Enoch Powell: Difference between revisions

John Enoch Powell was born in [[Stechford]], Warwickshire, within the city of [[Birmingham]], on 16 June 1912, and was baptised at [[Newport, Shropshire|Newport]], Shropshire, in [[St Nicholas Church, Newport|St Nicholas's Church]], where his parents had married in 1909.<ref>{{cite news|title=Controversial MP's family links and childhood memories of the [Shropshire] county|work=Shropshire Star|date=15 April 2021|page=16}}Report by Toby Neal.</ref> He was the only child of Albert Enoch Powell, a primary school headmaster, and his wife, Ellen Mary. Ellen was the daughter of Henry Breese, a [[Liverpool]] policeman, and his wife Eliza, who had been a teacher. His mother did not like his name, and as a child he was known as "Jack".{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=5}} At the age of three, Powell was nicknamed "the Professor" because he used to stand on a chair and describe the stuffed birds that his grandfather had shot, which were displayed in his parents' home.{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=3}} In 1918, the family moved to [[Kings Norton]], Birmingham, where Powell remained until 1930.

On one occasion, Powell's yellow skin (he was recovering from [[jaundice]]), over-formal dress and strange manner caused him to be mistaken for a Japanese spy.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=83}} During this period, he declined to meet a Cambridge academic colleague, [[Glyn Daniel]], for a drink or dinner as he was devoting his limited leisure time to studying the poet [[John Donne]].{{sfn|Shepherd|1997|p=52}} Powell had continued to learn Urdu and was taught by a nephew of the Urdu poet [[Altaf Hussain Hali]]. He had an unrealised ambition to compose a critical edition of Hali's [[Musaddas]], ''The Rise and Fall of Islam''.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=87}} He also had an ambition of eventually becoming [[Viceroy of India]], and when Mountbatten transferred his staff to [[Kandy]], [[British Ceylon|Ceylon]], Powell chose to remain in Delhi. He was promoted to full colonel at the end of March 1944, as assistant director of military intelligence in India, giving intelligence support to the [[Burma]] campaign of [[Sir William Slim]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=93}}

During the early 1960s, Powell was asked about the recruitment of immigrant workers for the NHS. He replied by saying "recruitment was in the hands of the hospital authorities, but this was something that happened of its own accord given that there was no bar upon entry and employment in the United Kingdom to those from the West Indies or anywhere else [in the Commonwealth or colonies]."<ref name=immigration1>{{cite book|title=Enoch Powell: A Biography|last=Shepherd|first=Robert|chapter=Hypocrite on immigration?|pages=222–226}}</ref> Powell did welcome immigrant nurses and doctors, under the condition that they were to be temporary workers training in the UK and would then return to their native countries as qualified doctors or nurses.<ref name=immigration1 /> Shortly after becoming Minister of Health, Powell asked Rab Butler (the [[Home Secretary]]) if he could be appointed to a ministerial committee which monitored immigration and was about to be re-constituted.<ref name=immigration1 /> Powell was worried about the strain caused by NHS immigrants, and papers show that he wanted a stronger restriction on Commonwealth immigration than whatthat which was passed in 1961.<ref name=immigration1 />

A ''[[Daily Express]]'' opinion poll in 1972 showed Powell to be the most popular politician in the country.<ref name="alor"/> In mid-1972, he prepared to resign the Conservative whip and changed his mind only because of fears of a renewed wave of immigration from Uganda after the accession of [[Idi Amin]], who had expelled Uganda's Asian residents. He decided to remain in parliament and in the Conservative Party, and was expected to support the party in Wolverhampton at the [[February 1974 United Kingdom general election|snap general election of February 1974]] called by [[Edward Heath]]. However, on 23 February 1974, with the election only five days away, Powell dramatically turned his back on his party, giving as the reasons that it had taken the United Kingdom into the EEC without having a mandate to do so, and that it had abandoned other manifesto commitments, so that he could no longer support it at the election.<ref>{{Citation|url=https://www.expressandstar.com/days/1950-75/1974.html |title=1974 |work=Express & Star |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120717052230/http://www.expressandstar.com/days/1950-75/1974.html |archive-date=17 July 2012 }}</ref> The monetarist economist [[Milton Friedman]] sent Powell a letter praising him as principled.,{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=703}} and notably, there was a breakaway faction of the Conservative Party in [[Gloucester (UK Parliament constituency)|Gloucester]] which selected a candidate who stood under the party name of "Powell Conservative", securing 366 votes, 0.7% of the overall vote share in the constituency.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://spprd.insec.netcopy.thompsonjames.co.uk/article/23rd-february-1974/11/1-oucester-a-l-ocal-correspondent-he-intervention-

In November 1968, Powell also suggested that the problems that would be caused if there were a large influx of Germans or Russians into the UK "would be as serious – and in some respects more serious – than could follow from the introduction of a similar number of West Indies or Pakistanis".<ref name="Shepherd 1994, p 365">Shepherd 19941997, p. 365.</ref>