QUOTE (l333 @ Nov 5 2009, 05:58 PM)

Sorry to be a pain and ask another question but does the fact that Enoch Powell and the National Front gained support mean that Britain was intolerant at the time ?
The problem is that intolerant people never realise that they are intolerant! So the people who opposed immigration in the 1960s and 1970s did not THINK they were racist; they just thought they were 'addressing necessary issues'. Powell certainly believed that he was a clear-sighted man justifiably warning the British people about a coming problem that they had not yet apprehended. The accusation of racism, the anti-Powell backlash and the end of his political career took him hugely by surprise - after he had given the speech he was very pleased with himself, expecting plaudits not shock and horror.
But when I see in the 1960s and 1970s photos of racist grafitti and thousands marching to protest at immigrants taking white jobs, and a Conservative MP standing
and being elected on the slogan: 'If you want a N****r for a neighbour vote Labour', and landlords advertising 'rooms for rent - No Coloureds', then I think that, looking back, we can safely say that significant numbers of British people at the time were more than intolerant ... they were downright racist.