concerned with beating socialism than the supposed loss of national independence. On 25 February, he made another speech at Shipley, again urging a vote for Labour, saying he did not believe the claim that Wilson would renege on his commitment to renegotiation, which Powell believed was ironic because of Heath's premiership: "In acrobatics Harold Wilson, for all his nimbleness and skill, is simply no match for the breathtaking, thoroughgoing efficiency of the present Prime Minister". At this moment a heckler shouted "Judas!" Powell responded: "Judas was paid! Judas was paid! I am making a sacrifice!" Later in the speech Powell said, "I was born a Tory, am a Tory and shall die a Tory. It is part of me ... it is something I cannot alter". In 1987, Powell said there was no contradiction between urging people to vote Labour while proclaiming to be a Tory: "Many Labour members are quite good Tories". Powell, in an interview on 26 February, said he would be voting for Helene Middleweek, the Labour candidate, rather than the Conservative Nicholas Budgen. Powell did not stay up on election night to watch the results on television, and when on 1 March he picked up his copy of The Times from his letterbox and saw the headline "Mr Heath's general election gamble fails", he reacted by singing the Te Deum. He later said: "I had had my revenge on the man who had destroyed the self-government of the United Kingdom". The election result was a hung parliament. Although the Tories had won the most votes, Labour finished five seats ahead of the Conservatives. The national swing to Labour was 1 per cent; 4 per cent in Powell's heartland, the West Midlands conurbation; and 16 per cent in his old constituency (although Budgen won the seat). According to the Telegraph journalist Simon Heffer, both Powell and Heath believed that Powell had been responsible for the Conservatives' losing the election. Ulster Unionist 1974–1979 In a sudden general election in October 1974, Powell returned to Parliament as Ulster Unionist MP for South Down, having rejected an offer to stand as a candidate for the far-right National Front, formed seven years earlier and fiercely opposed to non-white immigration. He repeated his call to vote Labour because of their policy on the EEC. Since 1968, Powell had been an increasingly frequent visitor to Northern Ireland, and in keeping with his general