Is Rishi Sunak really Enoch Powell in disguise?

It may seem like a bizarre question but it’s the one that is obsessing much of the left: is Rishi Sunak simply Enoch Powell in a better suit? Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader, made the comparison in parliament last week when he asked the Prime Minister ‘from whom are his Government taking inspiration, Nigel Farage or Enoch Powell?’

And today, the New European, the embodiment of full-fat Remaniac orthodoxy, has produced a front page of the former Wolverhampton MP behind Sunak’s No. 10 lectern adorned with the slogan ‘stop the boats.’ ‘Vile and illegal’ ran the caption underneath in an article by Paul Mason which accused the government of ‘drowning in far-right rhetoric.’ That, er, would presumably be the same Paul Mason who is trying to become a candidate for a party whose slogan on its graphics is ‘Labour will stop small boats’.

Mr S will leave others to decide the wisdom of Sunak’s strategy but comparing Britain’s first Hindu PM to Powell is a little jarring, to say the least…