Rivers of blood

[Cheese]

 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/what-to-listen-to/bbc-radio-4-broadcast-enoch-powells-rivers-blood-speech-first/

Radio 4 are to broadcast the entirety of Enoch Powell's infamous speech this weekend. Predictably, there's much outrage at this decision.

Personally, I find it pretty irrelevant now tbh. The content of the speech is basically the Daily Mail's editorial line and you can see and read much worse on the likes of Brietbart and Westmonster these days. It's a nice touch by R4 to have Emperor Palpantine reading it though.

So, have any P&Ber's had a speech broadcast on national radio ?

Have any P&Ber's delivered a speech inciting racial violence ?

[JamieThomas]

I told a Canada Goose to f**k off once.

[Cerberus]

I'd say the BBC shouldn't be broadcasting this kind of stuff but with the amount of air time they give Farage and promote Brexit it's not surprising. 

[Emiliano ZaBankie]

Did he ever teach a pug to do a nazi salute though?

[killiefan27]

 

[Granny Danger]

A horrible racist speech by a horrible racist man; there is no more merit in broadcasting this than there is in broadcasting contemporary racist hate speech.

 

 

[Savage Henry]

6 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

A horrible racist speech by a horrible racist man; there is no more merit in broadcasting this than there is in broadcasting contemporary racist hate speech.

 

 

Contextually, there could be.  Presuming it gives equal - if not  more - time to the reactions from the subjects of the speech, it could be an opportunity to firmly place the speech in the dustbin in which it belongs.  

[NotThePars]

It’s extremely good of the state broadcaster in the current climate to broadcast some classic racism to go along with all the current stuff we’re dealing with. Very helpful and mature.

[doulikefish]

Andrew Neil must be devastated he never got the gig

[Brother Blades]

I’m in favour of this, if nothing else, it will provide point & laugh moments for correct minded people (avoiding the “right minded” trap). There is no doubt Powell was a terrible racist & providing contrary evidence to his predictions (with the benefit of hindsight), can only be a good exposure of how wrong, small minded racists can be.

[Granny Danger]

14 minutes ago, Brother Blades said:

I’m in favour of this, if nothing else, it will provide point & laugh moments for correct minded people (avoiding the “right minded” trap). There is no doubt Powell was a terrible racist & providing contrary evidence to his predictions (with the benefit of hindsight), can only be a good exposure of how wrong, small minded racists can be.

It’s not the right minded folk that we need to worry about, they (we) already reject this.

 

[Brother Blades]

It’s not the right minded folk that we need to worry about, they (we) already reject this.
 

I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one GD, our politics (from what I can gauge on here), are very similar, but I do really believe that exposure of how “we” used to think & act should be exposed for the lies they were & indeed still are.
It’s like banning Mien Kampf, I read that as a 12 year old & I am glad I did (and censorship didn’t preclude my reading of it), it exposed the entire “Aryan ideal” as a sham and made Adolf a figure of fun, even in my 12 year old mind.

[Bully Wee Villa]

Promoting the programme in a "look how far we have come, look at this daft racist b*****d from the past" way would be fine. Maybe even beneficial.

However, given the level of the BBC's reporting in the run-up to the Brexit Referendum, and since, I have my concerns.

I worry that, in the name of "balance", they'll feel obliged to provide just as a much justification as condemnation for the hate-filled speech.

Any racist listening will feel further vindication that their views are acceptable and even have an intrinsic intellectual value. I fear that this will be part of an ongoing trend to normalise vile views that I'd hoped had been consigned to the dustbin of history.

[Chapelhall chap]

Went to see the play last year on Powell which featured the speech. It was a powerful drama of a complicated individual but it struck me that he was very much an English nationalist-it described Aberdeen as part of this England. He was very much an old fashioned imperialist out of line with Heath's conservatism. Despite the 1962 Immigration Act Powell felt it did not restrict enough. From a historical view it might be worth hearing but Radio 4 is not one of my favourites. 

[NotThePars]

Of course Nigel Farage’s 32 appearances on Question Time alone have did much to dispel the appeal of far right politics.

[BawWatchin]

Tell people something enough times and it becomes fact, even if it's not. Playing speeches like these is no different. They should be confined to the past. All it will do is rile up the already moronic element of society while encouraging others to jump on the braindead bandwagon.

[Cheese]

1 hour ago, Savage Henry said:

Contextually, there could be.  Presuming it gives equal - if not  more - time to the reactions from the subjects of the speech, it could be an opportunity to firmly place the speech in the dustbin in which it belongs.  

Incidentally, the programme is on for 58 mins. The speech is around 45 mins long. 

32 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

Promoting the programme in a "look how far we have come, look at this daft racist b*****d from the past" way would be fine. Maybe even beneficial.

However, given the level of the BBC's reporting in the run-up to the Brexit Referendum, and since, I have my concerns.

I worry that, in the name of "balance", they'll feel obliged to provide just as a much justification as condemnation for the hate-filled speech.

Any racist listening will feel further vindication that their views are acceptable and even have an intrinsic intellectual value. I fear that this will be part of an ongoing trend to normalise vile views that I'd hoped had been consigned to the dustbin of history.

Agree with this. The language used, the 'classical' references and so on are all designed to give a veneer of respectability to the cretinous shite he spouted. We now see the likes of Reece-Mogg, Johnson and to a lesser extent Farage do the same.

[Baxter Parp]

 Oh aye, context, etc.

[Baxter Parp]

[Fullerene]

I remember when Tony Benn on the left and Enoch Powell on the right could always be relied upon to express an opinion that different to what everybody else was saying.  “Thought-provoking” would be one way to describe it – and both men were respected even by those who totally disagreed with them.

IIRC: at the time of the Falklands War, Enoch Powell argued that it would be right to go to war with Argentina even if nobody lived in the Falklands and in fact it was right to go to war over South Georgia alone.

People were always keen to hear what Enoch had to say about anything – but only a nutcase would ever vote for him.  He later became an MP for the Ulster Unionist Party.

At the time of this infamous – it was regarded as “out there” and totally at odds with mainstream opinion.  It is disturbing how the angry anti-immigrant Brexit brigade and now trying to claim that it is mainstream opinion and old Enoch might have had a point.

Coming soon: The rehabilitation of Adolf Hitler – a man much misunderstood.  Yikes.