Oliver Letwin apologises for ‘racist’ remarks made in 1985

UK prime minister David Cameron’s policy chief Oliver Letwin has apologised “unreservedly” for any offence he caused for “racist” remarks he made in the wake of the 1985 Broadwater Farm riots.

Files released by the National Archives in London, show that Mr Letwin – then an adviser in Margaret Thatcher’s No 10 policy unit – blamed “bad moral attitudes” for a series of major disturbances which broke out across a series of mainly black inner city areas.

In an outspoken memorandum to the prime minister, he poured scorn on claims that the unrest was the product of urban deprivation, saying white communities had endured such conditions for decades without rioting.

He also dismissed proposals by ministers to foster a new class of black entrepreneurs, saying they would simply set up in the “disco and drug trade”.

In a statement, Mr Letwin – now a minister in the cabinet office – said: “I want to make clear that some parts of a private memo I wrote nearly 30 years ago were both badly worded and wrong. I apologise unreservedly for any offence these comments have caused and wish to make clear that none was intended.”

His remarks were strongly condemned by Labour deputy leader Tom Watson who said he must explain his comments.

“Oliver Letwin’s comments are evidence of an ignorant and deeply racist view of the world. He obviously cannot justify his opinions but he must explain himself and apologise without delay,” he said.

“A great many people will be asking whether, as a government minister, he still holds such offensive and divisive views.”

The riots which erupted in autumn 1985 were among the worst disturbances to hit mainland Britain in recent times.

They included serious unrest in the Handsworth area of Birmingham and Brixton, south London, as well as the Broadwater Farm riot where police officer Keith Blakelock was stabbed to death.

The troubles were widely blamed on a combustible combination of high unemployment, slum housing, poor education and an atmosphere of bitter distrust between many young black people and the police.

In one document among the papers released by the National Archives, home secretary Douglas Hurd pointed to the underlying social and economic problems in the areas which had a “specific ethnic (notably black) dimension”.

But in his memo, written with fellow future Tory MP Hartley Booth, Mr Letwin urged Mrs Thatcher to reject the prevailing orthodoxy, insisting the troubles came down to “individual characters and attitudes”.

“The root of social malaise is not poor housing, or youth ‘alienation’, or the lack of a middle class,” they wrote. “Lower-class, unemployed white people lived for years in appalling slums without a breakdown of public order on anything like the present scale; in the midst of the depression, people in Brixton went out, leaving their grocery money in a bag at the front door, and expecting to see groceries there when they got back.

“Riots, criminality and social disintegration are caused solely by individual characters and attitudes. So long as bad moral attitudes remain, all efforts to improve the inner cities will founder.”

– PA