One was mass immigration, in those days from the Commonwealth rather than Europe, which had happened without the British people being consulted, and which Powell saw from his perspective as an MP in Wolverhampton was causing tension and unhappiness. The other was Heath’s ill-fated project to take Britain into what was then called the Common Market, which Powell saw as an outrageous sacrifice of British sovereignty, the end not just of our nationhood but of the right of the British government to do what its electorate wanted.

It was hardly surprising that, as I listened to Theresa May’s speech last Wednesday, I was reminded of Powell. When she told some of her colleagues, and their tame pundits in the media, to stop whining about Brexit and instead to respect the votes of more than 17 million people who had found the EU unpalatable, she made a profoundly Powellite point. She accused such people of sneering at the majority who voted in the referendum. In truth, it is a sneer that has lasted for decades.