User:Munkchester/Sandbox/Allsaxony
Alsaxony is this world’s England (England, not Britain). It retains some influences from my projects years ago in that it is better but still far from perfect.
It is more pluricentric than England, not that that means much by itself. Alsaxony can be divided into two halves: a rural, pastoral, lightly-populated north-west; and an industrial, densely-populated south-east. The dividing line between the two is the isthmus. The former often feels neglected and even on the rare occasions that the right is in power it is used more for its safe seats than anything else. The latter is the country’s productive beating heart, with its industrial and stockbroker belts, and proud of it. Despite these tensions there is no ‘northern independence party’ or anything silly like that.
Alsaxony, until recent times, throughout its history contended with Caitland for dominance of Albland. As part of this struggle the Haliwerfolc were invested with virtual independence as a buffer state against the Caitish that would go north and carry off captives as slaves every few years; as the centuries went by and Monkchester became more of a city-state this turned out to be a very bad idea, culminating in an alliance between Caitland and Monkchester. Nowadays relations between the members of the Albish Community (which also includes Cumberland) are more amicable.
The Saxish Social Democratic Party has dominated Saxish politics for the past century, governing from 1934 to 1968, 1973 to 1986, 1995 to 2009, and now since 2014. The Liberals have never really recovered from their 1934 loss and defection of the party’s left, which ended their own long period of electoral dominance: their first stint in power since 1934, from 1968 to 1973, was won narrowly and lasted a single term, its programme of reform destroyed by the unions; when they returned in 1986 it was for two terms, but any notion of rocking the boat had been given up on; finally, their most recent time in government, from 2009 to 2014, ended in complete disaster and an SSDP landslide.