How Trevor came face to face with Enoch

As The First Post reports today, Trevor Phillips (pictured), chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, commemorated the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" speech on Sunday by speaking at the same Birmingham hotel that Powell delivered his incendiary lines in 1968. Phillips was no doubt thinking of the powerful symbolism of speaking in that same place, when he chose to return to the former Midland hotel - since re-named the Burlington - to talk about "Powellism".

But Phillips was not the only one observing the "rivers of blood" anniversary at the hotel. In a less publicised meeting held shortly after the race chief's talk, 30 members of the British National Party, along with an Enoch Powell lookalike in tow, also met there to mark the speech.

The Powell double, Peter Mullins - who stood for the BNP in the late Tory MP's former seat in Wolverhampton South West at the last election - recited the speech in full, breaking down in tears at its climax.

According to a Phillips spokeswoman, the two groups passed each other in a corridor. She told the Times: "There was no eye contact."