REHABILITATE Enoch Powell, a Tory representative demanded today as the Conservative conference got back to basics.

The demand came in a debate about immigration, traditionally a moment for the party to display the worst of its bad sides.

Powell had, the member claimed, been “smeared for a fair and accurate description” of the consequences of migration in his notorious 1968 “rivers of blood” speech, and the party should apologise.

He was followed by a self-declared “Cheshire farmer” who said that illegal migrants should be “tagged and put to work.”

“I need some people to pick potatoes,” he declared in a revealing addendum.

Unconcerned to present a fresh image after electoral catastrophe, the Tories picked Jacob Rees-Mogg to lead the debate on free speech.

He stood up for the right of Deputy PM Angela Rayner to call the Tories “scum” and for Palestine protesters to be heard — but not to much support from a thin audience in the conference hall.

However, he allowed himself a digression concerning werewolves, so in terms of sustained eccentricity, if not swing voter appeal, he did not disappoint.