A 'chorus of execration'? Enoch Powell's 'rivers of blood' forty years on

Patterns of Prejudice

Volumn 42, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 83-104

  Hillman, Nicholas ^a  

^a Policy Exchange

Author keywords

Birmingham; Conservative Party; Edward Heath; Enoch Powell; Immigration; Racialism; Racism; Rivers of blood

Indexed keywords

EID: 38749148440     PISSN: 0031322X     EISSN: 14617331     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00313220701805927     Document Type: Article

References (167)

1. 'Speech at Birmingham', in Enoch Powell, Freedom and Reality (Kingswood, Surrey: Elliot Right Way Books 1969), 283, 289.
2. Gallup Political Index, nos 97-9, May 1968, 52.
3. Samuel Bonhomme, Enoch Powell and the West Indian Immigrants (London: Afro-American and West Indian Publishers 1971);
4. Paul Foot, The Rise of Enoch Powell: An Examination of Enoch Powell's Attitude to Immigration and Race (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1969);
5. Bill Smithies and Peter Fiddick, Enoch Powell on Immigration (London: Sphere 1969);
6. Tom Stacey (ed.), Immigration and Enoch Powell (London: Tom Stacey 1970).
7. Patrick Cosgrave, The Lives of Enoch Powell (London: Bodley Head 1989);
8. Simon Heffer, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1998);
9. Foot, The Rise of Enoch Powell;
10. Smithies and Fiddick, Enoch Powell on Immigration.
11. T. E. ('Peter') Utley, Enoch Powell: The Man and His Thinking (London: William Kimber 1968);
12. Robert Shepherd, Enoch Powell: A Biography (London: Pimlico 1997).
13. 'Speech at Birmingham', 281, 290.
14. Quoted in Nicholas Tomalin, 'Britain', Sunday Times Magazine, 29 December 1968, 23.
15. Heffer, Like the Roman, 456.
16. Nicholas Jones, Sultans of Spin: The Media and the New Labour Government (London: Gollancz 1999), 6.
17. 'Speech at Birmingham', 282.
18. Powell on Frost on Friday, broadcast on ITV, 3 January 1969,
19. quoted in Smithies and Fiddick, Enoch Powell, 112.
20. 'If there are traitors in the civil service name them', transcript of an interview with Enoch Powell by Robin Day broadcast on Twenty-Four Hours (BBC1, 11 June 1970), 12 June 1970, 7: Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), Kew, Home Office (hereafter HO) 376/173.
21. Anna Marie Smith, New Right Discourse on Race and Sexuality: Britain 1968-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994), 140.
22. Andrew Roth, Enoch Powell: Tory Tribune (London: Macdonald 1970), 349;
23. Utley, Enoch Powell, 19.
24. Enoch Powell, 'Integration is the only way - over many years', Express and Star (Wolverhampton), 10 October 1964, 13;
25. Foot, The Rise of Enoch Powell, 66.
26. Quoted in Foot, The Rise of Enoch Powell, 66.
27. Iain McLean, Rational Choice and British Politics: An Analysis of Rhetoric and Manipulation from Peel to Blair (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2001), 136.
28. John Campbell, 'The doom of the prophet', Independent, 23 November 1996, 7.
29. Powell on Frost on Friday,
30. quoted in Smithies and Fiddick, Enoch Powell, 97;
31. Enoch Powell, 'Fears that have not changed', The Times, 19 April 1988, 12;
32. Valerie Grove, 'A plumber who has Latin is a better plumber than one who does not', The Times, 6 August 1993, 15.
33. Anne Scott-James, "This man of passion and danger', Daily Mail, 11 July 1968, 8.
34. Donley T. Studlar, 'British public opinion, colour issues, and Enoch Powell: a longitudinal analysis', British Journal of Political Science, vol. 4, no. 3, 1974, 371-81 (381).
35. 'Speech by the Rt Hon. J. Enoch Powell, MP, to the City of London Young Conservatives, 112 Canon St, EC4', 6 April 1966, 2: Churchill College, Cambridge, Powell Archive (hereafter POLL) 4/1/2.
36. 'Speech at Birmingham', 281-2 and 287-8.
37. Quoted in Heffer, Like, the Roman, 957.
38. 'Statement about the Rt. Hon. Enoch Powell, M.P.', Conservative Central Office News Service press release, 21 April 1968, 1: Bodleian Library, Oxford, Conservative Party Archive, Party Political Broadcasts and Speeches (hereafter PPB) 16.
39. David Wood, 'Tories plan positive line over Bill', The Times, 23 April 1968, 1.
40. Quoted in John Slim, '"Am I a racialist? No!" says Enoch Powell', Birmingham Post, 4 May 1968, 8.
41. Scott-James, "This man of passion and danger'.
42. Enoch Powell, 'The enemy within', 13 June 1970, in John Wood (ed.), Powell and the 1970 Election (Kingswood, Surrey: Elliot Right Way Books 1970), 109.
43. Michael Cockerell, 'Odd man out: a portrait of Enoch Powell', BBC television documentary, broadcast 11 November 1995.
44. Foot, The Rise of Enoch Powell, 114-15;
45. Paul Foot, 'Beyond the Powell', Socialist Review, March 1998, 12.
46. Stuart Hall, 'A torpedo aimed at the boiler-room of consensus', New Statesman, 17 April 1998, 15.
47. Margaret Thatcher, The Path to Power (London: HarperCollins 1995), 146.
48. Heffer, Like the Roman, 450;
49. Cosgrave, The Lives of Enoch Powell, 254.
50. 'Speech at Birmingham', 281.
51. Powell on Frost on Friday,
52. quoted in Smithies and Fiddick, Enoch Powell, 111;
53. see also 'This week: the world of Enoch Powell', 4 July 1968, in Enoch Powell, Reflections of a Statesman: The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell (London: Bellew 1991), 380.
54. Cockerell, 'Odd man out'.
55. Stacey (ed.), Immigration and Enoch Powell, 48-9.
56. Utley, Enoch Powell, 27;
57. Heffer, Like the Roman, 773.
58. Hansard (HC), vol. 763, col. 75, 23 April 1968.
59. James Prior, A Balance of Power (London: Hamish Hamilton 1986), 52.
60. Shepherd, Enoch Powell, 359.
61. 'Speech at Birmingham', 289.
62. James Hampshire, Citizenship and Belonging: Immigration and the Politics of Demographic Governance in Postwar Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2005), 45-78;
63. Gallup Political Index, nos 97-9, May 1968, 52. The poll shows that 74 per cent of respondents agreed with the speech, 15 per cent disagreed and 11 per cent did not know.
64. Gallup Political Index, nos 97-9, May 1968, 52.
65. Cockerell, 'Odd man out'.
66. 'Speech at Birmingham', 283.
67. Powell, 'Fears that have not changed'.
68. 'New measures on immigration needed: Sir Alec Home's proposals', The Times, 4 February 1965, 12.
69. Letter from Alec Douglas-Home to Enoch Powell, 28 January 1965: Churchill College, Cambridge, POLL 1/1/14;
70. Heffer, Like the Roman, 376.
71. Hansard (HC), vol. 707, cols 1132-40, 2 March 1965.
72. 'Action not words: the new Conservative programme', in Iain Dale (ed.), Conservative Party General Election Manifestos, 1900-1997 (London: Routledge 2000), 161-73 (171).
73. 'Speaking at the Gaumont Theatre Ipswich', Conservative Central Office News Service press release, 29 September 1967: Bodleian Library, Oxford, Conservative Party Archive, PPB 16.
74. Edward Heath, 'Getting to the root of the problem', News of the World, 21 April 1968, 12.
75. 'Two men one policy', Daily Express, 25 April 1968, 10.
76. Thatcher, The Path to Power, 147.
77. Robert Blake, The Conservative Party from Peel to Major, revd edn (London: William Heinemann 1997), 306;
78. Thomas Fanshawe Lindsay and Michael Harrington, The Conservative Party, 1918-1979 (London: Macmillan 1979), 257.
79. For Powell's own defence, see his 'Speech to London Rotary Club, Eastbourne', 16 November 1968, in Powell, Freedom and Reality, 299.
80. Humphry Berkeley, The Odyssey of Enoch: A Political Memoir (London: Hamish Hamilton 1977), 81.
81. Shepherd, Enoch Powell, 347;
82. John Campbell, Edward Heath: A Biography (London: Pimlico 1994), 243.
83. Smithies and Fiddick, Enoch Powell, 25-6, 47-8.
84. 'Speech at Birmingham', 284.
85. 'If there are traitors in the civil service name them', 6.
86. Enoch Powell, 'Facing up to Britain's race problem', Daily Telegraph, 16 February 1967, 16;
87. Enoch Powell, 'Can we afford to let our race problem explode?', Sunday Express, 9 July 1967, 12;
88. 'Speech at Walsall, 9th February 1968', in Powell, Freedom and Reality, 290-1.
89. Edward Heath, 'Why I sacked him', Daily Express, 25 April 1968, 1. Later, in his memoirs, Ted Heath argued that Powell's speeches concealed a hidden agenda: 'The argument he consistently put forward must lead inexorably to the mass expulsion of all coloured people from the United Kingdom';
90. Edward Heath, The Course of My Life: My Autobiography (London: Hodder and Stoughton 1998), 293.
91. John Ramsden, The Winds of Change: Macmillan to Heath, 1957-1975 (London: Longman 1996), 294.
92. Campbell, Edward Heath, 245.
93. Randall Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Postwar Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004), 182.
94. Thatcher, The Path to Power, 147.
95. 'Speaking at a Public Meeting at St. George's Hall, York', Conservative Central Office News Service press release, 20 September 1968, 6: Bodleian Library, Oxford, Conservative Party Archive, PPB 17.
96. W. F. Deedes, 'The real trouble with Enoch', The Spectator, 18 August 2001, 20-2;
97. W. F. Deedes, Dear Bill: A Memoir (London: Pan 2006), 215-24.
98. Nicholas Hillman, '"Tell me chum, in case I got it wrong. What was it we were fighting during the war?": the re-emergence of British fascism, 1945-58', Journal of Contemporary British History, vol. 15, no. 4, 2001, 1-34.
99. Hansard (HC), vol. 735, cols 1256-7, 8 November 1966;
100. 'Conservative Party Policy on Immigration and Race Relations', August 1967, 2: Churchill College, Cambridge, POLL 3/2/1/17. Powell had called for all immigrants to be treated alike in a speech in May 1965;
101. see 'Extract from speech by the Rt Hon. J. Enoch Powell, MP to the Conservative Women's Coffee Morning, Reynold's Cafe, Wolverhampton, 11am', 21 May 1965, 1: Churchill College, Cambridge, POLL 4/1/1.
102. 'Speaking at a Public Meeting, at Walsall Town Hall', Conservative Central Office News Service press release, 25 January 1969, 3: Bodleian Library, Oxford, Conservative Party Archive, PPB 17.
103. 'A better tomorrow: the Conservative programme for the next 5 years', in Dale (ed.), Conservative Party General Election Manifestos, 175-98 (193).
104. Hampshire, Citizenship and Belonging, 42.
105. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Postwar Britain, 253.
106. Smith, New Right Discourse on Race and Sexuality, 173.
107. Margaret Thatcher, 'When Powell was right', Daily Telegraph, 23 November 1998, 20.
108. 'If there are traitors in the civil service name them', 7.
109. Shepherd, Enoch Powell, 400;
110. Heffer, Like the Roman, 565.
111. Cockerell, 'Odd man out'.
112. Richard Rose, 'Analysis of the swing to the Conservatives', The Times, 20 June 1970, 11;
113. David Butler, 'Swings without roundabouts', Sunday Times, 21 June 1970, 11.
114. Michael Steed, 'Appendix II: an analysis of the results', in David Butler and Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, The British General Election of 1970 (London: Macmillan 1971), 405.
115. Ibid., 407.
116. David Butler and Donald Stokes, Political Change in Britain: Forces Shaping Electoral Choice (London: Macmillan 1969), 349-54;
117. Nicholas Deakin and Jenny Bourne, 'The minorities and the general election, 1970', Race Today, vol. 2, no. 2, 1970, 205-6;
118. Nicholas Deakin and Jenny Bourne, 'Powell, the minorities and the 1970 election', Political Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 4, 1970, 399-415.
119. David Butler and Donald Stokes, Political Change in Britain: The Evolution of Electoral Choice (London: Macmillan 1974), 303-8.
120. Ibid., 415.
121. Douglas E. Schoen, Enoch Powell and the Powellites (London: Macmillan 1977), 57 and 62.
122. R. W. Johnson and Douglas E. Schoen, 'The "Powell effect": or how one man can win', New Society, 22 July 1976, 170.
123. Donley T. Studlar, 'Policy voting in Britain: the coloured immigration issue in the 1964, 1966, and 1970 general elections', American Political Science Review, vol. 72, no. 1, 1978, 46-64 (61).
124. William Lockley Miller, What Was the Profit in Following the Crowd? The Effectiveness of Party Strategies on Immigration and Devolution (Glasgow: University of Strathclyde 1979), 15-18, 28.
125. Shepherd, Enoch Powell, 407.
126. Cosgrave, The Lives of Enoch Powell, 290.
127. Steed, 'Appendix II', 332.
128. Schoen, Enoch Powell and the Powellites, 130.
129. Ibid., 139.
130. McLean, Rational Choice and British Politics, 142.
131. Alastair Smith, Election Timing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004);
132. Douglas Hurd, An End to Promises: Sketch of a Government 1970-74 (London: Collins 1979), 127-30.
133. 'Any Questions, BBC Radio', 29 November 1968, in Powell, Reflections of a Statesman, 394.
134. Powell, 'Integration is the only way-over many years'; 'Extract from speech by the Rt Hon. J. Enoch Powell, MP to the Conservative Women's Coffee Morning, Reynold's Cafe, Wolverhampton, 11am', 1; 'Extract from speech by The Rt. Hon. J. Enoch Powell, at St. Jude's Schools, Riches Street, Wolverhampton at 7.30pm', 25 March 1966, 1-2: Churchill College, Cambridge, POLL 4/1/2.
135. Powell, 'Facing up to Britain's race problem'.
136. 'Speech at Birmingham', 282.
137. 'Speech to London Rotary Club, Eastbourne', 308-9.
138. Enoch Powell, 'Immigration', 11 June 1970, in Wood (ed.), Powell and the. 1970 Election, 98-9.
139. Sir Philip Allen, 'S. o S. - Note', note to the Secretary of State of a conversation with Enoch Powell, 2 November 1970, 2: PRO, HO 376/173.
140. 'To the Carshalton and Banstead Young Conservatives, Carshalton Hall, Surrey, 15 February 1971', in Enoch Powell, Still to Decide (Kingswood, Surrey: Elliot Right Way Books 1972), 200-1.
141. Tony Geraghty, 'Did his rhetoric run away with his arithmetic', Sunday Times, 21 April 1968, 2.
142. 'The Powell affair', Daily Telegraph, 22 April 1968, 14.
143. Smithies and Fiddick, Enoch Powell, 148;
144. Conservative Party, The Campaign Guide 1970 (Westminster: Conservative and Unionist Central Office 1970), 473.
145. Robert Rhodes James, Ambitions and Realities: British Politics, 1964-1970 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1972), 183;
146. Smithies and Fiddick, Enoch Powell, 46-7, 141-50;
147. Shepherd, Enoch Powell, 365;
148. 'Speech at Birmingham', 282.
149. Powell, 'Can we afford to let our race problem explode?'.
150. Allen, 'S. o S. - Note'.
151. 'Extract from speech by the Rt Hon. J. Enoch Powell, MP to the Conservative Women's Coffee Morning, Reynold's Cafe, Wolverhampton, 11am', 1-2;
152. 'New measures on immigration needed: Sir Alec Home's proposals', The Times, 4 February 1965, 12.
153. Hansard (HC), vol. 748, col. 338, 22 June 1967.
154. Various documents: PRO, Registrar General 26/435.
155. Hansard (HC), vol. 754, cols 516, 570-1, 15 November 1967. Powell referred to both figures during his Eastbourne speech;
156. 'Speech to London Rotary Club, Eastbourne', 306-9.
157. Patrick Cosgrave, '. . . and statistics', The Spectator, 10 January 1976, 5.
158. Heffer, Like the Roman, 525.
159. Enoch Powell, 'Britain's ethnically divided peoples', The Times, 20 April 1993, 18;
160. Heffer, Like the Roman, 939-40.
161. 'A review of 1991', Population Trends, no. 71, 1993, 1-14 (3);
162. Andy Teague, 'Ethnic group: first results from the 1991 Census', Population Trends, no. 72, 1993, 12-17 (13).
163. Powell, 'Britain's ethnically divided peoples'.
164. National Statistics, Census 2001: Key Statistics for Local Authorities in England and Wales (London: The Stationery Office 2003), Tables KS06 (England) and KS06 (Wales);
165. General Register Office for Scotland, Scotland's Census 2001: Key Statistics for Council Areas and Health Board Areas Scotland (Edinburgh: General Register Office for Scotland 2003), Table KS06;
166. Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, Northern Ireland Census 2001 Theme Tables (Belfast: The Stationery Office 2004), Table T36.
167. National Statistics, Social Trends 2006 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2006), Table A.2.