David Starkey says Enoch Powell was right

Historian David Starkey sparked outrage last night by claiming that Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech had been right and blaming ‘black culture’ for the riots.

He said white youths had adopted a black culture which promoted the violence and looting.

Mr Starkey claimed Powell’s infamous 1968 speech had been right in one sense, but it wasn’t inter-communal violence that was the problem.

‘What's happened is a substantial section of the chavs have become black, the whites have become black,’ he told Newsnight on BBC 2.

‘A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become fashion, and the black and white, boy and girl, operate in this language together.

'This language is wholly false. It is a Jamaican patois that has intruded in England, which is why so many of us have this sense that we are literally living in a foreign country.

‘It is about black culture, that is the enormously important thing, it is not skin colour, it is culture.’

When challenged by fellow guest Dreda Say Mitchell, a black author and broadcaster, Mr Starkey defended his comments by saying: ‘At these times we need plain speaking.’