a little more on the crucial public services that do need more spent on them". Letwin wants to see better public services rather than higher public sector pay. Letwin believes reducing the deficit is important so Britain is protected when the next downturn comes. Controversies 1985 Broadwater Farm memo controversy In 1985, Letwin and Hartley Booth wrote a five-page document 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. 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 was at the time considered to be a "young star" of the Conservative Party. The memo scorned suggestions by senior cabinet ministers to set up a £10 million communities programme to tackle inner-city problems by helping black entrepreneurs start businesses as suggested by then-Employment Secretary David Young, refurbishing public housing council blocks as suggested by then-Environment Secretary Kenneth Baker and "establishing training programmes for low-income youth." 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." When the 1985 paper was released to public record by the Cabinet Office along with other Whitehall papers under accelerated procedures of the 30 years rule into the public record through the National Archives in Kew, West London on 30 December 2015, a chastened Letwin apologised on the same day for "the offence caused". 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." The 1985 Broadwater Farm memo argued the riots were caused by bad behaviour not social conditions. 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. Labour MP Chuka Umunna, whose Streatham constituency included parts of Brixton, said the tone of the memo was "positively Victorian." He added: The attitudes towards the black community exhibited in the paper are disgusting and appalling ... The authors of this paper illustrate a complete ignorance of what was