“He’s a pound-shop Enoch Powell and we’ve got to watch him.”
So Russell Brand described Nigel Farage on Question Time in December 2014. Powell is notorious. He is mentioned on average three times daily in the UK press. His observation, made in relation to Joseph Chamberlain, that "All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs” is misquoted daily in a British newspaper.
At the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe members of the Oriel Theatre Company stood on rain-swept street corners, handing out flyers for The Tulip Tree and listening to opinions about Enoch Powell. A Welsh Labour supporter remembered arguing with Powell after a meeting and being answered in flawless Welsh. One passerby was convinced that he was a film star. I asked in which films he thought Powell had appeared; it became clear that he was thinking of Sidney Poitier. The number of people who had seen Powell speak in person was striking. Powerful oratory and piercing blue eyes were the only two points of consensus.
