Oliver Letwin

Oliver Letwin      (politician)
Born	1956-05-19 Hampstead, London
Alma mater	Eton, University of Cambridge/Trinity College
Children	2
Spouse	Isabel Davidson
Founder of	Red Tape Initiative
Member of	Legatum Institute
Party	Conservative
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster  In office 14 July 2014 - 14 July 2016 Succeeded by Patrick McLoughlin  Minister of State for Government Policy In office 12 May 2010 - 11 May 2015  Shadow Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs  In office 10 May 2005 - 6 December 2005  Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer  In office 6 November 2003 - 10 May 2005 Deputy George Osborne Preceded by Michael Howard  Shadow Home Secretary  In office 18 September 2001 - 6 November 2003 Preceded by Ann Widdecombe  Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury  In office 26 September 2000 - 18 September 2001 Succeeded by John Bercow  Member of Parliament for West Dorset In office 1 May 1997 - Present  Prime Minister's Europe Adviser In office 24 June 2016 - 14 July 2016  Member of Parliamentfor West Dorset In office 1 May 1997 - Present

Oliver Letwin, MP (born May 19, 1956, Hampstead), British Member of Parliament for West Dorset, is Minister of State at the Cabinet Office.

He is Chairman of the Policy Review and Chairman of the Conservative Research Department.

History

He is the son of William Letwin, Emeritus Professor at the London School of Economics, and conservative academic Shirley Letwin, both of whom were members of the Mont Pelerin Society. He is also a director of N.M. Rothschild Corporate Finance Ltd.

Letwin was educated at Eton, Trinity College (Cambridge) and the London Business School. From 1983 to 1986 he was a member of 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, by the narrow margin of 1,840 votes. 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.

Policy Focuses

Public Spending

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. He famously went into 'hiding' during the 2001 election, and for some time after the election had finished.

As Shadow Chancellor he focused on reducing waste in the public sector. At the 2005 election the Conservative Party claimed to have found £35bn worth of potential savings, to be used for increased resources for front line services and for tax cuts. This approach was credited with forcing the government to introduce bureaucracy reduction and cost-cutting proposals of their own.

Law and Order

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.

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 pursue his career in the City at Rothschild's.[1]

Support for Cameron

Following the decision by Michael Howard to stand down as Conservative party leader after the May 2005 general election, Letwin publicly backed the youngest candidate and eventual winner David Cameron, a fellow Etonian. He was subsequently given the newly created role of Chairman of the Policy Review, when Cameron formed his first shadow cabinet in December 2005.

Affiliations

• Centre for Policy Studies
• Politeia

Select Bibliography

• Oliver Letwin (1987) Ethics, Emotion and the Unity of the Self. Routledge. ISBN 0709941102.
• Oliver Letwin and John Redwood. (1988) Britain's Biggest Enterprise - ideas for radical reform of the NHS. Centre for Policy Studies. ISBN 187026519X
• Oliver Letwin (1988) Privatizing the World: A Study of International Privatization in Theory and Practice. Thomson Learning. ISBN 0304315273
• Oliver Letwin (1989) Drift to union: Wiser ways to a wider community. Centre for Policy Studies. ISBN 1870265742
• Oliver Letwin (2003) The Neighbourly Society: Collected Speeches. Centre for Policy Studies. ISBN 1903219604

External links

• Oliver Letwin official site
• ePolitix.com - Oliver Letwin profile
• Guardian Unlimited Politics Ask Aristotle - Oliver Letwin MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Oliver Letwin MP
• The Public Whip - Oliver Letwin MP voting record
• BBC News - Oliver Letwin profile 10 February, 2005
• Open Directory Project - Oliver Letwin directory category

 

Employee on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed
Matthew Jamison	Parliamentary Researcher	December 2013

 

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