Should Enoch Powell get a blue plaque ( in Wolverhamton)?

[Cyril Haearn]

A good book about immigrant life
The Black Madonna of Derby by Joanna Czechowska
Read it years ago, only remember that it was good
This thread provoked me into taking it off the shelf again
Diolch

[bovlomov]

A good book about immigrant life
The Black Madonna of Derby by Joanna Czechowska
Read it years ago, only remember that it was good
This thread provoked me into taking it off the shelf again
Diolch

I've a copy of Enoch Powell's The Common Market; The case against. I've not read it, and this thread hasn't provoked me into reading it. Amazon has 4 copies, priced between £147.55 and £984.86, so perhaps I should sell it.

[Cyril Haearn]

A good book about immigrant life
The Black Madonna of Derby by Joanna Czechowska
Read it years ago, only remember that it was good
This thread provoked me into taking it off the shelf again
Diolch

I've a copy of Enoch Powell's The Common Market; The case against. I've not read it, and this thread hasn't provoked me into reading it. Amazon has 4 copies, priced between £147.55 and £984.86, so perhaps I should sell it.

Maybe you should wait for the price to go up, Cunobelin explained recently how a book was offered for several hundred thousand after the algorithms went crazy. Prices can go down as well as up
The Derby book is +123, just read the first three chapters, good for laughing and crying, I paid €10 for it
We love Polish people and Poland!

Maybe you could read ep's book so you know what you are arguing about Or even reprint it, there might (not) be a lot of interest

Talking about brilliant classical scholars, A E Housman is my favourite %)

[Mike Sales]

It should not be forgotten that the ancestors of the Windrush generation were kidnapped as slaves and taken across the Atlantic to make money for the British. The West Indians who came to Britain were invited to help Britain.
The ancestors of the Ugandan Asians were likewise moved to Africa as indentured labourers to build the railway for the British, and to provide a "buffer" between the africans and their British colonists.
Powell, who was praised as an educated man, should have known all this. It seems to me hypocritical for him to object to these people moving again to Britain.
What did he have to say about how the culture of africans and indians was forcibly changed, and destroyed by his own ancestors?

[Vorpal]

On Windrush... David Lammy (MP for Tottenham) is eloquent in the video clip with this article.

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/the ... grotesque/

[profpointy]

Let's agree he's sufficiently (in)famous to warrant a plaque. How should he be summed up in a couple of words? How about

Ideologue and orator.

I can't think of a couple of words to encapsulate "A sad individual who played on people's fears and by "talking proper" when expressing them, legitimated racism."

If that fits on the plaque, it'll be perfect.

"see you next tuesday" would fit

[bovlomov]

What did he have to say about how the culture of africans and indians was forcibly changed, and destroyed by his own ancestors?

In that speech?

Nothing is more misleading than comparison between the Commonwealth immigrant in Britain and the American Negro. The Negro population of the United States, which was already in existence before the United States became a nation, started literally as slaves and were later given the franchise and other rights of citizenship, to the exercise of which they have only gradually and still incompletely come. The Commonwealth immigrant came to Britain as a full citizen, to a country which knew no discrimination between one citizen and another, and he entered instantly into the possession of the rights of every citizen, from the vote to free treatment under the National Health Service.

I'm not sure what point he is trying to make. Perhaps it's that Commonwealth citizens are already equal, so nothing else needs to be done. Anyway, there is no criticism of the slave trade, as I read it - though clarity doesn't seem to have been his forte*.

*From fort (Middle French). We can all play that game, Enoch. 'Et Tu Brute', as Cicero said when he flew too close to the sun in his wooden horse.

[Mike Sales]

What did he have to say about how the culture of africans and indians was forcibly changed, and destroyed by his own ancestors?

In that speech?

Nothing is more misleading than comparison between the Commonwealth immigrant in Britain and the American Negro. The Negro population of the United States, which was already in existence before the United States became a nation, started literally as slaves and were later given the franchise and other rights of citizenship, to the exercise of which they have only gradually and still incompletely come. The Commonwealth immigrant came to Britain as a full citizen, to a country which knew no discrimination between one citizen and another, and he entered instantly into the possession of the rights of every citizen, from the vote to free treatment under the National Health Service.

I'm not sure what point he is trying to make. Perhaps it's that Commonwealth citizens are already equal, so nothing else needs to be done. Anyway, there is no criticism of the slave trade, as I read it - though clarity doesn't seem to have been his forte*.

*From fort (Middle French). We can all play that game, Enoch. 'Et Tu Brute', as Cicero said when he flew too close to the sun in his wooden horse.

Do we need an emoji for a rhetorical question?
He said nothing about how these people became Commonwealth citizens in the first place.

[bovlomov]

Do we need an emoji for a rhetorical question?

Is that a rhetorical question? I'll answer it anyway. The only reason to have an emoji for a rhetorical question is that Enoch would have hated the idea.

He said nothing about how these people became Commonwealth citizens in the first place.

No, he seemed not to be aware that those Commonwealth citizens were also descended from slaves. EDIT - or perhaps he thought that by being British slaves they had already won life's lottery.

[thirdcrank]

... All this happened 50 years ago, it's odd that the BBC wanted to revive it as a discussion point (ratings over relevance?) especially as there seem to be more pertinent points of discussion over race/religion with the Windrush revelations and the problems with anti-semitism in the Labour Party. I do wonder if in 1968 people would have being doing such much navel-gazing about a fairly pedestrian speech in 1918.

Also as with all newspaper reporting (no such thing as society - crisis what crisis et al) Powell never said 'rivers of blood' the quote was ...like the Roman I see the River Tiber foaming with much blood. His attitudes (and fears) were wrong but it was a classical allusion.

The foreword to my Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations (1971) begins an explanation of the difficulties faced by the authors with:-

This dictionary contains what we hope will be remembered in the year 2000 of the things said and written in the first two thirds of the century ...

Enoch Powell's single entry is the few ringing words where he's been inaccurately quoted.

It seems was considered significant then and IMO it remains so, despite any efforts to play it down. IIRC, only the a few choice snippets from his speech were widely reported at the time but if he was misrepresented then or in the aftermath, I missed his clarification. Whatever his intention, he provided a misplaced sense of justification for some gross racism. It seems ironic that the so-called "race-relations industry" which he may well have deplored, expanded in reaction to his influence. It's been suggested that the debate shows how much we have moved on and from what I know of the attitudes of my children and grandchildren, I believe we have.

[Mike Sales]

It is telling that when slavery was abolished in the British possessions, compensation was paid not to the freed slaves, but to the slaveowners because they were deprived of their "property".
Did the erudite Powell know this?

[reohn2]

It is telling that when slavery was abolished in the British possessions, compensation was paid not to the freed slaves, but to the slaveowners because they were deprived of their "property".
Did the erudite Powell know this?

Did he care?
It's been posted on this thread that EP was a good constituency MP and perhaps he was,after all an MP needs to be good for the majority of his constituents(who vote)to retain his seat.
As for my assessment of the man I'll stick with my two word post up thread,there's no more to be said IMO he did that himself and laid bare his sickly POV for all to see.

[thirdcrank]

I think it's important to remember the context in which Powell was operating. It would be wrong to believe that everything was hunky-dory in this connection and it was only he who turned it nasty. Hands up everybody who can remember the name of Harold Wilson's "parliamentary leper." The first couple of decades after WWII were a time of change when having won the war, the British Empire and with it the British nation suffered a decline in importance as well as social change.

In a democracy, there's a fine line between offering leadership and playing to the crowd. IMO, Powell simply decided to strengthen his personal ambitions by playing the race card.

[bovlomov]

Back to the original question.

As we all know, Powell was right. The Race Relations Act gave the black man (not woman?) the whip hand, and we whites are second class citizens, just as he predicted. Obviously, we have no say over the installation of blue plaques, and the decision will be made by those with Caribbean heritage. I wonder what they'll do.

[pete75]

Don’t remember much about the content but I do remember what an excellent and mesmerising orator he was. Many years later I did some PR for the Billy Graham event at Villa Park and heard him speak. They both had a spellbinding way with words that engaged their whole audience.

Very like Adolf Hitler then.

Nothing like Hitler. Hitler was a vile man with vile ideas and behaviour. I hope you’re going to apologise for writing such a disgusting thing?
Billy Graham was a Christian and worked tirelessly and open and honestly for a great cause. Enoch was a man who knew what would happen and tried to get somebody to sit up and do something about it. He was virtually correct in most things he said.
Regards,
John


I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my stupid phone.

I was replying to the phrase "They both had a spellbinding way with words that engaged their whole audience." - Hitler also had that talent.
Powell used his to stir up hatred against non white immigrants, Graham to get people to believe in a superstition .