The extremes of both the left and the right have hijacked Enoch Powell The left use him incorrectly in my view as a leader of the racist parts of our political system The racist part of the political right also misunderstand his views and claim him as one of their own So the left want nothing except Powell s supposed racism to appear in any Wikipedia article about him whilst the right also want Powell s views to be misrepresented so that they appear to have a well known politician espousing their views As Daniel Hannan said after being smeared with accusations of racism after agreeing with Powell on some issue I m surprised that no one has picked up on the thing that I most admire about Enoch Powell namely his tendency to ignore conventional wisdom and think things through from first principles Like Rowan Williams he always did his hearers the courtesy of addressing them as intelligent adults Both men regularly got into trouble in consequence either because they were genuinely misunderstood or because their detractors affected to misunderstand them Neither responded by dumbing down That in politics takes a special kind of integrity Anyone who thinks that the person who said 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 can not 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 can not we dare not in Africa of all places fall below our own highest standards in the acceptance of responsibility is a racist must be using a different definition of racist to me