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Declassified memo reveals rampant racism in Thatcher government (and today's)

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In the UK all Cabinet correspondence is declassified after 30 years. Today it was 1985's turn.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35192265

David Cameron's policy chief has apologised "unreservedly" over remarks he made about black communities days after the 1985 Broadwater Farm riot in north London.

In a newly-released memo, Oliver Letwin - then adviser to Margaret Thatcher - blamed unrest on "bad moral attitudes".

He also dismissed plans to encourage black entrepreneurs, saying they would set up in the "disco and drug trade".
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The Broadwater Farm riot followed the death of estate resident Cynthia Jarrett, who died of heart failure after four policemen burst into her home during a raid on 5 October 1985. Police said they were looking for stolen property but found none.

Mrs Jarrett's death sparked riots in which more than 230 police officers were injured and PC Keith Blakelock was killed after being stabbed 43 times.
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The 1985 memo, written by Mr Letwin and future Conservative MP Hartley Booth, urged Mrs Thatcher to ignore claims that rioting in mainly black inner city areas was caused by social deprivation and racism.

"The root of social malaise is not poor housing, or youth 'alienation', or the lack of a middle class," they wrote in the document, which has been released by the National Archives.
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The pair, who were members of the Downing Street policy unit, poured scorn on plans put forward by two government ministers to tackle bad housing and encourage new 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.
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They argued government should place "young delinquents" in "good" foster homes and create a new "youth corps" to promote "moral values" and encourage "personal responsibility, basic honesty" and respect for the law from an early age.

In a follow-up paper, Mr Booth attacked plans for a £10m communities programme, suggesting it would do little more than "subsidise Rastafarian arts and crafts workshops".
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Labour's David Lammy who grew up alongside the Broadwater Farm estate, said the riots "had nothing to do with moral bankruptcy and everything to do with social decay and the appalling relations between black youths and the police".

He said the memo was "an indication of how the powerful can be so utterly, utterly out of touch with what's going on".
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In more detail:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...blocked-help-for-black-youth-after-1985-riots

Oliver Letwin blocked help for black youth after 1985 riots

Cameron’s policy chief makes apology over advice to Thatcher that assistance would benefit ‘disco and drug trade’ and Rastafarian crafts
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David Cameron’s chief policy adviser has apologised after he helped to ward off cabinet pleas for assistance for black unemployed youth following the 1985 inner-city riots with the argument that any help would only end up in the “disco and drug trade”.

Oliver Letwin, then a young adviser in Margaret Thatcher’s Downing Street policy unit, played a decisive role along with her inner cities adviser, Hartley Booth, in rejecting demands from three cabinet members that assistance schemes be introduced in the aftermath of the Tottenham and Handsworth riots in 1985.
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Downing Street files released on Wednesday by the National Archives include a confidential joint paper by Letwin and Booth in which they told Thatcher that “lower-class unemployed white people had lived for years in appalling slums without a breakdown of public order on anything like the present scale”.

The men also warned Thatcher that setting up a £10m communities programme to tackle inner-city problems would do little more than “subsidise Rastafarian arts and crafts workshops”.
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The environment secretary, Baker, wanted to refurbish rundown council estates and Young, the employment secretary, wanted US-style “positive action” programmes to overcome the barriers to jobs and business startups for young black people. But Letwin and Booth would have none of it.
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“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. David Young’s new entrepreneurs will set up in the disco and drug trade.”

Instead their prescription was to reinforce the family through the law and tax, to set up “old-fashioned independent religious schools” and to change attitudes to personal responsibility, honesty, and the police from an early age including a new moral “youth corps”.
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Letwin and Booth saw success in their campaign when it was decided that areas such as Brixton should be ignored as ministers “were anxious to avoid giving the impression that riot was being rewarded”. Ministers also agreed that while it was right for Hurd to raise the problem it “would be counterproductive to be seen to be concentrating help on law-breakers or on black people specifically”.

Plans for eight urban development task forces went ahead but the Treasury was only willing to put £5m behind the exercise. In the winter of 1985/86 the real money had already started to flow from a consortium of US bankers and developers into building “a new financial centre” in London’s Docklands. It was to be Canary Wharf not Broadwater Farm nor Lozells Road in Handsworth, Birmingham, that was to benefit most from the riots of 1985.
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The Thatcher gov considered Nelson Mandela a terrorist and refused to condemn apartheid.

Booth went on to be an MP for years and Letwin has been a senior figure in all Conservative governments since. He is now the government policy chief for today's government.

In other news it was revealed today that Thatcher tried to block public health warnings about Aids because it would mean mentioning nasty things like anal sex.
 
Thatcher was a pretty shitty human being. And "SHOCKING NEWS" at the racism in the government there. But at least it distracts from the ever growing evidence of child molestation in the government and ongoing attempts to cover it up.
 
"A new moral youth corps"

Sounds disturbingly familiar.

Conservative ministers are secret racists? How am I not shocked?
 
I am shocked at this news. Not this corrupt, paedophile enabling government also being racist?


WOW


Next thing you know they will be fucking a severed pig's head.

“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.
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9299vRE.gif
 
Frodo said:
I am shocked at this news. Not this corrupt, paedophile enabling government also being racist?


WOW


Next thing you know they will be fucking a severed pig's head.
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Oh come on....you fuck one pig's head and you're labeled for life. It's just not fair.
 
David Cameron's policy chief has apologised "unreservedly" over remarks he made about black communities days after the 1985 Broadwater Farm riot in north London.
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The same shit people from then are in government today. What a surprise.

The Thatcher gov considered Nelson Mandela a terrorist and refused to condemn apartheid.
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Fucking hell, I wasn't aware of this. Though then again they did campaign with this slogan in 1964 and with this news it's easy to see they hadn't changed all that much:
If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour
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This is the party our current leaders decided to join when they went into politics.

Even if you think the Tories are all rainbows and flowers nowadays do you want our country who saw the racist, homophobic Conservative party of the 80s and thought 'yep, that's the party for me'
 
And people think that it's a loony exaggeration when it's pointed out that the Tories have more than their fair share of closet fascists. Although back then there wasn't any UKIP to make them look like the softer alternative.
 
My government repulses me. They're even more sinister than their republican imo as they do a much better job of keeping their fascist and racist views undercover. People say they're more left than the republicans, but honestly they just do a better job of concealing themselves.
 
These quotes are incredible, couldn't be any more typical. I especially love:

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.
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Basically "oi, poor people...you'll live in your shitholes and like it!"
 
What's most interesting here is that I believe this is the first time in something like 50 years that official files for the relevant period have not been declassified in full at the turn of the year.

That means that files on:

  • The introduction of the poll tax
  • The SAS shootings in Gibraltar
  • Lockerbie
  • The 1987 general election

...that I believe were due for release are not being released in full now, but will apparently be released in stages across the next year. Until recently - September, IIRC - the process was handled by the justice department but it was then transferred to the Culture Secretary and the Cabinet Office, under... Oliver Letwin.

At the risk of getting into some conspiratorial thinking, it doesn't seem at all implausible that this story - while embarrassing for Letwin and the Tories to a degree - is being given more prominence than it deserves to obscure the fact that a number of more significant files have not been released timeously - and that plans for their eventual release are still worryingly vague.
 
Her government also covered up a pedophile ring so it is kinda known that she was twisted. I almost fell off the couch when in the first GoP debate Jeb said he would put Margaret Thatcher on the $10 bill. Jeb U Wot M8?
 
Cosmonaut X said:
What's most interesting here is that I believe this is the first time in something like 50 years that official files for the relevant period have not been declassified in full at the turn of the year.

That means that files on:

  • The introduction of the poll tax
  • The SAS shootings in Gibraltar
  • Lockerbie
  • The 1987 general election

...that I believe were due for release are not being released in full now, but will apparently be released in stages across the next year. Until recently - September, IIRC - the process was handled by the justice department but it was then transferred to the Culture Secretary and the Cabinet Office, under... Oliver Letwin.

At the risk of getting into some conspiratorial thinking, it doesn't seem at all implausible that this story - while embarrassing for Letwin and the Tories to a degree - is being given more prominence than it deserves to obscure the fact that a number of more significant files have not been released timeously - and that plans for their eventual release are still worryingly vague.
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the timeframe is 30 years before docs get declassified so I think we have to wait for the above

as far as I know, the government doesn't have to declare anything if it deems it's still a threat to security
 
daviyoung said:
the timeframe is 30 years before docs get declassified so I think we have to wait for the above

as far as I know, the government doesn't have to declare anything if it deems they're still a threat to security
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No, it was 30 years, but that was shifted to only 20 under Labour IIRC.

And, yes, the government can refuse to declassify but if they do so I'm sure they have to say they're doing so and explain their reasoning.

To give an indication of the change in scale of material released, I think the last few years have seen files in the hundreds (500-odd was the number I've seen bandied about) released at the turn of the year. This year it was under 20.

EDIT:

Just checked - 500 files from 1985 and 1986 were released last year. Only 14 were released this year.
 
Thatcher & co were shitty people, figures.

When she died all the conservative shitheads here in Spain were all crying because they lost their hero. Speaks volumes for both of them.
 
Considering that this guy has been heavily influencing party policy for over 30 years I feel like an apology isn't going to cut it
 
he needs to fucking go. disgraceful things to say even 30 years ago. he wasn't very young or naive back then either, if he held those views before it's unlikely they've changed much since.

waiting for the apologist posts.
 
So after a black woman dies of heart failure in a police raid, 230 cops get injured and PC (police chief?) gets brutally stabbed to death.

Wow. What was the fallout, UK GAF? Obviously we're seeing racist resistance in these leaked documents, but ant progress linked to it?

Because meanwhile in America...
 
In fairness, this doesn't actually brand all Tories or even all Tories in the 80's as racist morons - just these two. Not that that's any consolation. Thatcher's government was in general pretty abhorrent.

Hopefully the policy chief loses his post over this.
 
daviyoung said:
ah ok, well then it all seems a bit random or, er, "random"
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Yeah. As I say, it does get a bit conspiratorial but when you have a bit of attention-grabbing news like this released around the same time something rather more significant is becoming clear - and especially when the subject is in the position he is in - it makes me question whether it's being deliberately pushed to hide the more damaging news.

timetokill said:
PC (police chief?) gets brutally stabbed to death.
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Police constable - lowest rank in the force. Not sure what the US equivalent is - officer or deputy?
 
deefol said:
the US and Europe****

Slave trade probably
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And in Brazil, Mexico, Japan, China, etc. it's not just a US and European thing. The one common denominator around the world is that the group that's darker than everyone else and/or of African descent are generally treated like shit.
 
SomedayTheFire said:
I'm shocked that the conservatives are racists. SHOCKED.
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Sweeping statement. There's racism everywhere, and whilst I 100% agree it is awful I still think you have to word things carefully. There would near certainly have been racism in the labour party at the time, even if not so prominent.

I'm unsurprised that it was like this then, not that it is acceptable, interesting that some who are still in played a part though. There's some things that Thatcher did that I'm 100% behind which many probably would not be... But she did have a lot of bad shit - undeniably so.

This is super messy for the Tories - especially after the Conservative future controversy. They need to get rid of him right away.
 
Shocking news!

Conservative values have no place in the 21st century. It's like being dragged back into the Victorian era, or listening to that inappropriate grandparent. Have some fucking decency towards your fellow man.
 
thelatestmodel said:
Shocking news!

Conservative values have no place in the 21st century. It's like being dragged back into the Victorian era, or listening to that inappropriate grandparent.
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I'd lean towards voting Tory in the current political climate, but I'm a social liberal and agree with this completely.

Economics is another story though (for me).
 
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