Oliver Letwin MP is the Minister for Government Policy in the Cabinet Office. Government papers, which are routinely released after 30 years, show what he (and fellow civil servant Hartley Booth) wrote about the riots on Tottenham’s Broadwater Farm estate when they were members of the Downing Street policy unit under the Thatcher Government. Today, we find what Letwin and Booth wrote about Broadwater Farm, an estate with many black residents, deeply offensive – but, disturbing though it is, we have to read through this to understand the attitudes that were prevalent 30 years ago – and why they linger on today.
In their own words [On suggestions that the riots occurred because of social deprivation on inner city estates, lack of role models and widespread racism] “The root of social malaise is not poor housing, or youth ‘alienation’, or the lack of a middle class…”
“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.”
The papers go on to suggest that young people who are potential rioters should be placed in foster care and that a Youth Corps (note the military language) be created to promote moral values such as personal responsibility, honesty and respect for the law.
In a second paper, Harvey Booth criticised plans to spend £10 million on improving inner city areas because the expenditure amounted to a programme to “subsidise Rastafarian arts and crafts workshops”.
Broadwater Farm Broadwater Farm had many black residents, but it was by no means exclusively black – as was the case with very many inner city areas, particularly the run-down areas. In October 1985, police raided the home of Cynthia Jarrett on the estate, claiming they were looking for stolen property. Ms Jarrett, who had poor health, died of heart failure as a result. The local community was outraged and protest riots resulted. Over 200 police officers were injured as they tried to control the riots. One officer, PC Keith Blakelock, was separated from police lines and was stabbed to death. The Broadwater Farm riots sparked other disturbances and for a while there was widespread tension in the inner cities.
The riots coincided with that year’s Labour Party conference, at which the then Leader Neil Kinnock made a speech condemning Labour councillors who were refusing to set balanced budgets. Kinnock said they were “playing politics with people’s lives”. Councillors would have said they were campaigning against national government cuts in local government funding – not least because they wanted to improve conditions for poor people in the inner cities and to tackle racism. Kinnock’s stance paved the way for New Labour… but that is another story.
The context of Letwin’s memo The decade began with the New Cross fire, in which 13 young black people lost their lives. The cause of the fire was never established and many locals feared there was some sort of cover up going on. It was a factor in causing riots in Brixton in 1981.
The following year, Afia Begum’s husband died in a fire in Brick Lane. The fire was caused by a paraffin heater – which the couple used because their Council flat had no electricity. Ms Begum then had to face deportation proceedings: the authorities ruled that she had come to the UK to live with her husband, but as he had died she no longer had grounds to live in the UK.
In September 1985, police raided the Brixton home of Cherry Groce, looking for her son in connection with inquiries into firearm offences. One of the officers shot Cherry Groce, who was left paralysed. Just a few days later, the raid on Cynthia Jarrett’s home on Broadwater Farm occurred. The two events, so close together, provoked an immense backlash, with riots in many places in and outside London.
In 1993, Stephen Lawrence was murdered – and, after a long struggle on the part of his parents, an inquiry found the Metropolitan Police guilty of “institutionalised racism”.
Letwin’s memo was written at a time when the Government was about to make it unlawful to “promote” being gay or lesbian.
This very small list of examples helps us remember how divided the 1980s were. The global economy was in trouble, and the establishment was determined that a right wing, “austerity”, agenda would operate in the UK (and the US) to heal the economy. That meant that the establishment – governments and the media – had to keep the working class in western society divided. They didn’t fight racism – or sexism, or homophobia – because it suited them, at the time, to have a divided society to rule over. Trevor Phillips, who was the Head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said in a recent radio interview that he did not think Mr Letwin’s remarks [in the memo] would have raised a single eyebrow at the time, although he accepted that Letwin’s views would probably have changed over the three decades since he wrote them.
It is to the credit of Ken Livingstone, then leader of the Greater London Council, that he, together with many councillors across the UK, fought the right wing agenda – the economic measures being taken, such as high unemployment; but also the ideological measures, such as treating non-white people and lesbians and gay men as second class citizens. He was roundly mocked and pilloried at the time, but he stayed true to these principles – which is one of the reasons why so many black and Asian and left-wing people will always support him.
Now, we have the proof of what so many people suspected was the case: the Tory Governments of the 1980s were based on, and governing with, racist ideology. That the opposition parties, the Labour Party in particular, did not realise this and campaign against it is to its lasting shame.
Oliver Letwin MP Thirty years ago, Oliver Letwin MP attributed the Broadwater Farm riots to the notion that (poor) black people had weaker moral values than (poor) white people. Now that his comments have come to light, he has apologised unreservedly, saying that parts of the previously confidential memo were “badly worded and wrong”. He said, “I apologise unreservedly for any offence these comments have caused and wish to make clear that none was intended.”
We can only hope that this man, who today is a Government Minister responsible for making sure the Government implements Tory policy, has indeed changed his views. This Eton-educated MP is no stranger to apologies. In 2011, he had to apologise for throwing away papers dealing with his constituents’ affair in public bins (he was worried the paperwork was weighing him down). In April of the same year, Letwin and Boris Johnson had a conversation about airport provision in the UK. Johnson leaked the allegation that Letwin had said that he didn’t want to see more people from Sheffield going on cheap holidays – an allegation Letwin did not deny. He was interviewed on Sky News and said that he apologised to anyone who was offended, which was never his intention. No one has explained what Letwin has against Sheffield and/or its people – but even if he has changed his views on the morals of black people, he is clearly still prepared to treat the poor as an undeserving underclass.
Hartley Booth Booth and Letwin were both civil servants when they wrote the paper saying that black people’s bad morals (rather than social deprivation and racism) were causes of the inner city riots. Both went on to become Tory MPs: Booth in Mrs Thatcher’s constituency, Finchley, after she retired.
Booth went on to become parliamentary private secretary to Douglas Hogg, a Minister in the Foreign Office. In 1994, allegations were made public that he had had an inappropriate relationship with a House of Commons researcher. Booth – who was married and had three children and who was also a lay preacher of the Methodist Church – denied that he had had an affair with the researcher, but he did resign his position. There were significant boundary changes in the UK which took effect at the 1997 General Election. The constituency of Finchley disappeared, and Mr Booth tried, but failed, to be adopted as the Tory candidate for Hendon South.
Where are we now? There are strong parallels between the economic situation today and that of the 1980s. Things have certainly improved in UK society in terms of what levels of racism (and sexism and homophobia) are tolerated, but we can’t take that progress for granted. All public institutions, and political parties, have to keep scrutinising their actions and procedures to make sure they are not institutionally racist. In some ways, Islamophobia has taken the place of anti-black racism – providing scapegoats and distracting working people from the austerity agenda. But that is another story…