Talk:Oliver Letwin

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College

Trinity or Darwin? Or both? Says Trinity in text but links to Darwin at bottom.

I think he was a Fellow of Darwin from 1981-83? Does anyone know anything more about his doctorate? Maybe that should be mentioned a little bit

Doctorate

His doctorate is in philosophy. It was published as Ethics, Emotion and the Unity of Self (Routledge 1987). So it's appropriate to return the biography to the "Philosophers" category.

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:20, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of faith?

Letwin mentioned (at least twice) on Question Time tonight that he was not religious: one time he said he was "not a believer", and the other that he didn't "have faith". He also mentioned that he thought the fuss over the "pigs" poster used by Labour at the 2005 election was ridiculous. I don't know whether any of this is considered worthy of inclusion, but given that he volunteered the information about his lack of faith on a major BBC TV programme, I don't think it would be personally intrusive to him to do so if it was considered significant. 86.143.48.55 (talk) 23:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I added it at roughly the same time as you wrote this comment, I hope in the correct manner, as I do think it's quite significant, especially given his party allegiance, not previously known for prominent atheists. 77.100.150.194 (talk) 15:56, 25 January 2008 (UTC)MatGB[reply]

Corbynista. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.199.186.78 (talk) 00:40, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of information on Letwin's private career

This article need to be tagged. There is no information on his private career and work experiences with bankers, etc. Politis (talk) 10:06, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Locked

Why is this article locked for editing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.82.80.227 (talk • contribs) 12:20, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can see there has not been any protection applied to this article. Keith D (talk) 13:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Broadwater Farm

It seems like an extreme form of WP:RECENTISM to devote a third of the article to a single as-yet inconsequential memo Letwin wrote back in 1985 which happens to be a news story. I'd suggest the appropriate way of covering it would be a couple of sentences in the "early career" section (we can of course add material to the later section if there are further consequences for his career other than a half-apology). Suggested wording for the relevant part of that section would be...

According to official government documents from 1985, released in December 2014 under the 30 years rule, Letwin recommended the Prime Minister to "use Scotland as a trail-blazer for the pure residence charge", i.e. the controversial Community Charge or 'Poll tax', having trialled it there first, and to implement it nationwide should "the exemplifications prove... it is feasible."^[1]

Another 1985 internal memo released in December 2015 showed Letwin's response to the Broadwater Farm riot, which blamed the violence on the "bad moral attitudes" of the predominantly Afro-Caribbean rioters, claiming that "lower-class, unemployed white people lived for years without a breakdown of public order on anything like the present scale". It also criticised some of the schemes proposed to address inner-city problems, suggesting David Young's proposed scheme to support black entrepreneurs would founder because the money would be spent on the "disco and drug trade”. Letwin apologised following the memo's publication, saying that parts of it had been "both both badly worded and wrong." ^[2]^[3]^[4]

I actually keep trying to do this but each time more material is added. I worry that if I go away and come back the article will consist of more information on that memo than the rest of his 30-year career put together, not to mention most newspaper articles on the memo! Dtellett (talk) 18:24, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "Oliver Letwin's memorandum recommending Scottish poll tax trial in 1985". The Guardian. 30 December 2014. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
^ "Letwin apologises over 1985 Broadwater Farm riot memo". BBC. 30 December 2015. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
^ Holton, Kate (30 December 2015). "British policy chief apologises for 30-year-old race comments". Reuters. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
^ "Oliver Letwin blocked help for black youth after 1985 riots". London: The Guardian. 30 December 2015. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

Poll Tax

Is it true that Oliver Letwin invented the poll tax, as claimed on the BBC Radio 4 programme Profile on March 30 2019? If this is true it could be mentioned in the article. Vorbee (talk) 19:14, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "Oliver Letwin's memorandum recommending Scottish poll tax trial in 1985". The Guardian. 30 December 2014. Retrieved 19 February 2015.

[BBC_2015-2] "Letwin apologises over 1985 Broadwater Farm riot memo". BBC. 30 December 2015. Retrieved 30 December 2015.

[3] Holton, Kate (30 December 2015). "British policy chief apologises for 30-year-old race comments". Reuters. Retrieved 30 December 2015.

[4] "Oliver Letwin blocked help for black youth after 1985 riots". London: The Guardian. 30 December 2015. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

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