Why is it such a problem for any Tory politician to praise Enoch Powell? Dan Hannan has praised Enoch Powell for being

somebody who understood the importance of national democracy, who understood why you need to live in an independent country and what that meant, as well as being a free marketeer and a small government Conservative.

No mention of his “Rivers of Blood” speech (in which he never actually said those words) or his incorrect views on immigration. And in any case, Powell certainly wasn’t racist.
The Left have turned Powell into …

It was forty years yesterday since Enoch Powell made “Rivers of Blood” speech. It is forty years today since the misunderstanding and misinterpretation began – and it has continued pretty much unabated since, starting with with The Times reporting it under the title ‘An Evil Speech’:
The Birmingham speech was of course, disgraceful – because it was racialist… the more closely one reads the text of Mr Powell’s speech, the more shameful it seems. The language, the innuendoes, the constant appeals to self-pity, the anecdotes, all combine to make a deliberate …

I have recently joined the Wardman Wire as a guest columnist, and my first column is the first of a new weekly column on the biggest political issue of the past week:
Each week, hopefully to be usually posted on every Friday morning, there will be a post on the biggest political issue of the past week.We hope to provide a background summary of the issue, links to opinion both from the media and blogs, and some measure of examination on what effect this has had on the wider political situation. …

I agree with Simon Heffer:
Powell was, quite simply, the most influential politician of the post-war period… [H]e foresaw correctly that there would be terrible tensions if immigration were allowed to carry on unchecked in that famous speech…The insult to Powell consists in this unsustainable idea that the Birmingham speech was “racist”.There is a long tradition in the party of not reading the speech… Oddly enough, Powell did not use the word “race” in the speech at all (this often surprises people who are convinced it is an order to the …

What are the biggest political misjudgements? Paul Linford has listed his top 10 in a very good post, all of which make sense – bar one. The political misjudgement that he lists as the second biggest is actually the utter opposite. Paul says:
2. Enoch Powell playing the race card, 1968
What happened: Enoch Powell, spiritual leader of the Tory Right, makes a speech about immigration prophesying that the streets of Britain will soon be “foaming with much blood.” He is immediately sacked from the frontbench by Ted Heath and becomes a …