The Fourth Lectern — Andy Cooke

What if ... UKIP were given a lectern in the debates in 2010? They weren't, of course. Not in our world. But in a world very similar to our own, where the tiniest of changes happened, they were. And things turned out rather differently ... Today, in 2014, the UKIP surge is big news. What if it had happened earlier, in the dying days of a Labour Government? What if four-party politics had taken hold in the last election, in the last moments before the campaign began? What if the BBC, in attempting to close down arguments over whether the SNP and Plaid Cymru should be in the debates without excluding the Liberal Democrats, accidentally opened the door to UKIP? The campaign would have been rather different. Election night more so. And the aftermath? Read "The Fourth Lectern" to see just how different it would have been. Note: This book is a novella - a short novel (unlike its sequel, which is full-sized)