The capacity of extremely clever people to be exceptionally stupid has rarely been better demonstrated than by John Enoch Powell (1912-98). Choosing characteristically to be known by the stranger of his two given names, he had a first-class brain that was able to drop quotations from Pericles in the original Greek, but also to incubate one of the most toxically idiotic speeches in political history.
11 October 2017, The Tablet
Study in arrogance
Theatre
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