Michael Mackintosh Foot, FRSL, PC (23 July 1913 – 3 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician, journalist and author, who was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1955 and from 1960 until 1992. He was deputy leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980, and later became the Leader of the Opposition from 1980 to 1983.^[1]

Associated with the Labour left for most of his career, he was a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and British withdrawal from the European Economic Community. He was first promoted to Cabinet as Employment secretary under Harold Wilson in 1974, and later served as Leader of the House of Commons under James Callaghan. A passionate orator, he was Labour leader at the 1983 general election when the party received its lowest share of the vote since 1918.^[2]

His parallel career as a journalist included appointments as editor of Tribune, on several occasions, and the Evening Standard newspaper. Among the books he authored are Guilty Men (an attack on Neville Chamberlain and others for the policy of appeasement), a biography of Jonathan Swift (The Pen and the Sword, 1957) and a biography of Aneurin Bevan.

Family[link]

Foot's parents were Eva (Mackintosh) and Isaac Foot (1880–1960), a solicitor and founder of the Plymouth law firm Foot and Bowden (which merged with another firm to become Foot Anstey). Isaac Foot was an active member of the Liberal Party and was Liberal Member of Parliament for Bodmin in Cornwall 1922–1924 and 1929–1935 and a Lord Mayor of Plymouth.^[3]

Michael Foot's elder brothers were Sir Dingle Foot MP (1905–1978), a Liberal and subsequently Labour MP; Hugh Foot, Baron Caradon (1907–1990), a Governor of Cyprus, a representative of the United Kingdom at the United Nations from 1964 to 1970, and father to campaigning journalist Paul Foot (1937–2004) and charity worker Oliver Foot (1946–2008); and Liberal politician John Foot, Baron Foot (1909–1999).

Foot had three other siblings: Margaret Elizabeth Foot (1911–1965), Jennifer Mackintosh Highet^[4] (born 1916) and Christopher Isaac Foot (born 1917).^[5]

Early life[link]

Michael Foot was born in Lipson Terrace, Plymouth, Devon, the fifth of seven children of Isaac and Eva^[6] (née Mackintosh, died 17 May 1946), a Scotswoman.^[7] He was educated at Plymouth College Preparatory School and Leighton Park School in Reading. He then went on to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Wadham College, Oxford. Foot was the President of the Oxford Union. He also took part in the ESU USA Tour (the debating tour of the USA run by the English-Speaking Union). On graduating in 1934, he took a job as a shipping clerk in Birkenhead. Foot was profoundly influenced by the poverty and unemployment that he witnessed in Liverpool, which was on a different scale from anything he had seen in Plymouth. A Liberal up to this time, Foot was converted to socialism by Oxford University Labour Club president David Lewis and others: "... I knew him [at Oxford] when I was a Liberal [and Lewis] played a part in converting me to socialism."^[8] Foot joined the Labour Party and first stood for parliament at the age of 22 in the 1935 general election, when he contested Monmouth. During this election Foot criticised the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, for seeking rearmament. In his election address Foot contended that "the armaments race in Europe must be stopped now".^[9] Foot also supported unilateral disarmament, after multilateral disarmament talks at Geneva had broken down in 1933.^[10]

He became a journalist, working briefly on the New Statesman, before joining the left-wing weekly Tribune when it was set up in early 1937 to support the Unity Campaign, an attempt to secure an anti-fascist United Front between Labour and the parties to its left. The campaign's members were Stafford Cripps's (Labour-affiliated) Socialist League, the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CP). Foot resigned in 1938 after the paper's first editor, William Mellor, was fired for refusing to adopt a new CP policy of backing a Popular Front, including non-socialist parties, against fascism and appeasement. In a 1955 interview, Foot ideologically identified as a libertarian socialist.^[11]

Journalism[link]

On the recommendation of Aneurin Bevan, Foot was soon hired by Lord Beaverbrook to work as a writer on his Evening Standard. (Bevan is supposed to have told Beaverbrook on the phone: "I've got a young bloody knight-errant here. They sacked his boss, so he resigned. Have a look at him.") At the outbreak of the Second World War, Foot volunteered for military service, but was rejected because of his chronic asthma. It has been suggested (2011) that he became a member of the secret Auxiliary Units.

In 1940, under the pen-name "Cato" he and two other Beaverbrook journalists (Frank Owen, editor of the Standard, and Peter Howard of the Daily Express) published Guilty Men, a Left Book Club book attacking the appeasement policy of the Chamberlain government that became a run-away best-seller. Beaverbrook made Foot editor of the Evening Standard in 1942 at the age of 28. During the war Foot made a speech that was later featured during The World at War documentary TV series broadcast in February 1974.^[12] Foot was speaking in defence of the Daily Mirror, which had criticised the conduct of the war by the Churchill Government. He mocked the notion that the Government would make no more territorial demands of other newspapers if they allowed the Mirror to be censored.

Foot left the Standard in 1945 to join the Daily Herald as a columnist. The Daily Herald was jointly owned by the TUC and Odhams Press, and was effectively an official Labour Party paper. He rejoined Tribune as editor from 1948 to 1952, and was again the paper's editor from 1955 to 1960. Throughout his political career he railed against the increasing corporate domination of the press, entertaining a special loathing for Rupert Murdoch.

Member of Parliament[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010)

Foot fought the Plymouth Devonport constituency in the 1945 general election. His election agent was Labour activist and life-long friend Ron Lemin. He won the seat for Labour for the first time, holding it until his surprise defeat by Dame Joan Vickers at the 1955 general election. Until 1957, he was the most prominent ally of Aneurin Bevan, who had taken Cripps's place as leader of the Labour left, though Foot and Bevan fell out after Bevan renounced unilateral nuclear disarmament at the 1957 Labour Party conference.

Before the cold war began in the late 1940s, Foot favoured a 'third way' foreign policy for Europe (he was joint author with Richard Crossman and Ian Mikardo of the pamphlet Keep Left in 1947), but in the wake of the communist seizure of power in Hungary and Czechoslovakia he and Tribune took a strongly anti-communist position, eventually embracing NATO.

Foot was however a critic of the west's handling of the Korean War, an opponent of West German rearmament in the early 1950s and a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Under his editorship, Tribune opposed both the British government's Suez adventure and the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. In this period he made regular television appearances on the current affairs programmes In The News (BBC) and subsequently Free Speech (ITV). "There was certainly nothing wrong with his television technique in those days", reflected Anthony Howard shortly after Foot's death.^[13]

Foot returned to parliament in 1960 at a by-election in Ebbw Vale in Monmouthshire, left vacant by Bevan's death. He had the Labour whip withdrawn in March 1961 after rebelling against the Labour leadership over air force estimates. He only returned to the Parliamentary Labour Group in 1963 when Harold Wilson became Labour leader after the sudden death of Hugh Gaitskell.

Harold Wilson – the subject of an enthusiastic campaign biography by Foot published by Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press in 1964 – offered Foot a place in his first government, but Foot turned it down. Instead he became the leader of Labour's left opposition from the back benches, dazzling the Commons with his command of rhetoric. He opposed the government's moves to restrict immigration, join the Common Market and reform the trade unions, was against the Vietnam War and Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence, and denounced the Soviet suppression of "socialism with a human face" in Czechoslovakia in 1968. He also famously allied with the Tory right-winger Enoch Powell to scupper the government's plan to abolish the voting rights of hereditary peers and create a House of Lords comprising only life peers – a "seraglio of eunuchs" as Foot put it.

In 1967, Foot challenged James Callaghan but failed to win the post of Treasurer of the Labour Party.

In government[link]

After 1970, Labour moved to the left and Wilson came to an accommodation with Foot. In April 1972, he stood for the Deputy Leadership of the party, along with Edward Short and Anthony Crosland. Short defeated Foot in the second ballot after Crosland had been eliminated in the first.

When, in 1974, Labour returned to office under Harold Wilson, Foot became Secretary of State for Employment. According to Ben Pimlott, his appointment was intended to please the left of the party and the Trade Unions. In this role, he played the major part in the government's efforts to maintain the trade unions' support. He was also responsible for the Health and Safety at Work Act. Foot was one of the mainstays of the "no" campaign in the 1975 referendum on British membership of the European Economic Community. When Wilson retired in 1976, Foot contested the party leadership and led in the first ballot, but was ultimately defeated by James Callaghan. Later that year, Foot was elected Deputy Leader and served as Leader of the House of Commons, which gave him the unenviable task of trying to maintain the survival of the Callaghan government as its majority evaporated.

In 1975, Foot, along with Jennie Lee and others, courted controversy when they supported Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, after she prompted the declaration of a state of emergency. In December 1975, The Times ran an editorial titled 'Is Mr Foot a Fascist?' – their answer was that he was^[14] – after Norman Tebbit accused him of 'undiluted fascism' once Foot said that the Ferrybridge Six deserved dismissal for defying a closed shop.^[15]

Labour leadership[link]

Following Labour's 1979 general election defeat by Margaret Thatcher, James Callaghan remained party leader for the next 18 months before he resigned and Foot was elected Labour leader on 4 November 1980, beating Denis Healey in the second round of the leadership election (the last leadership contest to involve only Labour MPs). Foot presented himself as a compromise candidate capable, unlike Healey, of uniting the party, which at the time was riven by the grassroots left-wing insurgency centred around Tony Benn.

The Bennites demanded revenge for the betrayals, as they saw them, of the Callaghan government, and pushed the case for replacement of MPs who had acquiesced to them by left-wingers who would support the causes of unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the Common Market and widespread nationalisation. (Benn did not stand for the leadership: apart from Foot and Healey, the other candidates – both eliminated in the first round – were John Silkin, a Tribunite like Foot, and Peter Shore, an anti-European right-winger.)

When he became leader, Foot was already 67 and frail. The Tory government was dividing the country and proving highly controversial as its monetarist economic policies to reduce inflation were contributing to a significant rise in unemployment which had helped plunge Britain's economy into recession earlier in 1980. As a result, Labour had moved ahead of the Tories in the opinion polls, and in the aftermath of Foot's election as leader opinion polls showed a double-digit lead for Labour, boosting his hopes of becoming prime minister by the time of the next general election, which had to be held by May 1984.

Almost immediately after his election as leader he was faced with a serious crisis: the creation in early 1981 of a breakaway party by four senior Labour right-wingers, Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David Owen and William Rodgers (the so-called "Gang of Four"), the Social Democratic Party. This was largely seen as the consequence of the Labour Party's swing to the left, polarising divisions in an already divided party.^[16]

The SDP won the support of large sections of the media, and for most of 1981 and early 1982 its opinion poll ratings suggested that it could at least overtake Labour and possibly win a general election, as the Tories were proving unpopular because of the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher, which had seen unemployment reach a postwar high.

With the Labour left still strong – in 1981 Benn decided to challenge Healey for the deputy leadership of the party, a contest Healey won narrowly – Foot struggled to make an impact and was widely criticised for it, though his performances in the Commons, most notably on the Falklands war of 1982, won him widespread respect from other parliamentarians, though he was criticised by some on the left who felt that he should not have supported the Thatcher government's immediate resort to military action. The right-wing newspapers nevertheless lambasted him consistently for what they saw as his bohemian eccentricity, attacking him for wearing what they described as a "donkey jacket" (actually he wore a type of duffel coat)^[17] at the wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day in November 1981, for which he was likened to an "out-of-work navvy" by one of Labour's own MPs.^[18] Foot did not make it generally known that HM the Queen Mother had complimented him on it; he later donated the garment to the People's History Museum in Manchester.^[19]

The formation of the SDP - who formed an alliance with the Liberal Party in June 1981 - contributed to a fall in Labour support. The double-digit lead which had still been intact in opinion polls at the start of 1981 was swiftly wiped out, and by the end of October the opinion polls were showing the Alliance ahead of Labour. Labour briefly regained their lead of most opinion polls in early 1982, but when the Falklands conflict ended on 14 June 1982 with a British victory over Argentina, opinion polls showed the Tories firmly in the lead. Their position at the top of the polls was strengthened by the return to economic growth later in the year. It was looking certain that the Tories would be re-elected, and the only key issue that the media were still speculating by the end of 1982 was whether it would be Labour or the Alliance who formed the next opposition.^[20]

Through late 1982 and early 1983, there was constant speculation that Labour MPs would replace Foot with Healey as leader. Such speculation increased after Labour lost the 1983 Bermondsey by-election, in which Peter Tatchell was its candidate, standing against a Tory, a Liberal (eventual winner Simon Hughes) and the right wing John O'Grady, who had declared himself the "real" Labour candidate and fought an openly homophobic campaign against Tatchell. Critically, Labour held on in a subsequent by-election in Darlington and Foot remained leader for the 1983 general election.

Resignation[link]

The 1983 Labour manifesto, strongly socialist in tone, advocated unilateral nuclear disarmament, higher personal taxation and a return to a more interventionist industrial policy. The manifesto also pledged that a Labour government would abolish the House of Lords, nationalise banks and leave the then European Economic Community. Foot's Labour Party lost to the Conservatives in a landslide – a result which had been widely predicted by the opinion polls since the previous summer. The only consolation for Foot and Labour was that they did not lose their place in opposition to the SDP-Liberal Alliance, who came close to them in terms of votes but were still a long way behind in terms of seats.^[21] Despite this, Foot was very critical of the Alliance, accusing them of "siphoning" Labour support and enabling the Tories to win more seats.^[22]

The Daily Mirror was the only major newspaper to back Foot and Labour at the 1983 general election, urging its readers to vote Labour and "Stop the waste of our nation, for your job your children and your future" in response to the mass unemployment that had resulted from Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher's monetarist economic policies to reduce inflation. Most other newspapers had urged their readers to vote Tory.^[23]

Foot resigned days after the election and was succeeded as leader on 2 October by Neil Kinnock, who had been tipped from the outset to be Labour's choice of new leader.

Gerald Kaufman, once Harold Wilson's press officer and during the 1980s prominent on the Labour right, described the 1983 Labour manifesto as "the longest suicide note in history". As a statement on internal democracy, Foot passed the edict that the manifesto would consist of all resolutions arrived at conference. The party also failed to master the medium of television, while Foot addressed public meetings around the country, and made some radio broadcasts, in the same manner as Clement Attlee in 1945. Members joked that they had not expected Foot to allow the slogan "Think positive, Act positive, Vote Labour" on grammatical grounds.^{[citation needed]}

In 1986, Foot was the subject of one of the best-known newspaper headlines of all time. The Times ran an article about Foot, who had been put in charge of a nuclear disarmament committee. The headline stated "Foot Heads Arms Body." Although originally written as a joke by editor Martyn Cornell, the paper ran it.^[24]

Backbenches and retirement[link]

Foot took a back seat in Labour politics after 1983 and retired from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election, when Labour lost to the Tories (now led by John Major) for the fourth election in succession, but remained politically active. From 1987 to 1992, he was the oldest sitting British MP (preceding former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath). He defended Salman Rushdie, the novelist who was subject to a fatwā requiring Rushdie's execution by Ayatollah Khomeini, and took a strongly pro-interventionist position against Serbia during its conflict with Croatia and Bosnia, supporting NATO forces whilst citing defence of civilian populations in the latter countries. In addition he was among the Patrons of the British-Croatian Society.^[25] The Guardian's political editor Michael White criticised Foot's "overgenerous" support for Croatian leader Franjo Tuđman.^[26]

Foot remained a high-profile member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He wrote several books, including highly regarded biographies of Aneurin Bevan and H. G. Wells. Indeed, he was a distinguished Vice-president of the H. G. Wells Society. Many of his friends have said publicly that they regret that he ever gave up literature for politics.

Foot was an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association.^{[citation needed]} He was elected in 1988 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.^{[citation needed]}

In a poll of Labour party activists he was voted the worst post-war Labour party leader.^[27] Though Foot is considered by many a failure as Labour leader, his biographer Mervyn Jones strongly makes the case that no one else could have held Labour together at the time, particularly in the face of the strength of Militant tendency.^{[citation needed]} Foot is remembered with affection in Westminster as a great parliamentarian. He was widely liked, and admired for his integrity and generosity of spirit, by both his colleagues and opponents.^{[citation needed]}

A portrait of Foot by the artist Robert Lenkiewicz now permanently hangs in Portcullis House, Westminster.

Gordievsky allegations[link]

Oleg Gordievsky, a high-ranking KGB officer who defected from the Soviet Union to Britain in 1985, made allegations against Foot in his 1995 memoirs.^[28] The Sunday Times, which serialised Gordievsky's book under the headline "KGB: Michael Foot was our agent", claimed in an article of 19 February that the Soviet intelligence services regarded Foot as an "agent of influence", codenamed "Agent BOOT", and in the pay of the KGB for many years. Crucially, the newspaper used material from the original manuscript of the book which had not been included in the published version.^[29] At the time a leading article in The Independent newspaper asserted: "It seems extraordinary that such an unreliable figure should now be allowed, given the lack of supporting evidence, to damage the reputation of figures such as Mr Foot."^[30] In a February 1992 interview, Gordievsky had claimed that he had no further Labour Party revelations to make.^[30] Foot successfully sued the Sunday Times, winning "substantial" damages.^[29]

However, in the Daily Telegraph in 2010 Charles Moore gave a "full account", which he claimed had been provided to him by Gordievsky shortly after Foot's death, of the extent of Foot's alleged KGB involvement. Moore also wrote that, although the claims are difficult to corroborate without MI6 and KGB files, Gordievsky's past record in revealing KGB contacts in Britain had been shown to be reliable.^[31]

Plymouth Argyle[link]

Foot was a passionate supporter of Plymouth Argyle Football Club from his childhood and once remarked that he wasn't going to die until he had seen them play in the Premier League.^[32] He served for several years as a director of the club, seeing two promotions under his tenure.^[33]

For his 90th birthday, Foot was registered with the Football League as an honorary player and given the shirt number 90. This made him officially the oldest registered professional player in the history of football.^[33][34]

Personal life[link]

Foot had no children.^[35] He was married to the film-maker, author and feminist historian Jill Craigie (1911–1999) from 1949 until her death.

In February 2007, it was revealed that Foot engaged in an extramarital affair with a black woman around 35 years his junior in the early 1970s. The affair, which lasted nearly a year, put a considerable strain on his marriage. The affair is detailed in Foot's official biography, published in March 2007.^[36]

On 23 July 2006, his 93rd birthday, Michael Foot became the longest-lived leader of a major British political party, passing Lord Callaghan's record of 92 years, 364 days.

A staunch republican (though actually well liked by the Royal Family on a personal level),^[36] Foot rejected honours from the Queen and the government, including a knighthood and a peerage, on more than one occasion.

Health[link]

Foot suffered from asthma until 1963 (which disqualified him from service in World War II) and eczema until middle age.^[37]

In October 1963 he was involved in a car crash, suffering pierced lungs, broken ribs, and a broken left leg. He subsequently used a walking stick for the rest of his life.^[38] According to former MP Tam Dalyell, Foot had up to the accident been a chain-smoker, but gave up the habit thereafter.^[39]

In 1976, Foot became blind in one eye following an attack of shingles.^[40]

Death[link]

Foot died at his Hampstead, North London home in the morning of 3 March 2010. The House of Commons was informed of the news later that day by Justice Secretary Jack Straw,^[41] who told the House: "I am sure that this news will be received with great sadness not only in my own party but across the country as a whole."^[42] Foot's funeral was a non-religious service, held on 15 March 2010 at Golders Green Crematorium in North West London.^[43]

Fictional depiction[link]

Foot was portrayed by Patrick Godfrey in the 2002 BBC production of Ian Curteis' long unproduced The Falklands Play and by Michael Pennington in the film The Iron Lady.

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Cato (pen name) Guilty Men, Left Book Club (1940)
• Cassius (pen name) Brendan and Beverley, Victor Gollancz (1940)
• The Pen and the Sword, MacGibbon and Kee (1957) ISBN 0-261-61989-6
• Aneurin Bevan, MacGibbon and Kee (volume 1:1962) (volume 2:1973) ISBN 0-261-61508-4
• Debts of Honour, Harper and Row (1981) ISBN 0-06-039001-8
• Another Heart and Other Pulses, Collins (1984) ISBN 978-0-00-217256-1.
• H. G.: The History of Mr Wells, Doubleday (1985) ISBN 978-1-887178-04-4
• Loyalists and Loners, Collins (1986) ISBN 978-0-00-217583-8
• Politics of Paradise, HarperCollins (1989) ISBN 0-06-039091-3
• "Introduction" in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Penguin (1967)
• '"Bevan's Message to the World"' in Geoffrey Goodman's (editor) The State of the Nation: The Political Legacy of Aneurin Bevan, Gollancz (1997)
• "Introduction" in Bertrand Russell's Autobiography, Routledge (1998)
• Dr Strangelove, I Presume, Gollancz (1999)
• & Brian Brivati (editor), The Uncollected Michael Foot, Politicos Publishing (2003) ISBN 978-1-84275-096-4
• 'Foreword' in Greg Rosen's Old Labour to New, Methuen Publishing (2005) ISBN 978-1-84275-045-2
• Isaac Foot: A West Country Boy - Apostle of England, Politicos Publishing (2006) ISBN 978-1-84275-181-7

Biographies[link]

• Hoggart, Simon; & Leigh, David. Michael Foot: a Portrait. Hodder. 1981. ISBN 0-340-27040-3
• Jones, Mervyn. Michael Foot. Gollancz. 1993. ISBN 0-575-05933-8
• Morgan, Kenneth O. Michael Foot: A Life. HarperPress (HarperCollins) 2007. ISBN 978-0-00-717826-1

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Michael Foot

• Michael Foot at the Internet Movie Database
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Michael Foot
• Michael Foot at 90 Johann Hari, 24 July 2003 - In-depth biographical interview marking Foot's 90th birthday
• Michael Foot (1913-2010) Slideshow, The First Post
• Fictional obituary of Michael Foot: "what if" the Falklands Task Force had been defeated? Today in Alternate History
• The Labour History Archive and Study Centre hold Michael Foot's archive at: People's History Museum
• Michael Foot 1913-2010 New Statesman, 3 November 2008 - The last published interview with the former Labour leader, who died on 3 March 2010 at the aged of 96

v t e Leaders of the House of Commons Walpole Sandys Pelham Robinson H Fox Pitt the Elder Vacant (Caretaker Ministry) Pitt the Elder Grenville H Fox Grenville Conway North C Fox Townshend (C Fox/North) Pitt the Younger Addington Pitt the Younger C Fox Howick Perceval Castlereagh Canning Huskisson Peel Althorp Peel Russell Disraeli Russell Palmerston Disraeli Palmerston Gladstone Disraeli Gladstone Northcote Gladstone Hicks-Beach Gladstone R Churchill Smith Balfour Gladstone Harcourt Balfour Campbell-Bannerman Asquith Bonar Law A Chamberlain Bonar Law Baldwin MacDonald Baldwin MacDonald Baldwin MacDonald Baldwin N Chamberlain W Churchill Cripps Eden Morrison Chuter Ede Crookshank Butler Macleod Lloyd Bowden Crossman Peart Whitelaw Carr Prior Short Foot St John-Stevas Pym Biffen Wakeham Howe MacGregor Newton Taylor Beckett Cook Reid Hain Hoon Straw Harman Young

v t e Callaghan cabinet Joel Barnett · Tony Benn · Albert Booth · James Callaghan · Anthony Crosland · Edmund Dell · Lord Elwyn-Jones · David Ennals · Michael Foot · Roy Hattersley · Denis Healey · Roy Jenkins · Harold Lever · Roy Mason · Bruce Millan · John Morris · Fred Mulley · Stanley Orme · David Owen · Lord Peart · Reg Prentice · Merlyn Rees · Bill Rodgers · Lord Shepherd · Peter Shore · John Silkin · John Smith · Eric Varley · Shirley Williams

Nick Robinson
Nick Robinson outside St Stephen's Club, London in May 2010
Born	Nicholas Anthony Robinson (1963-10-05) 5 October 1963 (age 48) Macclesfield, Cheshire, England
Nationality	British
Education	Cheadle Hulme School; University of Oxford
Occupation	Political editor
Years active	1986–present
Notable credit(s)	Panorama, BBC News, ITN
Website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson

Nicholas Anthony "Nick" Robinson (born 5 October 1963) is a British journalist and political editor for the BBC.^[1] Robinson was interested in politics from a young age, and went on to study a Philosophy, Politics, and Economics degree at Oxford University, where he was also President of the Oxford University Conservative Association. Starting out in broadcasting at Piccadilly Radio, he worked his way up as a producer eventually becoming deputy editor of Panorama, the world's longest-running current affairs programme, before becoming a political correspondent in 1996. He became the BBC's chief political correspondent in 1999, and between 2002 and 2005 he worked for ITV News as political editor, but then returned to the BBC assuming the same role, which he has held since.

Noted for his confrontational and provocative approach, Robinson has on several occasions caused a stir with his style of questioning, particularly of world leaders such as George W. Bush. His history of Conservative affiliation has been controversial, particularly when allegations of bias were made during his coverage of the 2010 United Kingdom general election. He has presented a variety of programmes, including Westminster Live, Weekend Breakfast and Late Night Live on BBC Radio 5 Live, and Newsnight.

Early life[link]

Born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, in 1963, Robinson was interested in political journalism from the age of eight.^[2] He was educated at Cheadle Hulme School and University College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.^[1] At university he was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association.^[3] In 1982, while travelling in Europe, he survived a car crash in Lille, France, in which the car, a two-door Beetle, exploded and his friends James Nelson and Will Redhead (son of Brian Redhead, a journalist and co-presenter of Today on BBC Radio 4) were killed.^[4] Robinson was "severely burned",^[2] spent five weeks in hospital and had to defer his university place.^[4] Brian Redhead became Robinson's mentor, and later encouraged his career in political journalism, giving him a copy of Tony Benn's Arguments for Socialism for his birthday. However, his early political affiliations were to the right.^[2] In 1986, Robinson spent a year as national chairman of the Young Conservatives,^[2] and earned the nickname "Blue Robbo", in reference to Derek Robinson, a trade union spokesman who was known as "Red Robbo".^[1]

Career[link]

Early career: 1986–1996[link]

Robinson's first position in broadcasting was at Piccadilly Radio in Manchester, which he took up while recovering from his injuries.^[4] He joined the BBC in 1986 as a production trainee, and later worked extensively as a television and radio producer for a variety of shows including Newsround and Crimewatch. He then became an assistant producer for On the Record, and in 1993 was promoted to Deputy Editor of Panorama, the world's longest-running current affairs programme, a position he held for three years.^[1] In 1995, while Robinson was at Panorama he wrote an internal BBC memorandum questioning how an interview with Prime Minister John Major could be defended in the run-up to the Scottish local elections. When leaked it gained attention from the Labour Party, who perceived it as the legitimised denial of equal time in the run up to local elections.^[5]

Political correspondent: 1996–2002[link]

Robinson interviewing Michael Portillo in July 2001, close to the Palace of Westminster for BBC News

In 1996 he became a political correspondent, presenting Weekend Breakfast and Late Night Live on BBC Radio 5 Live, and in 1997 he covered the general election for BBC Radio. In October 1999 he became BBC News 24's chief political correspondent, and also presented Westminster Live. In the run-up to the 2001 general election, Robinson started keeping a daily diary of the campaign. Entitled "The Campaign Today", it later became Newslog,^[1] and continued to be updated until Robinson left the BBC. When he returned in 2005 he began a new blog with the same name.^[6]

ITN political editor: 2002–2005[link]

In 2002, Robinson left the BBC for Independent Television News (ITN) as ITV News' political editor. Tom Bradby, who later succeeded him, described the appointment as "bold, imaginative and instantly successful".^[1] Robinson stayed with ITN for three years, and caused a major stir early in the 2005 election campaign at the unveiling of a Labour Party poster. The poster claimed the Conservative Party would initiate cuts of £35 billion to public services if elected; Robinson challenged Prime Minister Tony Blair, claiming the poster was misleading,^[7] which forced Blair to admit the £35 billion figure was "disingenuous".^[1] Later on in the election campaign, Labour announced that Tony Blair would be making "the most important speech of the campaign" on immigration, with a specially invited audience. Robinson asked Blair why there were only white people in the audience, and Blair pointed out a single Asian man to disprove Robinson. Later, Robinson stated "We know that the big two parties carefully select audiences to give a particular appearance. Is it a great controversy to point this out? That's informing the audience." On election night, Robinson joined presenters Jonathan Dimbleby and Alastair Stewart to reveal the results with political analysis.^[7]

Return to the BBC: 2005–present[link]

Robinson left ITN and was appointed as the BBC political editor in preference to fellow journalist Martha Kearney in August 2005, replacing Andrew Marr.^[1]

Robinson continued his provocative approach to journalism, and on more than one occasion had run-ins with powerful politicians. During Tony Blair's visit to Israel in 2006 to discuss the Lebanon war, journalists were asked not to bring up the ongoing rift with Gordon Brown. Tom Bradby, the ITV political editor, asked a question on the subject but was told it was "disrespectful". Robinson then followed on the same topic, asking a difficult question on the feud between the Chancellor and Prime Minister. He was criticised for distracting from the main issue of the conference, but he argued that "I'm paid to ask questions... particularly at a time when there are incredibly serious allegations... I react very badly to organised attempts to stop journalists asking questions." Robinson later criticised Blair's announcement of his intention to stand down. He explained how he considered the setup "stage management", and how no journalists were allowed to ask questions.^[2]

In December 2006 he got a very hard stare from George W. Bush when he asked him if he was in denial about the situation in Iraq (since the most Bush had said about the situation was that the increase in attacks was "unsettling"). Bush replied coldly "It's bad in Iraq. Does that help?".^[8] He had another run in with Bush at a press conference at Camp David, when Bush asked him "you still hanging around?". He then suggested to Robinson, with reference to the heat, that "next time you should cover your bald head". As Bush walked away Robinson replied "I didn't know you cared", to which Bush responded "I don't". Robinson described his quip as a "fatal error" on his blog.^[1] In a final encounter in 2008, Bush joked with Robinson about still not wearing his hat.^[9]

Robinson continues to keep a blog on the BBC website, which discusses politics. His posts have occasionally caused controversy: on 5 May 2006 he raised eyebrows with the revelation that when hearing of Charles Clarke's sacking in the 2006 Cabinet reshuffle, he was "naked in bed."^[10] He later apologised, saying he was "merely trying to add authenticity. That's the naked truth."^[11] This incident briefly earnt him the nickname "Naked Nick".^[1] Another post dated 25 February 2008 criticised MPs defending Michael Martin against allegations of expenses misuse,^[12] which caused controversy in parliament.^[13]

Outside of his work as political editor, Robinson has also worked on politics-related programmes, such as The Daily Politics, Newsnight and Today on BBC Radio 4. He joined David Dimbleby, Jeremy Paxman, Jeremy Vine and Emily Maitlis to report and provide analysis on the 2010 United Kingdom general election night.^[14] He has also appeared as guests in other television programmes, including Children in Need, Have I Got News for You,^[1] and Top Gear.^[15] In May 2011 he presented the documentary The Street That Cut Everything, a programme in which residents of a street in Preston, Lancashire had all their council services withdrawn for six weeks as an experiment.^[16]

Criticism[link]

Robinson has been criticised for allegedly reporting with a pro-Tory bias, and Alastair Campbell brought up his history of conservative affiliations when confronted with a difficult question.^[7] Bias was claimed particularly in the 2010 United Kingdom general election coverage; a Facebook group entitled "Nick Robinson should not be the BBC's political editor" was set up and as of August 2010 has over 2000 members.^[17] In a 2005 interview with David Rowan, the UK editor of Wired News, he insisted "that his involvement [with the Conservatives] ceased 20 years ago".^[7]

He has also reported receiving hate mail about his distinctive Gucci glasses, including one advising him to "go to Specsavers". Advised by a fashion expert to get a distinctive pair, "or risk fading into the background",^[4] they have become his trademark, along with his bald head and provocative approach to journalism and politics. When he joined BBC News in 1999, he was almost made to wear contact lenses instead but he refused,^[2] stating they were "like large pieces of grit in [his] eye".^[18]

Robinson was again a figure of controversy in October 2010, after being caught on camera seizing and tearing up an anti-war, anti-cuts placard that a protester had been waving behind him during a live news report outside Parliament. Speaking after the incident, Robinson was at first defiant, declaring "I'm not remotely ashamed of myself. Why should I be ashamed of myself?".^[19] He later wrote that he "regretted" losing his temper, but added that he regarded the protester's display of the sign as inappropriate.^[20] Some days later, Robinson read out a jokily ambiguous 'letter of apology' on Have I Got News For You?, broadcast on 4 November 2010.^[21]

Personal life[link]

Robinson met his wife Pippa, a relationship counsellor, at university and they married in 1991. He has three children: Alice, Will (named in memory of Will Redhead) and Harry.^[4] He lives in North London, close to Arsenal's Emirates Stadium. He is a lifelong Manchester United fan, and enjoys sailing and the theatre (of dreams).^[1]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nick Robinson

• Nick Robinson's blog at BBC
• Nick Robinson on Twitter
• Nick Robinson at the Internet Movie Database

The Right Honourable Enoch Powell MBE
Portrait taken by Allan Warren
Minister of Health
In office 27 July 1960 – 18 October 1963
Prime Minister	Harold Macmillan
Preceded by	Derek Walker-Smith
Succeeded by	Anthony Barber
Financial Secretary to the Treasury
In office 1957–1958
Prime Minister	Harold Macmillan
Preceded by	Henry Brooke
Succeeded by	Jack Simon
Shadow Defence Secretary
In office July 1965 – 21 April 1968
Leader	Edward Heath
Preceded by	Peter Thorneycroft
Succeeded by	Reginald Maudling
Member of Parliament for South Down
In office 10 October 1974 – 11 June 1987
Preceded by	Lawrence Orr
Succeeded by	Eddie McGrady
Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South West
In office 23 February 1950 – 28 February 1974
Preceded by	Constituency Created
Succeeded by	Nicholas Budgen
Personal details
Born	John Enoch Powell 16 June 1912 (1912-06-16) Birmingham, England
Died	8 February 1998 (1998-02-09) (aged 85) London, England
Nationality	British (but registered as an Australian (then under common citizenship) when he joined the Army)
Political party	Conservative (1950–74) Ulster Unionist (1974–87)
Spouse(s)	Miss Pamela Wilson, 1952–98 (his death; 46 years)
Children	2 girls
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge SOAS
Occupation	• Member of Parliament 1950–87 • Conservative Research Department 1945–50 • Professor of Greek at Sydney University 1937–39
Profession	• Politician, • Classical scholar, • Poet, published works 1937, 1939, 1951.
Religion	Anglican
Military service
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army • Royal Warwickshire Regiment • General Service Corps • Intelligence Corps
Years of service	1939–45
Rank	• Private in 1939 • Brigadier by 1945
Battles/wars	World War II • North African Campaign • India
Awards	British War Medal 20px Africa Star Military OBE

John Enoch Powell, MBE (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, classical scholar, poet, writer, linguist and soldier. He served as a Conservative Party MP (1950–74), Ulster Unionist Party MP (1974–1987), and Minister of Health (1960–63). He attained most prominence in 1968, when he made the controversial Rivers of Blood speech against immigration. He was then controversially sacked from his position as Shadow Defence Secretary (1965–68) in the Shadow Cabinet of Edward Heath. He had few friends in the establishment, but a poll said that 74% of the population agreed with him.^[1]

However, his supporters claim that the large public following^[2][3] that Powell attracted may have helped the Conservatives to win the 1970 general election,^[4]:568 and perhaps cost them the February 1974 general election^[4]:710–2, at which Powell turned his back on the Conservatives by endorsing a vote for Labour, who returned as a minority government in early March following a hung parliament. He returned to the House of Commons in October 1974 as the Ulster Unionist Party MP for the Northern Irish constituency of South Down until he was defeated in the 1987 general election.

Before entering politics, he had been a classical scholar, becoming a full Professor of Ancient Greek at the age of 25. During the Second World War, he served in both staff and intelligence positions, reaching the rank of brigadier in his early thirties. He also wrote poetry, his first works being published in 1937, as well as many books on classical and political subjects.

Early years and education[link]

Enoch Powell was born in Stechford, Birmingham, England. He lived there for the first six years of his life before moving to King's Norton in 1918, where he lived until 1930. He was the only child of Albert Enoch Powell (1872–1956), a primary school headmaster, and his wife, Ellen Mary (1886–1953). Ellen was the daughter of Henry Breese, a Liverpool policeman and his wife Eliza, who had given up her own teaching career after marrying. The Powells were of Welsh descent, having moved to the developing Black Country during the early 19th century. His great-grandfather was a coal miner, and his grandfather had been employed in the iron trade.^[5]

Powell was a pupil at King's Norton Boys' School before moving to King Edward's School, Birmingham, where he studied classics (which would later influence his 'Rivers of Blood' speech), and was one of the few pupils in the school's history to attain 100% in an end-of-year English examination. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1930 to 1933, during which time he fell under the influence both of the poet A. E. Housman, then Professor of Latin at the university, and of the writings of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He took no part in politics at university.

It was while at Cambridge Powell is recorded as having enjoyed one of his first close relationships.^[6] Indeed, according to John Evans, Chaplain of Trinity and Extra Preacher to the Queen,^[7] instructions were left with him to reveal after Powell's death that at least one of the romantic affairs of his life had been homosexual. Powell had particularly drawn the Chaplain's attention to lines in his First Poems (published 1937). Biographers such as Simon Heffer dispute this and have argued that this did not mean that he was homosexual; merely that he had not yet met any girls.^[4]

While at University, in one Greek prose examination lasting three hours, he was asked to translate a passage into Greek. Powell walked out after one and a half hours, having produced translations in the styles of Plato and Thucydides. For his efforts, he was awarded a double starred first in Latin and Greek, this grade being the best possible and extremely rare. As well as his education at Cambridge, Powell took a course in Urdu at the School of Oriental Studies, now the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, because he felt that his long-cherished ambition of becoming Viceroy of India would be unattainable without knowledge of an Indian language.^[4]

Prewar career[link]

After graduating from Cambridge, Powell stayed on at Trinity College as a Fellow, spending much of his time studying ancient manuscripts in Latin and producing academic works in Greek and Welsh.^{[5]:18–20[8]} In 1937, he was appointed Professor of Greek at Sydney University aged 25 (failing in his aim of beating Friedrich Nietzsche's record of becoming a professor at 24). Among his pupils was future Prime Minister of Australia Gough Whitlam. He revised Stuart-Jones's edition of Thucydides' Historiae for the Oxford University Press in 1938, and his most lasting contribution to classical scholarship was his Lexicon to Herodotus, published the same year.

Soon after arrival in Australia, he was appointed Curator of the Nicholson Museum at Sydney University. He stunned the vice-chancellor by informing him that war would soon begin in Europe and that when it did, he would be heading home to enlist in the army.^[5]:29 By the time Powell had left King Edward's School in 1930, he had confirmed his instinctive belief that the Armistice was merely temporary and that Britain would be at war with Germany again.^[4]:10 During his time in Australia as a professor, he grew increasingly angry at the appeasement of Nazi Germany and what he saw as a betrayal of British national interests. After Neville Chamberlain's first visit to Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden, Powell wrote in a letter to his parents of 18 September 1938:

I do here in the most solemn and bitter manner curse the Prime Minister of England [sic] for having cumulated all his other betrayals of the national interest and honour, by his last terrible exhibition of dishonour, weakness and gullibility. The depths of infamy to which our accurst "love of peace" can lower us are unfathomable.^[4]:47

In another letter to his parents in June 1939, before the beginning of war, Powell wrote: "It is the English, not their Government; for if they were not blind cowards, they would lynch Chamberlain and Halifax and all the other smarmy traitors".^[4]:53 At the outbreak of war, Powell immediately returned to Britain, but not before buying a Russian dictionary, since he thought "Russia would hold the key to our survival and victory, as it had in 1812 and 1916".^[4]:55

War years[link]

During October 1939, almost a month after returning home, Powell enlisted in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment as an Australian. In a poem he wrote of men joining the army like "bridegrooms going to meet their brides", but his biographer points out that it is unlikely that other men shared his joy^[9]:39.

In later years, he recorded his appointment from private to lance-corporal in his Who's Who entry, on other occasions describing it as a greater promotion than entering the Cabinet^[9]:40. Early in 1940, he was trained for a commission after, whilst working in a kitchen, answering the question of an inspecting brigadier with a Greek proverb; on several occasions, he told colleagues that he expected to be at least a major-general by the end of the war^[4]:57–8. He passed out top from his officer training^[9]:40.

He was commissioned on the General List in 1940 but almost immediately transferred to the Intelligence Corps. He was almost immediately promoted to captain and posted as GSO3 (Intelligence) to the 1st (later 9th) Armoured Division. During this time he taught himself the Russian language as he was convinced that Adolf Hitler would eventually invade the Soviet Union. On one occasion, he was arrested as a suspected German spy for singing Horst-Wessel-Lied.^[9]:41 He was sent to the Staff College at Camberley.^[9]:41

In October 1941, Powell was posted to Cairo and transferred back to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. As Secretary to the Joint Intelligence Committee, Middle East, he was soon doing work that would normally have been done by a more senior officer and was (May 1942, backdated to December 1941^[4]:68) promoted to major. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in August 1942, telling his parents that he was doing the work of three people and expected to be a brigadier within a year or two^[4]:70, and in that role helped plan the Second Battle of El Alamein, having previously helped plan the attack on Rommel's supply lines. Powell and his team began work at 0400 each day to digest radio intercepts and other intelligence data (such as estimating how many tanks Rommel currently had and what his likely plans were) ready to present to the Chiefs of Staff at 0900^[9]:41. The following year, he was honoured as a member of the Order of the British Empire for his military service.

It was in Algiers that the beginning of Powell's dislike of the United States was planted. After talking with some senior American officials, he became convinced that one of America's main war aims was to destroy the British Empire. Writing home on 16 February 1943, Powell stated: "I see growing on the horizon the greater peril than Germany or Japan ever were... our terrible enemy, America...."^[4]:75 Powell's conviction of the anti-British attitude of the Americans continued during the war. Powell cut out and retained all his life an article from the New Statesman newspaper of 13 November 1943, in which the American Clare Boothe Luce said in a speech that Indian independence would mean that the "USA will really have won the greatest war in the world for democracy".^[4]:86–7

Powell desperately wanted to go to the Far East to help the fight against Japan because "the war in Europe is won now, and I want to see the Union Flag back in Singapore" before, Powell thought, the Americans beat Britain to it.^[4]:76 He attempted to join the Chindits, and jumped into a taxicab in Cairo to bring the matter up with Orde Wingate,^[4]:82 but his duties and rank precluded the assignment. He was eventually posted to Delhi in India as Lieutenant-Colonel in Military Intelligence in August 1943, having declined at least two jobs carrying the rank of full colonel in the now-moribund North African theatre and having offered to drop in rank to major in order to get a posting to the Far East^[4]:82.

Powell soon became Secretary to the Joint Intelligence Committee for India and Louis Mountbatten's South East Asia Command^[9]:50, involved in planning an amphibious offensive against Akyab, an island off the coast of Burma. Orde Wingate, also involved in planning that operation, had taken such a dislike to Powell that he asked a colleague to restrain him if he was tempted to "beat his brains in".^[9]:54

On one occasion, Powell's yellow skin (he was recovering from jaundice), overly formal dress and strange manner caused him to be mistaken for a Japanese spy.^[4]: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.^[9]:52 Powell had continued to learn Urdu, consistent with his ambition of becoming Viceroy of India, and when Mountbatten transferred his staff to Kandy, 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 William Slim.

Having begun the war as the youngest professor in the Commonwealth, Powell ended it as a brigadier. He was given the promotion to serve on a committee of generals and brigadiers to plan the postwar defence of India: the resulting 470-page report was almost entirely written by Powell. For a few weeks he was the youngest brigadier in the British Army,^[4]:93 and he was one of only two men in the entire war to rise from private to brigadier (the other being Fitzroy Maclean). He was offered a regular commission as a brigadier in the Indian Army, and the post of Assistant Commandant of an Indian Officers' Training Academy, which he declined.^[4]:97 He told a colleague that he expected to be Head of all Military Intelligence in "the next war"^[9]:54.

Powell never experienced combat and felt guilty for having survived, writing that soldiers who did so carried "a sort of shame with them to the grave" and referring to the Second Battle of El Alamein as a "separating flame" between the living and the dead.^[9]:44 When once asked how he would like to be remembered, he at first answered, "Others will remember me as they will remember me", but when pressed he replied, "I should like to have been killed in the war".^[10]

Political career[link]

Joining the Conservative Party[link]

Though he voted for the Labour Party in their 1945 landslide victory, because he wanted to punish the Conservative Party for the Munich agreement, after the war he joined the Conservatives and worked for the Conservative Research Department under Rab Butler, where his colleagues included Iain Macleod and Reginald Maudling.^[5]:51–3

Powell's ambition to be Viceroy of India crumbled in February 1947, when Prime Minister Clement Attlee announced that Indian independence was imminent. Powell was so shocked by the change of policy that he spent the whole night after it was announced walking the streets of London.^[5]:51 He came to terms with it by becoming fiercely anti-imperialist, believing that once India had gone the whole empire should follow it.^{[citation needed]} This logical absolutism explained his later indifference to the Suez crisis, his contempt for the Commonwealth and his urging that Britain should end any remaining pretence that it was a world power.

Election to Parliament[link]

After unsuccessfully contesting the Labour Party's ultra-safe seat of Normanton at a by-election in 1947 (when the Labour majority was 62%),^[11] he was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Wolverhampton South West in the 1950 general election.

First years as a Backbencher[link]

On 16 March 1950, Powell made his maiden speech, speaking on a White Paper on Defence and beginning by saying,"There is no need for me to pretend those feelings of awe and hesitation which assail any hon. Member who rises to address this House for the first time...."^[12]

On 3 March 1953, Powell spoke against the Royal Titles Bill in the House of Commons. He said he found three major changes to the style of the United Kingdom, "all of which seem to me to be evil". The first one was "that in this title, for the first time, will be recognised a principle hitherto never admitted in this country, namely, the divisibility of the crown". Powell said that the unity of the realm had evolved over centuries and included the British Empire: "It was a unit because it had one Sovereign. There was one Sovereign: one realm". He feared that by "recognising the division of the realm into separate realms, are we not opening the way for that other remaining unity-–the last unity of all-–that of the person, to go the way of the rest?"^{[13]:195–202}

The second change he objected to was "the suppression of the word 'British', both from before the words 'Realms and Territories' where it is replaced by the words 'her other' and from before the word 'Commonwealth', which, in the Statute of Westminster, is described as the 'British Commonwealth of Nations'":

To say that he is Monarch of a certain territory and his other realms and territories is as good as to say that he is king of his kingdom. We have perpetrated a solecism in the title we are proposing to attach to our Sovereign and we have done so out of what might almost be called an abject desire to eliminate the expression 'British'. The same desire has been felt... to eliminate this word before the term 'Commonwealth'... Why is it, then, that we are so anxious, in the description of our own Monarch, in a title for use in this country, to eliminate any reference to the seat, the focus and the origin of this vast aggregate of territories? Why is it that this 'teeming womb of royal Kings', as Shakespeare called it, wishes now to be anonymous?^[13]:196–9

Powell claimed that the answer was that because the British Nationality Act 1948 had removed allegiance to the crown as the basis of citizenship and replaced that with nine separate citizenships combined together by statute. Therefore, if any of these nine countries became republics the law would not change, as happened with India when it became a republic. Furthermore, Powell went on, the essence of unity was "that all the parts recognise they would sacrifice themselves to the interests of the whole". He denied that there was in India that "recognition of belonging to a greater whole which involves the ultimate consequence in certain circumstances of self-sacrifice in the interests of the whole". Therefore the title 'Head of the Commonwealth', the third major change, was "essentially a sham. They are essentially something which we have invented to blind ourselves to the reality of the position".^{[13]:199–201}

These changes were "greatly repugnant" to Powell:

...if they are changes which were demanded by those who in many wars had fought with this country, by nations who maintained an allegiance to the Crown, and who signified a desire to be in the future as were in the past; if it were our friends who had come to us and said: 'We want this,' I would say: 'Let it go. Let us admit the divisibility of the Crown. Let us sink into anonymity and cancel the word 'British' from our titles. If they like the conundrum 'Head of the Commonwealth' in the Royal style, let it be there'. However, the underlying evil of this is that we are doing it for the sake not of our friends but of those who are not our friends. We are doing this for the sake of those to whom the very names 'Britain' and 'British' are repugnant.... We are doing this for the sake of those who have deliberately cast off their allegiance to our common Monarchy.^[13]:201

For the rest of his life, Powell regarded this speech as the finest he ever delivered, not the much more well-known 1968 anti-immigration speech.^{[4]:184[13]:230}

In mid-November 1953 Powell secured a place on the 1922 Committee's executive after the third time of trying. Rab Butler also invited him onto the committee that reviewed party policy for the general election, which he attended until 1955.^[4]:189 Powell was a member of the Suez Group of MPs who were against the removal of British troops from the Suez Canal because such a move would demonstrate, Powell argued, that Britain could no longer maintain a position there and that any claim to the Suez Canal would therefore be illogical. However, after the troops had left in 1954 and the Egyptians nationalised the Canal in 1956, Powell opposed the British attempts to retake the Canal in the Suez Crisis because he thought the British no longer had the resources to be a world power.^[5]:99–100

Junior Housing Minister[link]

On 21 December 1955, Powell was appointed parliamentary secretary to Duncan Sandys at the Ministry of Housing. He called it "the best ever Christmas box".^[4] In early 1956, he spoke for the Housing Subsidies Bill in the Commons and argued for the rejection of an amendment that would have hindered slum clearances. He also spoke in support of the Slum Clearances Bill, which provided entitlement for full compensation for those who purchased a house after August 1939 and still occupied it in December 1955 if this property would be compulsorarily purchased by the government if it was deemed unfit for human habitation.^[4]:203–4

In the spring, Powell attended a subcommittee on immigration control as a housing minister and advocated immigration controls. In August, he gave a speech at a meeting of the Institute of Personnel Management and was asked a question about immigration. He answered that limiting immigration would require a change in the law: "There might be circumstances in which such a change of the law might be the lesser of two evils". But he added, "There would be very few people who would say the time had yet come when it was essential that so great a change should be made". Powell later told Paul Foot that the statement was made "out of loyalty to the Government line".^[4]:205–6 Powell also spoke for the Rent Bill, which ended wartime rent controls when existing tenants moved out, thereby phasing out regulation.^[4]:209

Financial Secretary to the Treasury[link]

At a meeting of the 1922 committee on 22 November, Rab Butler made a speech appealing for party unity in the aftermath of the Suez Crisis. His speech did not go down well and Harold Macmillan, whom Butler had taken along for moral support, addressed them and was a great success. In Powell's view this was "one of the most horrible things that I remember in politics... seeing the way in which Harold Macmillan, with all the skill of the old actor-manager, succeeded in false-footing Rab. The sheer devilry of it verged upon the disgusting". After Macmillan's death in 1986 Powell said "Macmillan was a Whig, not a Tory... he had no use for the Conservative loyalties and affections; they interfered too much with the Whig's true vocation of detecting trends in events and riding them skilfully so as to preserve the privileges, property and interests of his class".^[4]:210 However, when Macmillan replaced Eden as Prime Minister, Powell was offered the office of Financial Secretary to the Treasury on 14 January 1957. This office was the Chancellor of the Exchequer's deputy and the most important job outside the Cabinet.^[4]:210–1

But in January 1958 he resigned, along with the Chancellor of the Exchequer Peter Thorneycroft and his Treasury colleague Nigel Birch, in protest at government plans for increased expenditure; he was a staunch advocate of disinflation, or in modern terms a monetarist, and a believer in market forces.^[5]:180–9 Powell was also a member of the Mont Pelerin Society. The by-product of this expenditure was the printing of extra money to pay for it all, which Powell believed to be the cause of inflation, and in effect a form of taxation, as the holders of money find their money is worth less. Inflation rose to 2.5%, a high figure for the era, especially in peacetime.

During the late 1950s, Powell promoted control of the money supply to prevent inflation and, during the 1960s, was an advocate of free market policies, which at the time were seen as extreme and unworkable was unpopular. Powell advocated the privatisation of the Post Office and the telephone network as early as 1964, over 20 years before the latter actually took place;^[5]:318 and he both scorned the idea of "consensus politics" and wanted the Conservative Party to become a modern business-like party, freed from its old aristocratic and "old boy network" associations.^[5]:319 Perhaps most notably of all, in his 1958 resignation over public spending and what he saw as an inflationary economic policy, he anticipated almost exactly the views that during the 1980s came to be described as "monetarism".^[14]

Backbenches[link]

On 27 July 1959, Powell gave his speech on the Hola Camp of Kenya, where eleven Mau Mau were killed after refusing work in the camp. Powell noted that some MPs had described the eleven as "sub-human", but Powell responded by saying: "In general, I would say that it is a fearful doctrine, which must recoil upon the heads of those who pronounce it, to stand in judgement on a fellow human being and to say, 'Because he was such-and-such, therefore the consequences which would otherwise flow from his death shall not flow'."^[13]:206–7 Powell also disagreed with the notion that because it was in Africa, different methods were acceptable:

Nor can we ourselves pick and choose where and in what parts of the world we shall use this or that kind of standard. We cannot say, 'We will have African standards in Africa, Asian standards in Asia and perhaps British standards here at home'. We have not that choice to make. We must be consistent with ourselves everywhere. All Government, all influence of man upon man, rests upon opinion. What we can do in Africa, where we still govern and where we no longer govern, depends upon the opinion which is entertained of the way in which this country acts and the way in which Englishmen act. We cannot, we dare not, in Africa of all places, fall below our own highest standards in the acceptance of responsibility.^[13]:207

Denis Healey, a member of parliament from 1952 to 1992, later said this speech was "the greatest parliamentary speech I ever heard... it had all the moral passion and rhetorical force of Demosthenes".^[4]:252 The Daily Telegraph report of the speech said that "as Mr Powell sat down, he put his hand across his eyes. His emotion was justified, for he had made a great and sincere speech".^[4]:254

Minister of Health[link]

Powell returned to the government in July 1960, when he was appointed Health minister,^[5]:229ff albeit outside the Cabinet, but this changed in 1962.^[5]:270 During a meeting with parents of babies that had been born with deformities caused by the drug thalidomide, he was unsympathetic to the victims, refusing to meet any babies deformed by the drug and saying that "anyone who took so much as an aspirin put himself at risk." Powell also refused to launch a public inquiry, resisted calls to issue a warning against any left-over thalidomide pills that might remain in people's medicine cabinets (as US President John F. Kennedy had done), and said "I hope you're not going to sue the Government.... No one can sue the Government."^[15]

In this job, he was responsible for promoting an ambitious ten-year programme of general hospital building and for beginning a debate on the neglect of the huge psychiatric institutions. In his famous 1961 "Water Tower" speech, he said:

There they stand, isolated, majestic, imperious, brooded over by the gigantic water-tower and chimney combined, rising unmistakable and daunting out of the countryside-–the asylums which our forefathers built with such immense solidity to express the notions of their day. Do not for a moment underestimate their powers of resistance to our assault. Let me describe some of the defences which we have to storm.^[16]

The speech catalysed a debate that was one of several strands leading to the Care in the Community initiative of the 1980s. In 1993, however, Powell claimed that his policy could have worked. He claimed the criminally insane should have never been released and that the problem was one of funding. He said the new way of caring for the mentally ill would cost more, not less, than the old way because community care was decentralised and intimate as well as being "more human". His successors had not, Powell claimed, provided the money for local authorities to spend on mental health care and therefore institutional care had been neglected whilst at the same time there was not any investment in community care.^[4]:941

Later, he oversaw the employment of a large number of Commonwealth immigrants by the understaffed National Health Service.^[5]:255 Prior to this, many nonwhite immigrants with full rights of citizenship in Britain were obliged to take the jobs that no one else wanted (such as street cleaning, night-shift assembly production lines), often paid considerably less than their white counterparts.^{[citation needed]}

Backbenches[link]

Along with Iain Macleod, Powell refused to serve in the Cabinet following the appointment of Alec Douglas-Home as Prime Minister. This refusal was not based on antipathy to Douglas-Home personally but was in protest at what Macleod and Powell saw as Macmillan's underhand manipulation of colleagues during the process of choosing a new leader.^{[5]:302–3,15}

During the 1964 general election, Powell said in his election address, "it was essential, for the sake not only of our own people but of the immigrants themselves, to introduce control over the numbers allowed in. I am convinced that strict control must continue if we are to avoid the evils of a "colour question" in this country, for ourselves and for our children".^[4]:360 Norman Fowler, then a reporter for The Times, interviewed Powell during the election and asked him what the biggest issue was: "I expected to be told something about the cost of living but not a bit of it. "Immigration," replied Enoch. I duly phoned in my piece but it was never used. After all, who in 1964 had ever heard of a former Conservative cabinet minister thinking that immigration was an important political issue?"^[4]:360

Following the Conservatives' defeat in the election, he agreed to return to the front bench as Transport Spokesman.^[5]:316 In 1965, he stood in the first-ever party leadership election but came a distant third to Edward Heath, who appointed him Shadow Secretary of State for Defence.^[5]:327ff

Shadow Defence Secretary[link]

In his first speech to the Conservative Party conference as Shadow Secretary of State for Defence on 14 October 1965, Powell outlined a fresh defence policy, jettisoning what he saw as outdated global military commitments left over from Britain's imperial past and stressing that Britain was a European power and therefore an alliance with Western European states from possible attack from the East was central to Britain's safety. He defended Britain's nuclear weapons and argued that it was "the merest casuistry to argue that if the weapon and the means of using it are purchased in part, or even altogether, from another nation, therefore the independent right to use it has no reality. With a weapon so catastrophic, it is possession and the right to use which count".^[17] Also, Powell called into question Western military commitments East of Suez:

However much we may do to safeguard and reassure the new independent countries in Asia and Africa, the eventual limits of Russian and Chinese advance in those directions will be fixed by a balance of forces which will itself be Asiatic and African. The two Communist empires are already in a state of mutual antagonism; but every advance or threat of advance by one or the other calls into existence countervailing forces, sometimes nationalist in character, sometimes expansionist, which will ultimately check it. We have to reckon with the harsh fact that the attainment of this eventual equilibrium of forces may at some point be delayed rather than hastened by Western military presence.^[4]:391

The Daily Telegraph journalist David Howell remarked to Andrew Alexander that Powell had "just withdrawn us from East of Suez, and received an enormous ovation because no-one understood what he was talking about".^[4]:391 However, the Americans were worried by Powell's speech as they wanted British military commitments in South-East Asia as they were still fighting in Vietnam. A transcript of the speech was sent to Washington and the American embassy requested to talk to Heath about the "Powell doctrine". The New York Times said Powell's speech was "a potential declaration of independence from American policy".^[4]:391–2 During the election campaign of 1966, Powell claimed that the British government had contingency plans to send at least a token British force to Vietnam and that, under Labour, Britain "has behaved perfectly clearly and perfectly recognisably as an American satellite".

Lyndon B. Johnson had indeed asked Wilson for some British forces for Vietnam, and when it was later suggested to Powell that Washington understood that the public reaction to Powell's allegations had made Wilson realise he would not have favourable public opinion and so could not go through with it, Powell responded: "The greatest service I have performed for my country, if that is so".^[4]:406 Labour was returned with a large majority, and Powell was retained by Heath as Shadow Defence Secretary as he believed Powell "was too dangerous to leave out".^[4]:410

In a controversial speech on 26 May 1967, Powell criticised Britain's post-war world role:

In our imagination the vanishing last vestiges... of Britain's once vast Indian Empire have transformed themselves into a peacekeeping role on which the sun never sets. Under God's good providence and in partnership with the United States, we keep the peace of the world and rush hither and thither containing Communism, putting out brush fires and coping with subversion. It is difficult to describe, without using terms derived from psychiatry, a notion having so few points of contact with reality.^[4]:431

In 1967, Powell spoke of his opposition to the influx of Kenyan Asians to the United Kingdom after the African country's leader Jomo Kenyatta's discriminatory policies led to the flight of Asians from that country.^[18] The biggest argument Powell and Heath had during Powell's time in the Shadow Cabinet was over a dispute over the role of Black Rod, who would go to the Commons to summon them to the Lords to hear the Royal Assent of Bills. In November 1967, he arrived during a debate on the EEC and was met with cries of "Shame" to "'Op it".

At the next Shadow Cabinet meeting Heath said this "nonsense" must be stopped. Powell suggested that Heath did not mean it should be ended. He asked whether Heath realised that the words Black Rod used went back to the 1307 Parliament of Carlisle and were ancient even then. Heath reacted furiously, saying that the British people "were tired of this nonsense and ceremonial and mummery. He would not stand for the perpetuation of this ridiculous business etc".^[19]

"Rivers of Blood" speech[link]

Powell was noted for his oratorical skills, and for being a maverick. On 20 April 1968, he made a controversial speech in Birmingham, in which he warned his audience of what he believed would be the consequences of continued unchecked immigration from the Commonwealth to Britain. It was an allusion to the Roman poet Virgil towards the end of the speech, which has been remembered and gave the speech its common title: