Blunders and gaffes galore from ‘the stupidest clever person’ in Westminster

SIR Oliver Letwin’s 37-year career in politics has been littered with gaffes that he has inexplicably managed to weather.

He likes to project the image of a well-meaning sage, but a series of mishaps has earned him the nickname ‘the stupidest clever person’ in Westminster.

Famed for his Mr Toad-like tweed jackets and corduroy trousers, the eccentric Old Etonian is one of the great survivors of Tory politics, riding out scandals that would have ended the careers of others.

He infamously caused one of the first major upsets of the Coalition after being photographed in October 2011 illegally dumping official Government papers in litter bins in St James’s Park. The bizarre behaviour came just months after he reportedly told Boris Johnson to stop pushing for new airports across the UK, claiming: ‘We don’t want more people from Sheffield flying away on cheap holidays.’

Sir Oliver’s comments earned him a rebuke from Cabinet colleague Nick Clegg, who invited him to visit his constituency in Sheffield. And in 2013, Letwin was accused of nearly ending three centuries of press freedom after being one of the key drivers of a disastrous (later abandoned) plan for state regulation of the media, during a late-night pizza session with Ed Miliband.

However, his long litany of disasters extended well beyond his career as an MP. Prior to his election in West Dorset in 1997, Letwin worked as an adviser in Margaret Thatcher’s Downing Street Policy Unit from 1983 to 1986. Documents released in 2014 showed him urging her to ‘use Scotland as a trail-blazer for the pure residence charge’ – also known as the poll tax. In another internal memo, he criticised a scheme to support black entrepreneurs, claiming the money would be spent on the ‘disco and drug trade’.

In 1988, he wrote a pamphlet on the NHS which was cited as a basis for the unpopular Health and Social Care Act 2012. As a Cabinet Minister, Letwin reportedly ‘bombproofed’ the controversial NHS reforms that sparked an uproar in the medical profession.

And as a Treasury spokesman under William Hague, he was forced to ‘go into hiding’ in the middle of the 2001 Election campaign after accidentally pledging £20 billion of cuts. His comments were leapt upon by Labour, helping them win a second successive landslide.