LONDON, (Reuters) – British Prime Minister David Cameron’s policy chief apologised yesterday after a newly released memo from 30 years ago revealed he had blamed poor morals in the black community for riots and said any investment would be wasted on discos and drugs.
Oliver Letwin, a senior minister in Cameron’s government, made the comments in a confidential memo to the prime minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, following riots in north London which revealed the deep strains between Britain’s poor black community and the police.
Rejecting suggestions that the unrest was due to inadequate housing or a sense of alienation amongst the black community, Letwin said the riots, criminality and social disintegration were caused solely by individual characters and attitudes.
“So long as bad moral attitudes remain, all efforts to improve the inner cities will founder,” he said in the memo, jointly written with another adviser.
Letwin also poured scorn on suggestions by two ministers – David Young and Kenneth Baker – that the government should invest in new housing and encourage black middle-class entrepreneurs as a “force for stability”.
“David Young’s new entrepreneurs will set up in the disco and drug trade; Kenneth Baker’s refurbished council blocks will decay through vandalism combined with neglect; and people will graduate from temporary training or employment programmes into unemployment or crime,” they said.
