Danny Finkelstein says my Churchill analogy is “cute” but wrong. Churchill had his flaws but is primarily remembered for getting One Big Thing Right; Powell had his qualities but is primarily remembered for getting One Big Thing Wrong. In other words, the two aren’t really comparable and my argument is wrong.
I confess this thought occurred to me this morning. I should have updated my argument to make that clear. In other words, Danny is right.
That said, I also think that when a man is asked who his heroes and intellectual influences are and replies Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and, in a British context, Enoch Powell it is pretty obvious that he is pretty unlikely to share Powell’s views on immigration.
Furthermore, my point that newspapers might check this before swallowing the stuff put out by, in this instance, Labour (but on other occasions the Tories) still stands.
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