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Enoch was wrong-headed
Not much to add to add to Danny Finkelstein's blast at Simon Heffer, except to say that Geoffrey Wheatcroft provides an elegant account of the "rivers of blood" speech in his book, "The Strange Death of Tory England." I think I ran this quote on my old blog, but it's worth repeating: In a celebrated passage from his speech he said that he was filled with foreboding: "Like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood'", by which he intended Virgil and the passage in the Aenid, "Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno". After the storm had broken Powell said he was sorry that he had not left this in the original. But then what is the Latin for "piccaninny"?
One thing that always puzzled me in the years following his sacking was that Powell could easily have taken the opportunity to distance himself from the skinheads and saloon bar racists who used "Enoch was right" as their catch-phrase. I'm not aware he ever did, although it's possible I simply missed the story.
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