A sensitive young, middle-aged man criticizes the colonial treatment of rebellious prisoners, arguing that it's not English to do what was done in the UK's name
Hit the like button at the top or bottom of this page to like this entry. Use the share and/or re-stack buttons to share this across social media. Leave a comment if the mood strikes you to do so.
Powell was truly extraordinary in his gifts and the way he used them. Inter alia, Powell intuited the secret aims of the Roosevelt Administration from overhearing Americans in the officers' mess during WW2. As Shadow Defence minister in the 60s he sabotaged plans to get the UK into the Vietnam War. After being vilified for the speech in Birmingham (the so-called 'Rivers of Blood') he was retained on the back-bench because the Tories wanted him as PM in the event of war. He savaged Thatcher in the first days of the Falklands War for being utterly useless, was given security clearances equivalent to a Privy Councilor by the Queen on the advice of the defence chiefs and crafted the strategy the UK used to defeat Argentina. Thatcher got the credit (and the "Iron Lady' nickname from Pravda (the Kremlin was trolling, they must have known the truth about what went on), while Powell got the backbench outside of the Tory Party representing Unionists in Armagh.
The charge of racism was always bullshit. He badgered his university to secure a visa for the elderly Paul Maas, the great scholar of Herodotus, saving him from the Holocaust. Later, when Powell was being unfairly taunted with the charge of racism Powell declined to exploit this. Presumably Powell thought it ungentlemanly to brag of his own good deeds.
Worth remembering that Powell voted for the Labour Party in 1945.
The key text for you to read is his speech on the royal titles. In it Powell expresses his own distinctive argument for British sovereignty. Powell thought that this was his best, most important, speech. It is in "Enoch at 100: A Re-evaluation of the life, politics and philosophy of Enoch Powell" by Lord Howard of Rising.
As a callow youth I spotted Powell when he visited the University of Sydney in the late 80s. He was talking to an old man (an ex-colleague most likely, or a former student) in the quadrangle, close to the classics department. I thought of going up to him but was too self-conscious and thought it gauche to intrude on his privacy.
Niccolo, I have a hard-copy of Powell's inaugural lecture at Sydney. Interesting stuff on why Greek is worth studying. Still highly relevant but rarely read. If you'd like a copy, get in touch by DM on substack or send me an email.
The Cavett / Powell interviews are a must watch. I think it’s hard to understand or comprehend the British empire of a hundred years ago, while sitting on our 2026 perch. I wonder what Powell would think about the current British immigration policies if he were alive today?
An Honorable Gentlemen and destroying a bridge of military utility isn’t a crime in war.
War crimes trials are obscene farces and should end. At Nuremberg the Americans and other allies who fought were disgusted by the spectacle, put on by those who didn’t fight.
With dreary predictability this rounded on us in the next conflict with the Chinese and Korean Communists forced public confessions of war crimes, just being proactive. Starting with Vietnam the Progressives then began to eat our soldiers- Lawyers, politicians and media always thirsty will try anyone for gain and fame. In our time the UK government is dragging their veterans of Afghanistan and even Ireland into the courts and paying millions in damages to GITMO detainees. The lawyers of course collect fees.
All farces come to an end and treason does her worst… and fates turn.
Guantanamo detainees were innocent - they were fellow travelers but not terrorists - in C.E. 2010 it was confirmed chemical weapons were confirmed to have been used on North Korea, it is a well-known fact that the Americans wiped out an entire village just for being Asians, South Korea does not dispute the fact that South Koreans, Americans, and North Koreans all committed a massacre and rapes which destroyed an entire village, most of N.A.T.O and allies opposed the Vietnam War because the U.S was a stooge of Petain-lover General Charles de Gaulle who handed over Algeria to the socialists, and mass torture has existed since ancient times. Destroying a bridge IF THERE ARE CIVILIANS NEARBY is a war crime.
Ravindra - I am aware of the history of any people with Ravindra in their name, these pleas to our morality- certainly not yours- fall on not even deaf but hardened ears. Truly America is too much in the world for the world’s good for we see you as you are… and damn you silently.
I would suggest letting us withdraw, to harass us too long has never been wise, now it’s suicide.
Robert Kaplan's recent nonfiction book "The Good American" follows a USAID worker for several decades. In the 1980s the Brits still dominated Uganda but by the 2000s not so much
This 100% "I am convinced that he was arguing in favour of a noble English behaviour, one that really did not exist except in his own mind and in the minds of those that have always believed in “English fair play”. He was a romantic, after all."
If I understand it correctly, Kitson formalised (or re-formalised) the celebrated 'strategy of tension' so important for counter-insurgency and domestic politics.
“Nor can we ourselves pick and choose where and in what parts of the world we shall use this or that kind of standard. “
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Like a certain President my Grandfather was a prisoner and mistreated by the English guards. However I don’t hold it against them… my Grandfather by the way gave as bad as he got (though never to prisoners or the helpless).
Now these sort of prisoner were in fact vile criminals who could never be safely released into any population especially their own, as events in Africa were to prove. They were also beaten to death by their own kind.
For the purposes of geopolitics Powell is a very instructive figure. His thinking on grand strategy is priceless. He argued tirelessly that the post-imperial UK had no real zone of interest outside the north-eastern Atlantic.
Powell was a great potential threat to the American alliance and would have been a source of concern alongside Willi Brandt, Aldo Moro, Olaf Palme and Harold Wilson.
Though he anticipated Thatcher in her economics, he was a total contrast in matters of geopolitics. In a sense, being very cheeky to use such a contradiction in terms, Powell was what an Anglogaullist might look like, were such a being conceivable.
We now know rightist dissidents are shills of Russia, China, Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela, although Cuba and thus Venezuela have been neutralized despite the regimes remaining in power. Enoch Powell was a traitor to the British Empire he loved and if he had it his way all of Europe outside the northeastern Atlantic would have been handed over to the Soviets.
"...looking back on his idiosyncratic nature, I am convinced that he was arguing in favour of a noble English behaviour, one that really did not exist except in his own mind and in the minds of those that have always believed in 'English fair play'"
It could also be that for Powell, this notion of "English Fair Play", or perhaps "Noblesse Oblige", was as our "civil religion" is in America, based partly on our unparalleled constitution and on Christian teaching. Even those who know the texts of neither and have no god but themselves, will recognize injustice and cruelty when others are practicing it.
Last year I read the authorized biography of Margaret Thatcher. As I set down the third and final volume, I decided the only other member of the cast I wanted to learn more about was Enoch Powell. He was certainly one of the more interesting characters in Thatcher's political life. Any suggestions for a biography?
Thank you, I saw that and will do a little research.
I was incorrect in my original comment. In fact, halfway through the Thatcher bio I was inspired to buy a book about the life of Francois Mitterand. Now there was a . . . guy. I still have no idea what he believed in, if anything. But he and Thatcher got along quite well, despite what one would expect.
Roger Scruton's perceptive essay on Powell agrees about his Romanticism; Scruton says Rivers of Blood is based on, and needs to be understood as a noble lie, about the nature of England.
I met Enoch Powell in the early/mid 1980s when I was just a schoolboy and he very helpfully gave me some clues about the Greek I was struggling to translate as holiday homework at the time.
If I'd been a smarter child I'd have stayed to hear him swap stories of this and that with my father (also a classicist at Cambridge but a decade later than Powell, and who did code breaking at Bletchley). Unfortunately I decided to go back to studying and therefore missed a lot. One thing I do recall was his discussion of Northern Ireland and the "troubles" and how particularly the media utterly misrepresented events on the ground making things appear much worse than they really were.
Hit the like button at the top or bottom of this page to like this entry. Use the share and/or re-stack buttons to share this across social media. Leave a comment if the mood strikes you to do so.
Powell was truly extraordinary in his gifts and the way he used them. Inter alia, Powell intuited the secret aims of the Roosevelt Administration from overhearing Americans in the officers' mess during WW2. As Shadow Defence minister in the 60s he sabotaged plans to get the UK into the Vietnam War. After being vilified for the speech in Birmingham (the so-called 'Rivers of Blood') he was retained on the back-bench because the Tories wanted him as PM in the event of war. He savaged Thatcher in the first days of the Falklands War for being utterly useless, was given security clearances equivalent to a Privy Councilor by the Queen on the advice of the defence chiefs and crafted the strategy the UK used to defeat Argentina. Thatcher got the credit (and the "Iron Lady' nickname from Pravda (the Kremlin was trolling, they must have known the truth about what went on), while Powell got the backbench outside of the Tory Party representing Unionists in Armagh.
The charge of racism was always bullshit. He badgered his university to secure a visa for the elderly Paul Maas, the great scholar of Herodotus, saving him from the Holocaust. Later, when Powell was being unfairly taunted with the charge of racism Powell declined to exploit this. Presumably Powell thought it ungentlemanly to brag of his own good deeds.
Worth remembering that Powell voted for the Labour Party in 1945.
The key text for you to read is his speech on the royal titles. In it Powell expresses his own distinctive argument for British sovereignty. Powell thought that this was his best, most important, speech. It is in "Enoch at 100: A Re-evaluation of the life, politics and philosophy of Enoch Powell" by Lord Howard of Rising.
As a callow youth I spotted Powell when he visited the University of Sydney in the late 80s. He was talking to an old man (an ex-colleague most likely, or a former student) in the quadrangle, close to the classics department. I thought of going up to him but was too self-conscious and thought it gauche to intrude on his privacy.
Niccolo, I have a hard-copy of Powell's inaugural lecture at Sydney. Interesting stuff on why Greek is worth studying. Still highly relevant but rarely read. If you'd like a copy, get in touch by DM on substack or send me an email.
Great post, thank you.
Would it be possible to post that speech online?
Will look into it. I am not tech savy. Shall send to Niccolo.
Can you pls send a link to me?
I do not have a link to send. Send me your email address via 'direct message' on substack and I can email you my pdf version.
Fascinating l, thank you.
I’ve been trying to track down that full interview for a while now, to no avail. Has anybody else had any success?
The Cavett / Powell interviews are a must watch. I think it’s hard to understand or comprehend the British empire of a hundred years ago, while sitting on our 2026 perch. I wonder what Powell would think about the current British immigration policies if he were alive today?
He would drink hemlock like General Praljak did at The Hague
60 years ago Powell was concerned about immigration into Britain, if this isn’t a real world example of the frog in the slowly boiled water, what is?
An Honorable Gentlemen and destroying a bridge of military utility isn’t a crime in war.
War crimes trials are obscene farces and should end. At Nuremberg the Americans and other allies who fought were disgusted by the spectacle, put on by those who didn’t fight.
With dreary predictability this rounded on us in the next conflict with the Chinese and Korean Communists forced public confessions of war crimes, just being proactive. Starting with Vietnam the Progressives then began to eat our soldiers- Lawyers, politicians and media always thirsty will try anyone for gain and fame. In our time the UK government is dragging their veterans of Afghanistan and even Ireland into the courts and paying millions in damages to GITMO detainees. The lawyers of course collect fees.
All farces come to an end and treason does her worst… and fates turn.
Guantanamo detainees were innocent - they were fellow travelers but not terrorists - in C.E. 2010 it was confirmed chemical weapons were confirmed to have been used on North Korea, it is a well-known fact that the Americans wiped out an entire village just for being Asians, South Korea does not dispute the fact that South Koreans, Americans, and North Koreans all committed a massacre and rapes which destroyed an entire village, most of N.A.T.O and allies opposed the Vietnam War because the U.S was a stooge of Petain-lover General Charles de Gaulle who handed over Algeria to the socialists, and mass torture has existed since ancient times. Destroying a bridge IF THERE ARE CIVILIANS NEARBY is a war crime.
Ravindra - I am aware of the history of any people with Ravindra in their name, these pleas to our morality- certainly not yours- fall on not even deaf but hardened ears. Truly America is too much in the world for the world’s good for we see you as you are… and damn you silently.
I would suggest letting us withdraw, to harass us too long has never been wise, now it’s suicide.
Robert Kaplan's recent nonfiction book "The Good American" follows a USAID worker for several decades. In the 1980s the Brits still dominated Uganda but by the 2000s not so much
This 100% "I am convinced that he was arguing in favour of a noble English behaviour, one that really did not exist except in his own mind and in the minds of those that have always believed in “English fair play”. He was a romantic, after all."
“young, middle-aged”
Please edit
It's an intentional joke
Definitely try to fit into your busy schedule an examination of the Mau Mau uprising.
I was just doing my own research into insurgencies, rebellions and revolutions when I came across "Gangs and Counter-gangs" by Frank Kitson.
It's his part-memoir, part counter-insurgency manual, part sociological study.
https://ia800707.us.archive.org/30/items/frank-kitson-gangs-countergangs/frank-kitson-gangs-countergangs.pdf
Francis Edward Kitson was a Captain when he fought the Mau Mau in Kenya, but a Colonel by the time he fought the Catholics in Ireland.
Later Commander-in-Chief UK Land Forces and aide-de-camp general to Queen Elizabeth II.
He retired as General Sir Frank Kitson GBE KCB MC & Bar DL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Kitson
I will take a peek at these links
If I understand it correctly, Kitson formalised (or re-formalised) the celebrated 'strategy of tension' so important for counter-insurgency and domestic politics.
“Nor can we ourselves pick and choose where and in what parts of the world we shall use this or that kind of standard. “
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Like a certain President my Grandfather was a prisoner and mistreated by the English guards. However I don’t hold it against them… my Grandfather by the way gave as bad as he got (though never to prisoners or the helpless).
Now these sort of prisoner were in fact vile criminals who could never be safely released into any population especially their own, as events in Africa were to prove. They were also beaten to death by their own kind.
Was your grandfather a member of the Mau Mau?
A code of morality that collapses on contact with reality wasn’t morality but conceits.
Reality irrelevant for education, public relations or infotainment, but essential for the infantry.
Peter Hitchens hosted a documentary about Britain and the EU that features Powell and his Euroskepticism quite a bit https://youtu.be/CY_BgnZdwko?si=cHBQSWL2jB-xlxis
For the purposes of geopolitics Powell is a very instructive figure. His thinking on grand strategy is priceless. He argued tirelessly that the post-imperial UK had no real zone of interest outside the north-eastern Atlantic.
Powell was a great potential threat to the American alliance and would have been a source of concern alongside Willi Brandt, Aldo Moro, Olaf Palme and Harold Wilson.
Though he anticipated Thatcher in her economics, he was a total contrast in matters of geopolitics. In a sense, being very cheeky to use such a contradiction in terms, Powell was what an Anglogaullist might look like, were such a being conceivable.
We now know rightist dissidents are shills of Russia, China, Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela, although Cuba and thus Venezuela have been neutralized despite the regimes remaining in power. Enoch Powell was a traitor to the British Empire he loved and if he had it his way all of Europe outside the northeastern Atlantic would have been handed over to the Soviets.
"...looking back on his idiosyncratic nature, I am convinced that he was arguing in favour of a noble English behaviour, one that really did not exist except in his own mind and in the minds of those that have always believed in 'English fair play'"
It could also be that for Powell, this notion of "English Fair Play", or perhaps "Noblesse Oblige", was as our "civil religion" is in America, based partly on our unparalleled constitution and on Christian teaching. Even those who know the texts of neither and have no god but themselves, will recognize injustice and cruelty when others are practicing it.
The civil religion is "good government": I forget the exact phrase.
Last year I read the authorized biography of Margaret Thatcher. As I set down the third and final volume, I decided the only other member of the cast I wanted to learn more about was Enoch Powell. He was certainly one of the more interesting characters in Thatcher's political life. Any suggestions for a biography?
Sorry, but I do not have any suggestions
Maybe this? https://niccolo.substack.com/p/enoch-powell-and-his-1959-speech/comment/262976720
Thank you, I saw that and will do a little research.
I was incorrect in my original comment. In fact, halfway through the Thatcher bio I was inspired to buy a book about the life of Francois Mitterand. Now there was a . . . guy. I still have no idea what he believed in, if anything. But he and Thatcher got along quite well, despite what one would expect.
Mitterrand believed only in himself.
Turn on English subtitles if needed:
Le vrai visage de Mitterrand que les socialistes tentent encore de réhabiliter
https://youtu.be/vCndaQhuSFY
Not a biography, but Paul Corthorn's "Enoch Powell, Politics and ideas in modern Britain" is a decent overview of Powell's views on various issues:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/enoch-powell-9780198747154?cc=de&lang=en&#
He also taught himself Welsh.
And Russian and Urdu and probably other languages.
Roger Scruton's perceptive essay on Powell agrees about his Romanticism; Scruton says Rivers of Blood is based on, and needs to be understood as a noble lie, about the nature of England.
So Enoch Powell knew he was spewing nonsense?
I met Enoch Powell in the early/mid 1980s when I was just a schoolboy and he very helpfully gave me some clues about the Greek I was struggling to translate as holiday homework at the time.
If I'd been a smarter child I'd have stayed to hear him swap stories of this and that with my father (also a classicist at Cambridge but a decade later than Powell, and who did code breaking at Bletchley). Unfortunately I decided to go back to studying and therefore missed a lot. One thing I do recall was his discussion of Northern Ireland and the "troubles" and how particularly the media utterly misrepresented events on the ground making things appear much worse than they really were.
The media was right, given the fact the dissident Republican insurgency is still continuing, even if it is almost over.