Can Oliver Letwin please explain why he believed that black communities were undeserving of government support? Can he explain why white people should be left to wallow in poverty and despair? Can he explain why he did not take in to consideration the conclusions of The Scarman Report published four years earlier?
‘Lord Scarman found that the riots in Brixton, said to have involved over 5,000 people, had not been planned but were spontaneous outbursts resulting from built-up resentment and tensions. He made a number of recommendations to the police force, including efforts to recruit more ethnic minorities into the police force and changes in training and law enforcement. He stressed the importance of tackling racial disadvantage and racial discrimination. The inquiry recommended ‘urgent action’ to ensure that racial disadvantage did not become an ‘endemic, ineradicable disease threatening the very survival of our society’. Scarman’s inquiry was given added urgency by the rioting which flared up across the country in July of the same year and the scope of the inquiry was widened to include Southall, in London, Birmingham, Toxteth in Liverpool and Manchester.’
Can he explain why so many in West Dorset feel betrayed by not only him but the blinkered voters who put an X by his name? One discontented voter received multiple likes on social media when he commented ‘Oliver Letwin could have been photographed kicking a puppy to death while dressed as a Nazi and swearing at children, he’d still get re-elected in West Dorset.’
One of those to regularly challenge him at the polls is Ros Kayes who this evening stated:
‘I do think that Oliver needs to do more than just apologise for these comments. Not only are they highly offensive; they also show such a poor lack of judgement of circumstances and of the nature of modern Britain. Had they been made in public I think he would have been prosecutable for denying funding to an ethnic group because of their ‘moral degeneracy’. In effect, several million poundsworth of funding to the 8 inner city regeneration areas was cut as a result of this cabinet battle. He needs now to confirm that he no longer holds these views and explain why they were wrong and how his thinking has changed. An apology is not enough. Why is this important ? There is a difference between what people say in public and what they do in private – but where what they are doing in private is directing government policy then racism redolent of the controversy created by The Bell Curve needs challenging. It’s up to David Cameron to consider whether a modern Conservative party that promotes diversity is prepared to publicly condemn these views . I think he should.’
I know the old adage is that the people get what they deserve but for far too many of us in Dorset that is simply not the case. Public school boys playing power games with their skewed version of reality is what some may deserve but not the rest of us.
Mr Letwin – will you answer the questions; take your NHS privatisation; your recipe for community conflict and your landowning toff chums and do one please? And those who still support you can do one as well.
Douglas James
