DisMember writes
Powell reads the Government its own defence statements until they confess against each other — a capability for nothing in particular and everything in general — six weeks before a different speech ended his career.
The speech
4 March 1968 · MP for Wolverhampton South West · House of Commons
The key quote
“The Government, as fast as they deprive themselves of a particular capability, are very fond of asserting that they have a general capability. That is to say, they can do nothing in particular but they can do almost everything in general.”
Opening for the Opposition on the post-devaluation defence White Paper, Powell convicts the Government of policy-making by arithmetic: naval doctrine reversed twice and then cut anyway, Army numbers fixed before Army thinking, a recruitment prospectus contradicting the White Paper it accompanies, and a 'general capability' professed just as every particular capability is abolished. The cuts, he concludes, are the negation of planning and have disgraced Britain in the face of the world.
Historical context
March 1968, six weeks after the January measures that followed devaluation — the true end of Britain east of Suez. Wilson's government had cancelled the F-111, scrapped the Anglo-French swing-wing project, accelerated the Gulf and Singapore withdrawals and cut all three Services, each decision reversing assurances given months before. Powell, the most intellectually formidable Shadow Defence Secretary of the era, prosecutes with the logician's method that was his signature: no bluster, simply the Government's own quotations laid side by side until they confess against each other. There is retrospective vertigo in watching him do it. This measured forensic performance was one of his last from the front bench — six weeks later came the Birmingham speech on immigration, Heath's telephone call, and the wilderness. The defence argument, though, he won posthumously: the 'general capability' he mocked remained the recurring formula of British defence reviews, doing nothing in particular and everything in general, for the next half century.
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Search Parliament →Historical context and scoring written by AI (Gemini). The key quote is verbatim from Hansard. Verify against source before publishing.