<P> Although the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party did not wish to "stir up the Powell issue", Labour MP Edward Leadbitter said he would refer the speech to the Director of Public Prosecutions . The Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe spoke of a prima facie case against Powell for incitement . Lady Gaitskell called the speech "cowardly" and the cricketer Sir Learie Constantine condemned it . Labour MP Tony Benn said: </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> The flag of racialism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago over Dachau and Belsen . If we do not speak up now against the filthy and obscene racialist propaganda...the forces of hatred will mark up their first success and mobilise their first offensive...Enoch Powell has emerged as the real leader of the Conservative Party . He is a far stronger character than Mr. Heath . He speaks his mind; Heath does not . The final proof of Powell's power is that Heath dare not attack him publicly, even when he says things that disgust decent Conservatives . </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> The flag of racialism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago over Dachau and Belsen . If we do not speak up now against the filthy and obscene racialist propaganda...the forces of hatred will mark up their first success and mobilise their first offensive...Enoch Powell has emerged as the real leader of the Conservative Party . He is a far stronger character than Mr. Heath . He speaks his mind; Heath does not . The final proof of Powell's power is that Heath dare not attack him publicly, even when he says things that disgust decent Conservatives . </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr> <P> The leading Conservatives in the Shadow Cabinet were outraged by the speech . Iain Macleod, Edward Boyle, Quintin Hogg and Robert Carr all threatened to resign from the front bench unless Powell was sacked . Margaret Thatcher thought that some of Powell's speech was "strong meat", and said to Heath when he telephoned her to inform her Powell was to be sacked: "I really thought that it was better to let things cool down for the present rather than heighten the crisis". The Conservative leader, Edward Heath, sacked Powell from his post as Shadow Defence Secretary, telling him on the telephone that Sunday evening (it was the last conversation they would have). Heath said of the speech in public that it was "racialist in tone and liable to exacerbate racial tensions". Conservative MPs on the right of the party--Duncan Sandys, Gerald Nabarro, Teddy Taylor--spoke against Powell's sacking . On 22 April 1968, Heath went on Panorama, telling Robin Day: "I dismissed Mr Powell because I believed his speech was inflammatory and liable to damage race relations . I am determined to do everything I can to prevent racial problems developing into civil strife...I don't believe the great majority of the British people share Mr Powell's way of putting his views in his speech ." </P>

Who said there will be blood on the streets