Oliver Letwin and Britain's Enduring Racist Undercurrent

Every so often we get a glimpse of racism from the past, broadly provoking one of two reactions; one side looks back fondly to an age predating political correctness, where speaking your mind felt really free. The other furiously kicks the sentiment into the dustbin of history; to them racism is just an animal illness we're in the gruelling process of civilising ourselves out of. Both tendencies were in evidence again last week when Oliver Letwin, former aide to Margaret Thatcher, now Cameron's policy chief and intellectual guru, found himself at the centre of an almighty storm when a co-authored memo from 1985 resurfaced.

Addressing the Iron Lady privately in the aftermath of that year's inner city riots, Letwin argued against help for young, unemployed black people. He said that the riots were down to the "bad moral attitudes" of black people and warned that proposed investment to counter chronic unemployment would only find its way to "the disco and drug trade".

Absolving the party of any blame, he made his prejudices clear: "the root of social malaise is not poor housing, or youth alienation, or the lack of a middle-class. Lower-class, unemployed white people lived for years in appalling slums without a breakdown of public order or anything like the present scale; in the midst of 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."

True to form, the merciless colosseum of infighting that is the internet began exchanging blows in every direction. Depending on who you read, Oliver Letwin was a xenophobic throwback, a gaffe-prone liability, or alternatively a leading light of the racial equality movement and the human incarnation of compassionate conservatism for whom this memo seemed wildly out of step with his recent record.

What followed was a swift non-apology for "any offence caused", the linguistic invention treasured by the stubborn as a way of never really apologising for anything. He conceded that some parts of the memo were "badly worded and wrong" and made it clear that no offence was intended, which I guess is logically true but only because we weren't meant to find out what he really thought.

Or perhaps still thinks? Which is where the debate evolved too next, growing into what Letwin's comments represented over and above the man himself. It became a war of competing liberal attitudes to race between our two traditional parties.

The story nourished suspicions within the left that behind the bluff and bluster of tackling discrimination, today's self-proclaimed Conservative social reformers are as privately committed to white privilege as ever. In retaliation, many on the right held up Letwin's personal journey away from those views and his record since as proof of a changed man heralding in a changed party. He was behind such schemes as the Social Mobility Foundation, they pointed out, allowing minorities a better chance of accessing top universities, and Operation Black Vote, which sponsored young black members harbouring dreams of being an MP. Labour present themselves as the only true defenders of minority rights, while the Tories say they've already set about levelling the playing field.

This, sadly, is where the debate remains, but really its complexity transcends a mere duel over who in Westminster owns the race card. Because what unites the parties – often found attempting to present themselves as ideological polar opposites – is a narrow understanding of how modern racism operates. They see sporadic acts of overt prejudice – weaved together under a system of general trends – and resolve to end it with committed policy over time. But racism just doesn't work that way. It's an infection in the imagination of the white man spanning centuries. It's assumed superiority that's born to rule over assumed inferiority that's born to follow. It's a structure of social and political layers that makes the lived experience of black and brown people in Britain different because they're not white.

Systemic racism has just mutated to nestle snugly into the defining aspects of modern capitalism. Political correctness has merely made xenophobia a taboo before we've collectively understood the place of race in the social hierarchy. It feels like the suppression of truth, for many, because we've leapt ahead of ourselves without the prerequisite change in attitudes. This failure to overcome a general sense of white privilege is the fault of our elite over centuries, who've presided over a power pyramid that's forever suited them. Even now it's only on the rarest occasions that our leaders let ethnic minorities into their inner-circles. All talk of bridging racial inequality is premised on the fact that the illusion of social mobility maintains order. Our leaders' enthusiasm for it in fact displays a reluctance to loosen their grip on power.

We're certainty moving in the right direction but the side effect of our politically correct age is a new racism that's more subtle and insidious and less obvious to those unaffected by it. Zizek calls this "oppressed, controlled racism". Never before have opportunities been so good for minorities, but try telling them that when their pigment at birth puts them at an immediate disadvantage. As many grow up here they feel alienated and unwelcome, targets of suspicion and discriminate searches by the police.

As they get older even the best educated face real barriers when entering the workplace or moving up the career ladder. This becomes clear with a look at the statistics: Under 0.5 percent of professors are black, according to the Runnymede Trust. And less than 2 percent of British directors from FTSE 150 companies are minority ethnic. After three years working at big corporate firms I could count the number of black people I met on two hands.

At the Conservative Party Conference, David Cameron said: "In our country today, people with white-sounding names are nearly twice as likely to get call backs for jobs than people with ethnic-sounding names". The "blind-name" recruitment plan – meant to stop employers subconsciously binning CVs because they have ethnic sounding names – introduced following the speech, is one example of strong policy. But if our leaders are really serious about reversing systemic racism, they must decry and erode the dominant idea of white superiority at every opportunity. Wasn't the memo scandal the perfect time for Letwin to give a real apology and show how far the Conservatives have come since the 80s? As it stands, we're left wondering if such arcane views still linger in the upper reaches of government.

@CallumTowler

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