Fury at BBC’s plans to air Rivers of Blood speech in full for f irst time
THE BBC is under fire after announcing that it will broadcast Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech in full for the first time on British radio tomorrow.
The speech on immigration, delivered by the Conservative politician in 1968, led many to accuse him of stirring up racial hatred.
Now, 50 years on, it will be read in full for the first time, with an actor voicing Powell’s words while academics and others provide analysis of what he said.
Critics yesterday accused the BBC of a ‘squalid attempt to stir up controversy’.
And one of the academics involved in the programme said she had asked for her analysis to be removed after being ‘ disgusted’ by the way the corporation was promoting the programme.
But the broadcaster defended its decision, saying it was important to ‘assess the speech in full and its impact on the immigration debate’. It said the programme was a ‘rigorous journalistic analysis of a historical political speech’.
The corporation also emphasised that the former MP’s words would be critiqued by anti-racism campaigners.
Yesterday Labour peer Lord Adonis wrote an open letter to the communications watchdog Ofcom urging it to intervene.
In his letter to Ofcom’s head, Sharon White, he said: ‘I am writing to Ofcom directly to instruct the BBC to cancel its proposed broadcast on Saturday of Enoch Powell’s infamous speech.’
Lord Adonis said the speech was an ‘incitement to racial hatred and violence which should not be broadcast’ and described it as the most ‘incendiary racist speech of modern Britain’.
‘If a contemporary politician made such a speech they would almost certainly be arrested and charged with serious offences,’ he wrote.
Shirin Hirsch, a researcher at Wolverhampton University who has been interviewed for the programme, said she had asked for her comments to be removed.
She tweeted: ‘I made a mistake and was interviewed for this but I have been sick with worry since seeing the way this is being presented.’ She added: ‘I’m still hoping my section will be withdrawn from the show. When I was asked to be interviewed I wasn’t told the full speech would be played. But I should have been more careful. Whole experience has been terrible.’ The academic then said she had been told by one producer that it was ‘too late to withdraw’.
Speaking at a meeting in Birmingham in April 1968, Mr Powell said increased immigration to the UK would mean that ‘in 15 or 20 years’ time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man’. He added: ‘As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood”.’
The latest controversy came after the corporation’s media editor Amol Rajan announced the speech would be read in full on the BBC for the ‘first time ever’ during the Radio 4 programme at 8pm tomorrow.
Mr Rajan later wrote: ‘ The speech is broken up, and critiqued by voices from across the spectrum. Not just read out in a single go. Though of course some will still object.’
The speech will be read by actor Ian McDiarmid, who recently played Powell on stage in the play What Shadows.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, the actor said that when he was initially asked to play the MP, he thought: ‘Oh God... that horrible racist.’ But the 73-yearold added: ‘I no longer think so. He was certainly stirring things up in a way [with the rivers of blood speech], which we would now describe as incitement because of the impact of its language.
‘He was surprised by that impact, but he wasn’t totally naive about it. He wanted to make his mark and knew how to speak to an England that was as divided then as it is now.’
A spokesman for the BBC said that although many know the ‘controversial speech’, few have heard it ‘beyond soundbites’.
‘This is a rigorous journalistic analysis of a historical political speech. It’s not an endorsement of the controversial views and people should wait to hear the programme before they judge it,’ the spokesman added.
Ofcom can investigate only once a complainant has been to the BBC and the broadcaster has made its findings. A spokesman for Ofcom said: ‘We wouldn’t check or approve any broadcaster’s editorial content before transmission.’
‘Incitement to racial hatred and violence’