'We don't want more people from Sheffield having cheap holidays' says top Tory

One of David Cameron's top policy gurus has declared that the government should do nothing to help ordinary people take holidays abroad.

During a private meeting with London Mayor Boris Johnson, who was pushing for the government to build new airports around the country, Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin (pictured) told fellow Tories: 'We don't want more people from Sheffield flying away on cheap holidays.'

According to the Daily Mail, Johnson revealed the comment - but not who made it - at a recent meeting. Johnson said: 'I was absolutely scandalised the other day to hear a government minister tell me he did not want to see more families in Sheffield able to afford cheap holidays.'

He added the comments were '...absolutely disgraceful: a bourgeois repression of people's ability to take a holiday. It's a matter of social justice.'

The comment from 'gaffe-prone' Letwin, a millionaire and old Etonian, will surely only fuel claims that senior members of government are out of touch with ordinary public voters.

Senior ministers have already come under fire for jetting off on expensive holidays when the rest of the country was tightening their belts this winter.

Chancellor George Osborne was snapped enjoying himself at the plush Swiss ski resort of Klosters during the New Year break.

Labour MP Michael Dugher said: 'Ministers are constantly jetting to exclusive resorts. But they don't want hard-pressed families to enjoy a well-deserved break. It's one rule for them and another rule for everybody else.'

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