Absolutely, it is going on the recorder, I am sure it will be very interesting, however I still maintain it must be analysed in conjunction with the standards of the day.
I doubt many will have never heard the full speech and unable to put it in the context of it's day so having it in sound is a worthy listen so then you can make your own mind up.
Its not only the context of its time that needs to be born on mind. Powell set out his own context very clearly in the first three paragraphs. It was essentially "you're not going to like this, so don't shoot the messenger. But you will..". In this at least he has been proved entirely correct: The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils. In seeking to do so, it encounters obstacles which are deeply rooted in human nature. One is that by the very order of things such evils are not demonstrable until they have occurred: at each stage in their onset there is room for doubt and for dispute whether they be real or imaginary. By the same token, they attract little attention in comparison with current troubles, which are both indisputable and pressing: whence the besetting temptation of all politics to concern itself with the immediate present at the expense of the future. Above all, people are disposed to mistake predicting troubles for causing troubles and even for desiring troubles: "If only," they love to think, "if only people wouldn't talk about it, it probably wouldn't happen." For students of history, full transcript here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html
Well, the Grauniad thought it was a tame dissection of a racist speech that failed to enlighten, so predictably their mind was already made up. I stand by my earlier comments. I would add that he was right in that large sections of some UK cities have become ghettoised by communities with values at odds with "traditional" UK values, something you, @Pete1950 , have rightly spoken out against (I do know there is a difference between a religion and a race). I am prepared to give Powell the benefit of the doubt and say that although his speech would be unacceptable today and by the standards of the time it was deliberately provocative, it was a call to have a debate of the future shape of the UK. My own belief is that the law should not differentiate by race or religion beyond ensuring that all are treated equally under the law.
There have been many elderly people in the past several years in the US that have been murdered ruthlessly in break-ins (not by guns). Some by their grandchildren. One couple just last week, strangled. The case in the following link was highly controversial and people around here were divided on the issue. https://www.google.com/amp/insider.foxnews.com/amp/article/34960 This man's home was broken into previously by the same kids. They also broke into another home the same day they met their demise. His neighbors were on the news and said he was a kind man but he no longer felt safe in his own home. Personally I think he went over the top but at the same time, what difference does it make. If it were me...I'd make sure the threat was stopped and not stand there wondering. Kill or be killed...and at the rate those kids were going they probably would've killed him.
I agree. Powell queered the pitch by unnecessarily introducing skin colour into his argument. What he was doing was issuing a forewarning and calling for a debate on was the far-reaching and damaging consequences of politically orchestrated mass migration. The skin colour of "the immigrant" is neither here nor there in this respect. He predicted, entirely accurately, the ghettoisation of society and the resultant legal and social nightmare that would ensue when cultural sensitivities allowed segregated communities to live by different values to the rest of society. By mentioning the squeamish issue of skin pigment (and that at the end of the day is all it is) he rendered the whole subject taboo and the debate he wanted never happened and still hasn't and the third paragraph of his speech quoted above has been proved true.
If he had so wished, Enoch Powell could have warned against admitting to the UK as settlers those people who intended to threaten violence, and to carry out actual murders, against anyone they saw as heretics, sinners, apostates, etc. Just as those arriving in 1939-40 were screened to prevent Nazis and fascists, the same principle could reasonably have operated in the 1960s and 70s. But he did no such thing. Instead he focused his campaign against "the black man" (to use his precise expression), regardless of the views, actions, honesty, loyalty, decency, or rights of any "black man". That is what established Powell's reputation as an overt and obnoxious racist, which still stands today.
First time for me, too. Powell was discussing "the black man" because that was his issue of the day. There weren't any Somalian refugees, Libyan refugees, Syrian refugees (substitute refugees with migrants if you need to). There wasn't an influx of muslims or islamists, there weren't Eastern European EU immigrants. He was concerned about an influx of people who weren't "British" and hadn't been brought up "British". He was concerned that "Britishness" would disappear beneath a wave of newcomers with very different mores and customs. He called them "black men" because that was parlance of the day. That and similar terms were in every day use, in schoolyards, in offices, in factories, on TV, in sitcoms, in the pub, in homes. You can dislike that fact all you like but it doesn't change a damned thing, it was a different time. Powell was talking about an issue that people talk about today, or would do, if they were allowed to (or if they were Katie Hopkins). The difference is that Powell was using terminology of the day which is utterly unacceptable now. People should read some novels from the about 1900 or so. They will put hairs on your chest whilst they shock you with the words and ideas expressed (which we currently call racism). In case it isn't clear, I do not support discrimination based upon skin colour. Avoid the temptation to leap to that conclusion.
As I have just mentioned, in 1939-40 a large number of refugees (or migrants) arrived in the UK and many stayed, including lots of Poles who were never able to return to Poland, and lots of Jews from all over Europe. By 1968 citizens of the old British Empire, now Commonwealth, had arrived in numbers from every continent of the globe - mainly in response to adverts inviting them - some to work, some to serve in UK armed forces, and some planning to study then return home. Powell knew this very well. It wasn't their mores he picked on - it was their skin colour. His aim was to oppose the Wilson government's proposal that racial discrimination should cease to be lawful.
Well, you knew him better than I did. The speech is is open for interpretation, as long as you aren't looking at the language through a modern-day lens. However if you have some further evidence that it was colour alone which motivated Powell, fair enough. I will also take on board your often-expressed admiration for Wilson and the fact that Powell opposed him. I am sure you are not allowing such considerations to colour your judgement.
Replace the colour references with economic migrants, as a test for overt racisms and relevance today. Thats what I did.
If you are not bias and can ignore the racial terms such as negro etc, then the speech was more about cultural change to a point that that this country would be unrecognisable and on many of those points it would seem there is fact to support it. Mile end, luton, sheffield, birmingham etc would see whites as the minority in a country that is by a majority, white. The story about 1 white woman in a street full of non whites again I suspect could be found quite easily as would the 14th most popular boys name in the U.K. for 2017 was Muhamed. I have no issue with that but some points he raised although in a very fire and brimstone way, have been seen to be correct. As mentioned you can take from it what you wish, if anyone has trouble with immigration concerns being raised then you would probably call anyone raising them a racist. If you remove the shock and awe of his statement, then his warning was clear, integration is unlikely to work en masse and the cultural swamping of nations will happen. That fact cannot be denied as it has happened certainly even more so with economic migration.
You're in someone's house uninvited, early morning hours, to cause harm to the residents (a 78 year old) and/or steal their possessions. They got what they deserved. Here in the states, he'd get two in the chest, the 78 year old would have a cold one, and then call the cops and let them know your the victim of a crime, and you've shot an intruder.
Call it what you want. Justice can be served in more ways than one and too often the government's way isn't just enough.
Matthew D'Ancona, 15 April 2018: "Hearing the text reread in its entirety – broken up into sections and interspersed with critical analysis – I was forcefully struck by how bad it was. For all its artful rhetoric and sonorous phrases, it relied to an appalling extent upon dubious anecdotage, ludicrous assertions (white Britons would become “strangers in their own country”), and – most disgracefully – a leap from an argument about specific legislative proposals to a totally unsupported prophecy of bloodshed and immolation."
The old boy didn't stab the burglar - the burglar walked onto it when he tried to get it back. Job done - Not guilty.
