Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Oliver Letwin had no choice but to apologise for ‘deeply racist’ memo

There is no point in anyone trying to defend Oliver Letwin’s 1985 memo to Margaret Thatcher in which the then aide to the Prime Minister argued that white people were not prone to public disorder and that regeneration of inner city areas would only result in those from ethnic minorities setting up ‘in the disco and drug trade’. No-one has really tried, though Tim Montgomerie has rather kindly said that in his experience, the Downing Street policy chief doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. But it’s clear that at some point the gaffe-prone minister had a racist thought, and that he was comfortable enough with that thought to put it in a memo. Labour’s Tom Watson branded it ‘deeply racist’ before the papers had even been published.

That’s why the minister apologised as soon as the front pages covering that memo, released today under the 30-year rule, were published. Letwin had no choice but to apologise ‘unreservedly’.

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