(16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British
politician, classical scholar, poet, writer, and soldier. He served as a Conservative Party
MP (1950–74) and Minister of Health
(1960–63). He attained most prominence in 1968, when he made the controversial Rivers of Blood speech
in opposition to mass immigration from Commonwealth nations. For this, he was sacked from his position as Shadow Defence Secretary (1965–68) in the shadow cabinet
of Edward Heath
.
However, his supporters claim that the large public following which Powell attracted may have helped the Conservatives to win the 1970 General Election, and perhaps cost them the February 1974 General Election, at which Powell endorsed a vote for Labour.
It is no accident that the Labour Party of 1964 should share this craving for autarchy, for economic self-sufficiency, with the pre-war Fascist régimes and the present-day Communist states. They are all at heart totalitarian.
In the end, the Labour party could cease to represent labour. Stranger historic ironies have happened than that.
Yes, I am a virus. I am the virus that kills socialists.
As so often, the ordinary rank and file of the electorate have seen a truth, an important fact, which has escaped so many more clever people — the underlying value of that which is traditional, that which is prescriptive.