It's the question everyone asks on their birthday; how can I relate this glorious anniversary of my birth to a Biteback book? Luckily it’s not been one I’ve had to think about – I knew the answer straight away.
Yes, all, it is my birthday. And who ELSE has had a birthday recently? Enoch Powell of course! The 16th June marked 100 years since Powell’s birth. A birthday always calls for some reflection; I think it’s safe to say that all of us hope for an interesting life. It would be good to get to the end and say ‘yeah, I did travel the world, start a revolution, appear on Come Dine With Me and find out who actually parted with money to listen to the horror of Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’. Yeah’. Not many of us ever reach those heights. For someone like Enoch Powell, however, his ‘life list’ is pretty impressive:
Enoch Powell…
• Could fill the chamber of the House of Commons when he rose to speak and have crowds turned away for lack of room when he spoke in public.
• Electrified Parliament defending the rights of Kenyans in Hola Camp and then went on to make the ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech.
• Twice refused high office because of loyalty to colleagues.
• Resigned very publicly over too much government spending, but went on to initiate the first ten-year hospital building programme for the NHS.
• Was credited both with winning one general election for the Conservatives and losing another.
• Was the first post-war politician to advocate a radical policy of denationalisation.
• Propounded the benefits of the free-market economy when completely unfashionable.
• Warned that the EU was not about free-trade but political union.
• Identified precisely the problems of a single currency.
• Forecast today’s problems arising from legislative devolution.
He also became the youngest professor in the British Empire when he was made professor of Greek at the University of Sydney, and became one of the youngest brigadiers in the British Army at thirty-two, when serving in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
Enoch’s speeches are the stuff of legend, and they are now archived and available to read here.
You can read all about Enoch’s legacy in Enoch at 100: A re-evaluation of the life, politics and philosophy of Enoch Powell, edited by Greville Howard, who was Powell’s Private Secretary, and containing contributions from Anne Robinson, Iain Duncan Smith, Simon Heffer and Andrew Alexander. If the reviews are anything to go by you should be getting your copy sharpish:
‘As his former private secretary Greville Howard's fascinating collection of essays shows, there was much more to Powell, who died in 1998, than his views on race’ – Dominic Sandbrook, Mail on Sunday
‘This book, friendly to Enoch, but critical too, provides excellent answers’ – Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph
‘a superb set of essays’ – Peter Oborne, Daily Telegraph
Get your copy here.
It’s also Alan Turing’s birthday tomorrow. Turing was one of the greatest codebreakers at Bletchley Park during World War Two and also came up with the idea for the computer. Yes, that’s right. THE COMPUTER. Chances are you’re reading this on a computer right now. You might not be if it wasn’t for Turing, who came up with the basic principle of ‘controlling the machine’s operations by means of a program of coded instructions stored in the computer’s memory’.
His story, along with the many others, is told in The Bletchley Park Codebreakers, edited by Ralph Erskine and Michael Smith. The British codebreakers at Bletchley Park are now believed to have shortened the duration of the Second World War by up to two years. During the dark days of 1941, as Britain stood almost alone against the Nazis, this remarkable achievement seemed impossible. This extraordinary book, originally published as Action This Day, includes descriptions by some of Britain's foremost historians of the work of Bletchley Park, from the breaking of Enigma and other wartime codes to the invention of modern computing, and its influence on Cold War codebreaking. Crucially, it features personal reminiscences and very human stories of wartime codebreaking from former Bletchley Park codebreakers themselves. This edition includes new material from one of those who was there, making The Bletchley Park Codebreakers compulsive reading.