I would thouroughly rec “The Likes Of Us: A Portrait of the White Working Class” by Michael Collins, who went to school a couple of miles up the road at the Elephant a few yrs before me. He made the point that for the Polly Toynbees and Gaurdianistas of this world, blacks are an abstraction: they’re there to be patronised and pitied and emoted over and told that they are the helpless victims of societal “institutional racism” – which somehow never seemed to stop the Jews or Sikhs or French Hugeneots or Irish or East African Asians moving up the social scale – they don’t have any blacks in Hampstead or Surrey or the Cotswolds or Tuscan villas.

The native unskilled working class in places like VauxHall Kennington The Elephant etc who had to bear the brunt of mass immigration had a rather less rose tinted view of the Afro-Carribean community. These were people whose familes might have been living there for 2 centuries, who prior to the mid fifties might never have encountered a coloured person, and who saw their kids reduced to minority status within a generation. As Collins stated, they regarded blacks basically as unwanted competitors for scarce jobs and housing, and as violent and sexually predatory aggressors rather than passive victims in the local streets.

How Collins managed to keep his job in the then prevailing post-McPherson climate of racial hysteria in London, I dunno, especially as he was working for Al-Beeb, peace be upon it.

Er, I don’t think he’s implying it, he’s actually stating it.

“I cannot find any figures…”

They’re hard to come by – racial incidents weren’t recorded or documented in the way they are now – so maybe you should think twice about overriding a wealth of first-person testimony with stats you don’t have.

“…to justify the popular idea that there was some sort of pogrom”

Is this a popular idea? Or is it an absurd overstatement invented by West just so that he can dismiss it? All I said was that Powell’s speech helped to foster a climate of fear and suspicion which, in some cases, manifested itself in physical violence.

“The actual, factually recorded rise in inter-racial violence in England began in the early 1970s with the phenomenon of mugging.”

This may well be true (though figures would be helpful) but mugging is not a racially motivated crime so it’s a dubious comparison.

“People in inner-cities were far more likely to be drawn into political extremism by the experience of street violence against them or friends than by something a politician said in a speech in Birmingham.”

If I’m reading this correctly, West is implying that the rise of the National Front was an act of self-defence against black criminals, which is an alarming claim given that (a) many of the NF’s victims were ordinary families, and (b) the NF’s expressed policy: ”
“The National Front advocates a total ban on any further non-White immigration into Britain, and the launching of a phased plan of repatriation for all coloured immigrants.”

So West is digging himself ever deeper into denial and bogus casuality. Not being the strawman kneejerk leftist you seem to think I am, I have no love of muslim extremists or criminals of any race, and I don’t believe in unchecked immigration, but West is just making excuses for a growth in racist violence that began in the late 60s (the NF formed in 1967) and boomed in the late 70s.

But the racial violence that followed the April 20 speech has been exaggerated in the public consciousness for political reasons. I may be wrong about that, and I don’t doubt that there were incidents of hatred, nor that many people felt scared, but I cannot find any figures to justify the popular idea that there was some sort of pogrom.

Bear in mind that there was far less violence, either inter-racially or intra-racially, in the period following Powell’s speech than in Britain today. The actual, factually recorded rise in inter-racial violence in England began in the early 1970s with the phenomenon of mugging, but this has been largely suppressed in the national consciousness, despite its role in sparking the iconic anti-racist victory at the Battle of Lewisham. People in inner-cities were far more likely to be drawn into political extremism by the experience of street violence against them or friends than by something a politician said in a speech in Birmingham.