Muggle Prime Ministers

Muggle Prime Ministers

There's some Harry Potter spoilers here - but if you care about such things you probaably should have at least the FIRST CHAPTER done by now.

---

When I opened up Half-Blood Prince and looked at Page One, I expected to encounter... well, Harry Potter. or maybe the Dursleys. I certainly didn't expect to land in the office of...

Tony Blair?

Being a geek of All Things Potter and All Things Political, I enjoyed the summit between Muggle and Magic politicos immensely. I especially liked the little dig at Blair's distaste for "the President of a distant land." But then I looked at the timeline and I need to tweak Rowling a little.

The exact timeline really isn't all that important to the saga of The Boy Who Lived, but fan communities do this kind of thing. The one firm date that sets the timeline is October 31, 1992: the date of Nearly Headless Nick's Deathday Party (that's what ghosts have instead of birthday parties) in Chamber of Secrets. This establishes July 31, 1980 as Harry's date of birth, and October 31, 1981 as the date of James and Lily Potter's death and Voldemort's fall.

So the events of Half-Blood Prince take place in 1996-97, and that makes the Muggle Prime Minister NOT Tony Blair, but John Major. And here's where the wonderful fantasy of Rowling's world doesn't match the mundane realities of British Muggle Politics.

Cornelius Fudge recalls the reaction of the previous Prime Minister on the revelation of the wizarding world. But Rowling uses the word "he" when of course Major's predecessor was my least favorite redhead, Margaret Thatcher. (Speaking of redheads, Harry seems to share my tastes - but read on.) Further, as established in Goblet of Fire, Fudge takes office after the trial of Barty Crouch Jr., which is AFTER the 1981 fall of Voldemort. This means that Fudge's predecessor would have been the one to reveal the existence of the magical world to Thatcher, and Fudge's introduction to Thatcher would have been less shocking since she had already met the previous Minister of Magic, Millicent Bagnold (also a woman; interesting) in 1979.

(Update: Fan timelines have the Bagnold to Fudge transition in 1990; the Thatcher-Major switch was in very late 1990.)

The Muggle Prime Minister recalls that his first meeting with Fudge occured after an election, when of course John Major took office not upon an election but following an intra-party leadership fight.

The question I have left is: what happens to the outgoing Prime Minister after a change of Muggle government? Does someone perform a memory charm and erase her or his knowledge of the magical world?

The timeline also means that the President subtly derided by Rowling is not Dubya, but Clinton. Needless to say, I prefer to think of Blair and Bush.

I am SUCH a geek. It's only a children's book... It's only a children's book... It's only a children's book...