Nigel Hastilow’s real crime was to dare to mention Enoch Powell at all

A policeman once told me, over lunch in the House of Commons canteen just off Westminster Hall, that the problem of immigration would be sorted for good and for all, very soon. ‘The chill north wind, from Odin’s Land, will exterminate the scum we have brought to our shores,’ he said, equably enough, and then went and queued up for some pudding behind Michael Meacher. I was left to muse upon his words. I don’t think he meant that the immigrants would all succumb to hypothermia. The invocation of Nordic mythology suggested to me that my lunch companion was a shade to the right of centre, indeed a cross between the Travis Bickle character from Taxi Driver and, oh, I don’t know, maybe Julius Streicher. I stayed away from him henceforth, in case the chill wind of Odin suddenly blew on me too. I was a Labour party apparatchik. I don’t think Odin likes them very much either.