Enoch Powell as Prime Minister of Great Britain

Jason

fred_smith said:
This is interesting to me. I don't really know what a properly English London would look like. Ethnically homogenous? Cafes serving jellied eels and pie
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no fish and chips, invented by a Polish immigrant so wouldn't belong in a 'English london'; also I think jellied eels aren't quite 'English' (made popular by French refugees or something after the revolution). Also, given the fact that there were already large communities from Africa, the caribbean and China in London before WW1...
 

englander1

Banned
fred_smith said:
This is interesting to me. I don't really know what a properly English London would look like. Ethnically homogenous? Cafes serving jellied eels and pie rather than curry or chinese food or kebabs or pizzas?

I wonder if a Powellist society would stick; or if he would rule for a while, get caught up arguing with his own party, lose an election and go down as one of Britain's most unpopular leaders, leading to a reaction against him, Britain adopting the Euro and more Eastern European immigration compared to immigration from the commonwealth.

I could see British counter-cultures like punk developing faster. Possibly more anger and upheavel against the government, Labour in power in the eighties. Maybe this would butterfly away new Labour.
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We had Indian Restraunts in London the 1920's run and owned by White English people.
You dont need immigrants here to have foreign food.
 

englander1

Banned
Jason said:
You really fail to understand English and British history and what's more the history and development of London if you are going around making statements like that!
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The destruction of the East End through immigration is a piece of history you may find interesting.
 

englander1

Banned
V-J said:
This is a highly debatable assertion. Powell was already well on the way to crankdom by the time of Heath's collapse; would the Tories seriously have considered electing a leader who had just earlier advised electors to vote for their main opposition? Highly unlikely.

Okay, you might say "What if Powell had not advised people to vote Labour and stayed in the Tories?" - but this, I think requires a fundamentally different personality than that which Powell actually possesed. Powell was a maverick in the true sense and he bounced around like a spacehoper on the issues during the mid-to late sixties and the early seventies.

I think he was basically fundamentally unsuited to the kind of compromises and consistency that high office requires, not to mention being possesed of a highly abrasive personality. To me, Powell becoming PM is of the same sort of league of likelihood of Tony Benn becoming PM. Like Benn, Powell's influence within his respective party peaked quickly and then equally as suddenly burned itself out.
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Tony Benn wasnt popular like Powell was.
A Daily Express poll in 1972 showed Powell being the most popular politician in the country.
 
V-J

V-J

englander1 said:
Tony Benn wasnt popular like Powell was.
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So what? We're talking about an age where party leaders were determined exclusively by MP's. In fact, with regards to the Tories, the more popular you were with the British public, the more people in the parliamentary party became suspicious of you. If personal popularity in the country alone was a determinant of who should be leader, then Rab Butler would have been PM instead of Macmillan and Douglas-Home.

Just because Powell was highly popular with the public in the period 1968-1972, this does not mean that he would automatically have won a leadership contest if one was held in that time frame. I've no doubt that Powell would have done well, as he was probably the main right-wing critic of Heath's leadership at that point, but to say that he would have been automatically elected on the basis of his standing in the country is to misunderstand how the Tory Party operated in that period. If fact, it may have actually slightly dented his prospects in any hypohetical leadership contest more than anything else.
 
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vorkosigan

There's a very detailed alternate history of Enoch Powell being Prime Minister - the POD being Gordon Banks not having a stomach bug in 1970....

http://www.btinternet.com/~chief.gnome/

To cut a very long (but plausible) story short, he takes a very fierce line against the IRA and Labour, and the country suffers terribly....

(I'm a noobie maybe someone else can put a few quotes form that website on here...?)
 

englander1

Banned
V-J said:
So what? We're talking about an age where party leaders were determined exclusively by MP's. In fact, with regards to the Tories, the more popular you were with the British public, the more people in the parliamentary party became suspicious of you. If personal popularity in the country alone was a determinant of who should be leader, then Rab Butler would have been PM instead of Macmillan and Douglas-Home.

Just because Powell was highly popular with the public in the period 1968-1972, this does not mean that he would automatically have won a leadership contest if one was held in that time frame. I've no doubt that Powell would have done well, as he was probably the main right-wing critic of Heath's leadership at that point, but to say that he would have been automatically elected on the basis of his standing in the country is to misunderstand how the Tory Party operated in that period. If fact, it may have actually slightly dented his prospects in any hypohetical leadership contest more than anything else.
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I didnt once say he would be elected because of his standing in the country.
His standing among MP's would have been enough.
 

englander1

Banned
vorkosigan said:
There's a very detailed alternate history of Enoch Powell being Prime Minister - the POD being Gordon Banks not having a stomach bug in 1970....

http://www.btinternet.com/~chief.gnome/

To cut a very long (but plausible) story short, he takes a very fierce line against the IRA and Labour, and the country suffers terribly....

(I'm a noobie maybe someone else can put a few quotes form that website on here...?)
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link dosnt work.
 

mishery

englander1 said:
What about all the race riots we have had then and now even worse the Muslim bombings?
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Isolated incidents, not the kind of sustained tension and conflict he was talking about. Powell was a power hungry opportunist who may have been well educated but his political career shows that he was not a clever politician.
 
V-J

V-J

englander1 said:
His standing among MP's would have been enough.
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Okay. What proof do you have that he had such a great standing amongst MP's that he could have won?

Bear in mind that Powell recieved fifteen votes in the 1965 leadership contest. (Out of a total of two hundred and ninety-eight cast.)
 
MrP

MrP

Banned
V-J said:
Okay. What proof do you have that he had such a great standing amongst MP's that he could have won?

Bear in mind that Powell recieved fifteen votes in the 1965 leadership contest. (Out of a total of two hundred and ninety-eight cast.)
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You won't get a reply, old boy. the chap's been banned for being a racist nutjob, as we professionals call 'em. ;)
 
V-J

V-J

Indeed. I've just noticed that.

I wasn't expecting a particularly sound reply anyway. He wanted Powell to have become PM, but I don't think he had yet to figure out a convincing argument that it would ever have normally been likely to happen.
 

fred_smith

Indeed. I'd have been interested to see him write a time line based on the premise. "Enoch Powell wins and Britain becomes a perfect utopia inhabited by only white Anglo-Saxons and maybe some Celts."

I can't see it ever panning out like that.
 
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