"[13] 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".

"[14][15][16] Letwin co-authored Britain's biggest enterprise: ideas for radical reform of the NHS, a 1988 Centre for Policy Studies pamphlet written with John Redwood which advocated a closer relationship between the National Health Service and the private sector.

[18][19] Letwin won the historically safe Conservative seat of West Dorset at the 1997 general election, achieving a majority of 1,840 votes over the next candidate.

During the campaign for the 2001 general election, Letwin expressed an aspiration to curtail future public spending by £20 billion per annum relative to the plans of the Labour government.

At the 2005 general election the Conservative Party claimed to have found £35 billion worth of potential savings, to be used for increased resources for front-line services and for tax cuts.

[23] Until December 2009, he was a non-executive director of the merchant bank NM Rothschild Corporate Finance Ltd.[24] Following Michael Howard's decision to stand down as Conservative Party leader after the 2005 election, Letwin publicly backed the youngest candidate and eventual winner David Cameron.

In the lead-up to the 2010 general election, Letwin played an important role in the development of Conservative policy, and was described by Daniel Finkelstein as "the Gandalf of the process".

Letwin was appointed as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on 14 July 2014, succeeding Lord Hill of Oareford who became the United Kingdom's next European Commissioner.

Immediately after the 23 June 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, Cameron appointed Letwin "Minister for Brexit".

[33] The rebel MPs voted for the Letwin motion to take control of parliamentary business from the government, for the purpose of introducing a bill which would prevent the Prime Minister's policy of allowing the United Kingdom to leave the EU without a deal on 31 October.

[39] The following day, The Sunday Telegraph published a declaration from an anonymous Conservative source that Letwin's motion had been masterminded by Lord Pannick, the barrister who had represented Gina Miller in her actions against the Johnson ministry's Brexit policy.

Letwin said, "It may well be, in one way or another, a large number of people will have to pay a little more tax if we are going to maintain the trend towards reduced deficits and yet spend a little more on the crucial public services that do need more spent on them".

[42][43] In 1985, Letwin and Hartley Booth wrote a five-page document[44] as members of then-Prime Minister Thatcher's policy unit in response to the widespread 1985 unrest in Britain's inner cities – with riots in Broadwater Farm estates in Tottenham, North London, Handsworth, Brixton, Peckham and Toxteth.

[45][46][47][48] In the paper, Letwin and Booth urged "Thatcher to ignore reports that rioting in mainly black urban areas was the result of social deprivation and racism.

Letwin said it would not ameliorate the situation but would do little more than "subsidise Rastafarian arts and crafts workshops" stating that black "entrepreneurs will set up in the disco and drug trade.

I apologise unreservedly for any offence these comments have caused and wish to make clear that none was intended.Trevor Phillips OBE, former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission observed that, "I don't think these remarks would have raised a single eyebrow at the time.

[52] The policy unit proposed a programme for creating "better attitudes," including measures to encourage the establishment of 'old-fashioned independent schools' which Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong warned in 1985 constituted social engineering.

So long as bad moral attitudes remain, all efforts to improve the inner cities will founder ... [Lord] 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.Labour MP Chuka Umunna, whose Streatham constituency included parts of Brixton, said the tone of the memo was "positively Victorian."

[47][48] In 2003, while Shadow Home Secretary, Letwin announced a policy to prevent any asylum seekers entering the UK instead suggesting a "far off-shore processing centre".

[54] In June 2004, Letwin, then Shadow Chancellor, was reported by an attendee to have stated at a private meeting that within five years from a Conservative election victory "the NHS [would] not exist anymore", to be replaced by a "funding stream handing out money to pay people where they want to go for their healthcare".

The incident occurred after he had urged local business lobbying efforts to create a PFI hospital in Dorchester in May, and dismissed revealing the extent of his planned cuts to public spending to the voters as "irrational".

[55] The Daily Telegraph reported in 2009 that Letwin agreed to repay a bill for £2,145 for replacing a leaking pipe under the tennis court at his constituency home in Dorset, which he had claimed on his parliamentary expenses.

[56] Speaking to consultancy firm KPMG on 27 July 2011, Letwin caused controversy after stating that you cannot have "innovation and excellence" without "real discipline and some fear on the part of the providers" in the public sector.

"[57] In October 2011 the Daily Mirror reported a story that Letwin had thrown away more than 100 secret government documents in public bins in St. James's Park, with no real care to dispose of them properly.