Oliver Letwin
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The Right Honourable Oliver Letwin (born May 19, 1956) is the British Member of Parliament for West Dorset. He is a member of the Conservative Party and is the son of William Letwin, Emeritus Professor at the London School of Economics, and conservative academic Shirley Letwin. He is also a director of N.M. Rothschild Corporate Finance Ltd.
He was educated at Eton College, Trinity College, Cambridge and the London Business School. From 1983 to 1986 he was a member of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Policy Unit. He unsuccessfully stood against Glenda Jackson for the Hampstead and Highgate seat in the 1992 election, before winning the West Dorset seat in 1997. In September 2001 he was appointed Shadow Home Secretary, by Iain Duncan Smith. In late 2003 the new party leader, Michael Howard, appointed Letwin his successor as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.
During the campaign for the 2001 General Election, Letwin, as shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, expressed an aspiration to curtail future public spending by fully 20 billion pounds per annum relative to the plans of the Labour government. When this proposal came under attack as regressive, Letwin found few allies among his colleagues prepared to defend it, and adopted a low profile for the remainder of the campaign.
As Shadow Home Secretary he attracted plaudits for his advocacy of a "neighbourly society", which manifested itself in calls for street by street neighbourhood policing modelled on the philosophy of the police in New York. He was also largely credited with forcing the Home Secretary to withdraw his proposal in 2001 to introduce an offence of incitement to religious hatred. He successfully argued that such an offence would be impossible to define, so there would be little chance of prosecution. He also argued that Muslims would feel persecuted by such a law.
As Shadow Chancellor he has focused on reducing waste in the public sector. At the 2005 election the Conservative Party claims to have found £35bn worth of potential savings, to be used for increased resources for front line services and tax cuts. This approach has been credited with forcing the government to introduce bureaucracy reduction and cost-cutting proposals of their own.
Owing to the perception that he holds views that are more left-wing than other Conservative party members, he has been called Oliver Leftwing by some who disagree with him.
At the 2001 election Letwin had a majority of just 1,414 in his constituency. Given his higher profile there was some speculation as to whether he could retain his seat at the next election if Labour voters voted tactically for the Liberal Democrats in order to unseat him. However this hugely increased and more favourable profile may also have worked positively for him, and this may have neutralised any increase in tactical voting. At the 2005 General Election, Oliver Letwin increased his majority to 2,461, despite the so called Liberal Democrat "decapitation strategy" intended to unseat certain members of the Conservative Shadow Cabinet.
In May 2005, Letwin was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It was reported that he had requested a role less onerous than his former treasury brief so that he would have time to concentrate again on his career in the City at Rothschild's.[1] (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19809-1605674,00.html)
See also
External links
- Oliver Letwin (http://www.conservatives.com/people/person.cfm?PersonID=4533) official site
- ePolitix.com - Oliver Letwin (http://www.epolitix.com/EN/MPWebsites/Oliver+Letwin/) profile
- Guardian Unlimited Politics Ask Aristotle - Oliver Letwin MP (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/person/0,9290,-3095,00.html)
- TheyWorkForYou.com - Oliver Letwin MP (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/oliver_letwin/west_dorset)
- The Public Whip - Oliver Letwin MP (http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpn=Oliver_Letwin&mpc=West+Dorset) voting record
- BBC News - Oliver Letwin (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2070087.stm) profile 17 October, 2002
- Open Directory Project - Oliver Letwin (http://dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Society_and_Culture/Politics/Parties/Conservative/MPs/Letwin,_Oliver/) directory category