Talk:Enoch Powell

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Enoch Powell is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. For older candidates, please check the archive.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 28, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted

Politics of the United Kingdom High‑importance

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Section sizes

Section size for Enoch Powell (43 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	8,311	8,311
Early years	12,344	12,344
Academic career	9,226	9,226
Military service	9,674	9,674
Entry into politics	54	7,934
Joining the Conservative Party	1,388	1,388
Election to Parliament	713	713
First years as a backbencher	5,779	5,779
In and out of office	25	12,311
Junior Housing Minister	1,718	1,718
Financial Secretary to the Treasury	2,928	2,928
Hola Massacre speech	2,001	2,001
Minister of Health	5,639	5,639
1960s	12	8,681
Leadership elections	2,900	2,900
Shadow Defence Secretary	5,769	5,769
National figure	22	25,206
1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech	7,198	7,198
'Morecambe Budget'	1,430	1,430
House of Lords reform	4,409	4,409
Departure from the Conservative Party	12,147	12,147
Ulster Unionist	22	42,770
1974–1979	7,647	7,647
1979–1982	8,480	8,480
Falklands conflict	12,162	12,162
1983 general election	4,582	4,582
1983–1987	9,877	9,877
Post-parliamentary life	30	10,746
1987–1992	10,716	10,716
Final years	7,674	7,674
Death	4,112	4,112
Personal life	9,457	9,457
Political beliefs	13,753	13,753
Portraits	1,861	1,861
Dramatic portrayals	856	856
Legacy	423	423
Works	5,484	5,484
Elections contested	2,165	2,165
See also	37	37
References	28	2,252
Bibliography	2,224	2,224
Further reading	431	431
External links	5,380	5,380
Total	201,088	201,088

Political beliefs

Other than the final two short paragraphs of the "political beliefs" section, it is all devoted to Powell's views on immigration.

Other than immigration, Powell was known for his economic views and his views on foreign affairs, particularly the United States, the EEC and the British Empire. These views make up key elements of "Powellism".

There is brief mention of his economic views in the final paragraph, which is entirely quoted from Murray Rothbard, but other than that, none of these views are mentioned in this section. Should they be? Unusual.Octopus (talk) 23:29, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pogo Stick incident

This is mentioned in the archives for this talk page - should there be a mention in the article text: a passing mention in the Ministry of Health section would do. Jackiespeel (talk) 16:24, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The introduction

In the introduction it says the 'Rivers of Blood' speech was criticized by the Times. surely other newspapers must have commented on it was well. Firestar47 (talk) 14:45, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wolverhampton

Did he ever live or work in Wolverhampton? Sarcelles (talk) 18:16, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Length of Article

Someone tries to destroy the article in the name of "readability", but I disagree. Having all information in one place and use browser navigation and the "find" function, that each browser has, is much preferrable than trying to guess the obscure paget titles that people come up with to scatter the inconvenient information into oblivion. 2A01:4B00:AD1F:2D00:6A7C:DB5:41AF:3EA (talk) 19:39, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I agree with you, but there is a fashion at the moment for people to complain that articles on which a lot of serious work has been done breach purely arbitrary limits for how long they "ought" to be. As opposed to the type of article which is ten a penny on wikipedia - under-researched and simply wrong in places yet still a bit too long to read in one sitting. I've never been a great fan of deleting stuff from articles - put very bluntly, it always comes from a certain kind of editor who knows a bit about the matter in hand, and who inevitably ends up deleting beyond his competence, and whose positive contributions (if any) will be trite and in need of correction. Nonetheless, splitting the article may well be the price that has to be paid to avoid some idiot deleting stuff.Paulturtle (talk) 05:59, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV

Does this article read non-neutrally to anyone else? I notice various right wing sources have been cherrypicked, like Ottawa Citizen, The WP:SPECTATOR, and Douglas Murray (and uses WP:Primary sources which is heavily discouraged due to WP:OR implications). The article appears to present him as a national hero, when the reality is that he remains incredibly divisive, and only really popular among the far-right. Contemporary media is fiercely critical of him (BBC and The Times). The article appears to rely on two books from the 90s and one from 1970, and cherry picks positive information (the 1998 book has been described as being openly sympathetic to Powell’s views, can't find other reviews). There is a wealth of newly published books on him from reputable publishers:

Enoch Powell: Politics and Ideas in Modern Britain (2022) Oxford University Press
Enoch Powell and the Making of Postcolonial Britain (2013) Cambridge University Press
In the Shadow of Enoch Powell: Race, Locality and Resistance (2018) Manchester University Press
The Lives and Afterlives of Enoch Powell: The Undying Political Animal (2021) Routledge
There are also loads of journal articles
There is also Enoch at 100: A Re-evaluation of the Life, Politics and Philosophy of Enoch Powell (2012), however it is published by Biteback Publishing and written by Greville Howard, Baron Howard of Rising, therefore likely to be very POV and not a best source

Considering this and the length issues, to what extent are we looking at a WP:TNT? Adding the POV tag for now, but would appreciate more discussion. Kowal2701 (talk) 17:30, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What I find particularly odd is that this article is over 20,000 words, yet the "Legacy" section is only one sentence, when it is what a large amount of sources have focussed on. Kowal2701 (talk) 17:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]