Fifty years ago Enoch Powell gave his racist 'Rivers of Blood' speech. In it he trailed themes that have given undead life to right-wing populism ever since: effete elites in the service of alien subversion, violent crime as an inevitable accompaniment to demographic change, a respectable and long-suffering civilization on the brink of cataclysmic collapse. It's all there and was given the full BBC radio treatment in April of this year on Archive on Four. We talked with academic and author David Wearing about the speech, its framing by the BBC, and how the monsters Powell summoned in 1968 still walk among us.

Music by Makaih Beats.

David’s article for the New Socialist that we mention in the show: https://newsocialist.org.uk/stephen-lawrence-and-hostile-environment/.

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