance the military budget instead although without Thatcher's tax cuts and forced mass unemployment there should be less stress on the budget.

  Of course if the regime in Argentina is desperate enough they might still try something although it could be against Chile rather than Britain given the disputes over their southern border.  With both countries being right wing military dictatorships that could require some careful handling by the US.

  If Thatcher didn't become PM would it affect things much in the US?  She was seen as a new style type of hard right politician and in some ways a forerunner for Reagan so is it possibly that he isn't the Republican candidate.  Or possibly Callaghan is able to influence Carter enough in some way that the Terhan hostage crisis is avoided although that could be difficult.

  Of course if Labour wins in 1978, which seemed very likely at the time and with a bit of foreknowledge on his part the still likely Labour split is with the hard left breaking away to form its own socialist party instead of the moderates forming the SDP as OTL.  Probably means that Labour has at least some time out of power in the 80's but is likely to be less damaging to them overall.  The Liberals will make markedly less progress.  A Tory government elected in say 83/84 is likely to be less extreme than Thatcher was, due to a more moderate Labour and the defeat in 78 so you could have the continuation of the post-war consensus for a longer period.  Hopefully it will be reforming rather than reactionary.  There were definite needs for changes but not in the backwards and highly destructive direction that Britain went under Thatcher and her successors.

  Must admit that I don't know the details.  Labour tended to push for more defence cuts but as I say Thatcher cut the navy pretty savagely in her 1st few years.  Things could change with Callaghan's foreknowledge, plus the resources available as the North sea enters large scale production but he's also limited by political possibilities.  I would suspect that defence cuts in such a TL might be a bit deeper than OTL.  The most dangerous thing is that even a moderate Labour might be pushed into not replacing Polaris although if the centre holds there should be enough of a political consensus to get some form of Trident produced.  [The CND fanatics will of course kick up a storm and do the usual lies about it but they should still be defeated, hopefully more completely with a stronger centre in British politics.]

  The big thing is that without the Thatcher slump in the 80's there should be a fair bit more money around and also more social cohesion and national identity.  A fair bit more will be spent on trying to revive elderly industries, which is only likely to work in a few cases and on infrastructure spending, which is overall going to be a lot more effective.  At the same time we're not going to have things like the financial deregulation which enabled the fiscal system to virtually monopolise influence in Parliament and make massive amounts of money for itself, generally at the expense of the bulk of the population.  Your likely to see some deregulation and privatisation but less then OTL. Britain is likely to maintain more of a mixed economy and better living standards for most of the population - presuming no drastic disasters.  If/when there are equivalents of the 2008 crash Britain is likely to suffer a lot less as the financial sector won't have the same death grip on the economy and political power/influence.  Overall without the shocks of the 80's you might have a more socially conservative Britain but not necessarily so.  All very difficult to tell what will happen over 40+ years.