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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 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.
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 was a clear view of what would constitute such an offence. He also argued that Muslims would feel persecuted by such a law.
As Shadow Chancellor he has focused on reducing the size of government. This approach has been credited with forcing the government to introduce bureaucracy reduction proposals of there 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. Has had also been dubbed Oliver Let-'em-in on account of his view on illegal immigrants and asylum seekers when he was shadow Home Secretary. At the next general election an obsure Conservative splinter group, the Conservative Democratic Alliance, is standing in his constituency, and is hoping to unseat Letwin in favour of a Liberal Democrat. However with a hugely increased profile as Shadow Chancellor he is likely to retain his seat.
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