Enoch Powell, visionary

Since its delivery to a packed room in Birmingham in 1968, Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech has overshadowed his reputation. Destined to become the most divisive and controversial politician in modern British history, Powell was steadily marginalised, ending his political career in a form of internal exile as the Ulster Unionist MP for South Down. Yet beyond the apocalyptic stance on immigration with which his name will forever be associated, a new book, Enoch Powell: Politics and Ideas in Modern Britain, by the historian Paul Corthorn, aims to reassess Powell as a constitutional and foreign policy thinker of startling relevance to today.

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