I'm no Powell says Brash

National leader Don Brash has been labelled racist and blundering, and his Orewa speech likened to Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" address, in an opinion piece in Britain's Guardian newspaper.

Dr Brash said he had been misrepresented and he did not appreciate the comparison.

The column, which appeared in the leftist paper last Friday, was headed "Beyond the foreshore: New Zealand is a reminder of the damage that can be done when desperate politicians play the race card."

Its author, Richard Adams, said New Zealand had gone furthest in answering questions about settling grievances in places where the British Empire "spread its tentacles".

"New Zealand shows what can be done, given the will. But it also sounds a warning: that even an accepted consensus over race can be threatened by blundering politicians.

"New Zealand's progress towards reconciliation is in danger of being halted, after a speech redolent of Enoch Powell's infamous 1968 'rivers of blood' address," it said.

"Facing mounting criticism and little popular support, Brash - like desperate right-wing politicians everywhere - played the race card."

Dr Brash told the Herald his speech had been substantially misrepresented.

He had not been calling for an end to the settlement process. He had "commented favourably" on settlements in the 1990s and had called for the process to be accelerated and then brought to an end.

"The writer clearly doesn't understand the New Zealand situation or has bought a Labour Government view of the situation."

The comparison to Mr Powell was far-fetched, and he felt the same way as being compared to former Australian politician Pauline Hanson.

Mr Powell, Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South-West, made his famous speech in 1968, railing against immigration.

Mr Powell had said: "As I look ahead I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman [Virgil] I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood'."

British Opposition leader Edward Heath called the speech "racialist" and sacked Mr Powell as shadow secretary for foreign affairs and defence.