"An essential element in forming a single electorate is the sense that in the last resort all parts of it stand, or fall, survive or perish, together. This sense the British do not share with the inhabitants of the continent of Western Europe. Of all the nations of Europe Britain and Russia alone, though for opposite reasons, have this in common: they can be defeated in the decisive land battle and still survive. This characteristic Russia owes to her immensity. Britain owes it to her ditch. The British feel Рand I believe that instinct corresponds with sound military reason Рthat the ditch is as significant in what we call the nuclear age as it proved to be in the air age and had been in the age of the Grande Arm̩e of Napoleon or the Spanish infantry of Philip II. Error or truth, myth or reality, the belief itself is a habit of mind which has helped to form the national identity of the British and cannot be divorced from it."
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Members of the Parliament of the United KingdomPolitical leadersPoets from EnglandPeople from BirminghamAnglicans from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
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Speech in Lyons (12 February 1971), quoted in The Common Market: The Case Against (1971), pp. 68-69
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Enoch_Powell
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Enoch Powell
politician, linguist, poet
1912 – 1998 · United Kingdom
John Enoch Powell (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, classical scholar, author, linguist, soldier, philologist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (1950–1974), then Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MP (1974–1987), and was Minister of Health (1960–1963).
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