Originally Posted by iguanamanc

It's been exactly 40 years since Enoch Powell made a controversial speech about immigration into the UK, which was really an attack on the 1968 Race Relations Act. That speech has been incorrectly labelled as "Rivers of Blood" (for full transcript see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m...607.xml&page=1).



I was 15 years old at that time and his speech left a considerable impression on me. As a whole, 1968 was a memorable year for political events (Tet offensive in Vietnam, student riots at the Sorbonne, the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Soviet tanks rolling in to Prague) and I was fortunate to have been at Wembley when we won the European Cup.

This week, I have listened to a couple of radio phone-ins on the topic of Powell's speech, one at least by a presenter who wasn't even born at that time. He described Powell as a "racist" and a "loony". Believe me, Powell was neither of those things. He was sacked from the Conservative shadow cabinet after his Birmingham speech, mainly because he had dared to open the can of worms about immigration and race relations in the UK. This man could have been a great Prime Minister who would have left a considerable legacy to this country.

Agree or disagree?