The Fifth Lectern: After 'The Fourth Lectern' - what happens next?

by Andy Cooke

What if … UKIP were given a lectern in the debates in 2010?

That was the starting point of The Fourth Lectern. But therepercussions didn’t stop there. What would have happened next? The outcome was different, so things would have been different – and rather unstable…

In The Fourth Lectern, the door for the UKIP surge opened in 2010, just before the election, rather than a few years after it, as in our world. The resulting Government was fragile and a new election seemed inevitable – but under what circumstances? For how long could the embattled Prime Minister eke out his time? And with the precedent set down in 2010, the rules for a lectern at the debates now seemed clear, and another Party wanted in.

The Fourth Lectern was a novella, showing simply the few weeks around the Election. The Fifth Lectern is a full novel, showing everything from the 2010 Election to the next one, and a little beyond…

Genres: Alternate History

234 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 14, 2014

Reviews

[Andy Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andy's Review

Downloaded this together with The Fourth Lectern by the same author and I'm glad I did - I thoroughly enjoyed it. If these 2 e-books aren't made into television programmes ( possibly by the team behind ' The Thick of It') then there's no justice!

[Paul Samael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting counterfactual about what might have happened if the 2010 UK general election had turned out slightly differently. It may not be for everyone - in particular, I suspect you need to be fairly interested in (and moderately knowledge about) UK politics in order to find this your "cup of tea." But it's got a strong plot and would make a great screenplay in the mould of some of the Blair/Brown TV dramatisations we've seen over the years. It also makes some interesting points about the impact on the "first-past-the-post" electoral system of a much more multi-party electoral contest than we have been used to in the UK.

For a longer review, see: http://paulsamael.com/blog/the-fifth-...

[Tom Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This sequel to 'The Fourth Lectern' (2010) is gratifyingly longer, covering the struggle to survive of the Government elected in that book, and the ensuing consequences. As before, there are many interesting twists and turns in how we reach a very strange outcome, as many parties surge and the First Past The Post voting system of Britain starts to break down. A reminder of how different our assumptions were not so long ago.