Keith Sinjohn Joseph, Baron Joseph, Bt, CH , PC (17 January 1918–10 December 1994) was a British barrister, politician, and Conservative Cabinet Minister under three different Ministries. He is widely regarded as the "power behind the throne" in the creation of what came to be known as "Thatcherism". He was known for most of his political life as Sir Keith Joseph. A baronet (traditional abbreviation Bart, modern abbreviation Bt), is the holder of an hereditary title awarded by the British Crown, known as a baronetcy. ... The Order of the Companions of Honour is a British and Commonwealth Order. ... Her Majestys Most Honourable Privy Council is a body of advisors to the British Sovereign. ... January 17 is the 17th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... December 10 is the 344th day (345th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, 21 days before the next year. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... English barrister A barrister is a lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions who employ a split profession (as opposed to a fused profession) in relation to legal representation. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... In the Politics of the United Kingdom, the Cabinet is a formal body comprised of government officials chosen by the Prime Minister. ... Margaret Thatcher Thatcherism is the system of political thought attributed to the governments of Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. ...

Rt. Hon. Sir Keith Joseph, Bt, MP, PC

Sir Keith Joseph, Bt. ... Sir Keith Joseph, Bt. ...

Background

Joseph was the son of Sir Samuel Joseph, who had founded the construction company Bovis and served as Lord Mayor of London in 1942-1943. At the end of his term he had been created a baronet. On his death on October 4, 1944, his son inherited the baronetcy with the right to be called Sir Keith. He had attended Harrow School and Magdalen College, Oxford where he studied Jurisprudence, obtaining first class honours. Shortly thereafter he was elected a Fellow of All Souls College. Bovis Homes Group plc is a second tier national British housebuilding company based in Longfield in Kent. ... Current Lord Mayor of London John Stuttard during the parade on November 11th, 2006 Michael Berry Savory, Previous Lord Mayor (2004–2005) The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of London is the Mayor of the City of London and head of the Corporation of London. ... Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1942 calendar). ... 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1943 calendar). ... A baronet (traditional abbreviation Bart, modern abbreviation Bt), is the holder of an hereditary title awarded by the British Crown, known as a baronetcy. ... October 4 is the 277th day of the year (278th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Year 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... Harrow School, normally just known as Harrow, is one of the worlds most famous schools. ... College name Magdalen College Collegium Beatae Mariae Magdalenae Named after Mary Magdalene Established 1458 Sister College Magdalene College President Professor David Clary FRS JCR President Jessica Jones Undergraduates 395 MCR President Kader Allouni Graduates 230 Homepage Boatclub Magdalen College (pronounced ) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of... Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. ... All Souls College (in full: The College of All Souls of the Faithful Departed, of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ...

During World War II, he served as a Captain in the Royal Artillery, was wounded in Italy, and mentioned in despatches. After the end of the war, he was called to the Bar (Middle Temple). Following his father he was elected as an Alderman of the City of London. He also served as a Director of Bovis, becoming Chairman in 1958, and became an underwriter at Lloyd's of London. Joseph, after losing the marginal seat of Baron's Court in West London by 125 votes in the 1955 election, was elected to parliament in a by-election for Leeds North East in February 1956. He was very swiftly appointed as a Parliamentary Private Secretary. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... RGA redirects here. ... Mentioned in Dispatches (MID) is a military award for gallantry or otherwise commendable service. ... Part of Middle Temple c. ... An alderman is a member of a municipal legislative body in a town or city with many jurisdictions. ... Year 1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Lloyd’s Building, London (with the blue cranes). ... The 1955 United Kingdom general election was held on May 26, 1955, four years after the previous general election. ... A by-election or bye-election is a special election held to fill a political office when the incumbent has died or resigned. ... The Leeds North East byelection of 9 February 1956 was a by-election to the House of commons. ... Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Housing

After 1959 Joseph had several junior posts in the Macmillan government at the Ministry of Housing and the Department for Trade. In the 'Night of the Long Knives' reshuffle of July 13, 1962 he was made Minister for Housing and Local Government, a cabinet position. Joseph introduced a massive programme to build council housing, which aimed at 400,000 new homes per year by 1965. He wished to increase the proportion of owner-occupied households by offering help with mortgage deposits. Housing was an important issue at the 1964 election and Joseph was felt to have done well on television in the campaign. Year 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. ... A housing authority or ministry of housing is generally a governmental body that governs some aspect of the territorys housing, oftentimes providing low rent or free apartments to qualified residents. ... July 13 is the 194th day (195th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 171 days remaining. ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar). ... Cheap, safe, housing owned by the British Government. ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... The United Kingdom general election of 1964 result was a very slim majority for the Labour Party, of 4, and led to their first government since 1951. ...

In opposition, Joseph acted as spokesman on Social Services, and then on Labour under Edward Heath. Despite Joseph's reputation as a right-winger, Heath promoted him to Trade spokesman in 1967 where he had an important role in policy development. In the run-up to the 1970 election Joseph made a series of speeches under the title "civilised capitalism" in which he outlined his political philosophy and hinted of cuts in public spending. At the Selsdon Park Hotel meeting, the Conservative Party largely adopted this approach. Sir Edward Richard George Heath, KG, MBE (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005), soldier and politician, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... The United Kingdom general election of 1970 was held on June 18, 1970, and resulted in a surprise loss of power for Labour under Harold Wilson, who was replaced as Prime Minister by the Conservative leader, Edward Heath. ...

Heath's government

When the Conservatives won the election, Joseph was made Secretary of State for Social Services, which put him in charge of the largest bureaucracy of any government department but kept him out of control of economics. Despite his speeches against bureaucracy, Joseph found himself compelled to add to it as he increased and improved services in the National Health Service. However, he grew increasingly opposed to the Heath government's economic strategy, which had seen a 'U-turn' in favour of intervention in industry in 1972. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is a position in the UK cabinet, responsible for the Department for Work and Pensions. ... , the information in this article describes the current English public health service. ... 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ...

Influence on Thatcher

Following the 1974 election defeat, Joseph worked with Margaret Thatcher to set up the Centre for Policy Studies as a think-tank to develop policies for the new free-market Conservatism which they both favoured. Joseph became interested in the economic theory of monetarism as formulated by Milton Friedman and persuaded Mrs Thatcher to support it. Despite still being a member of Heath's Shadow Cabinet, Joseph was openly critical of his government's record. Sir Keith Joseph delivered his famous Stockton lecure on the economy Monetarism IS Not Enough, where he contrasted wealth producing sectors in an economy such as manufacturing with the service sector and government which tend to be wealth consuming. He contended that an economy begins to decline as its wealth producing sector shrinks. ^[1] .^[2] The UK general election of February 1974 was held on February 28, 1974. ... Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (born 13 October 1925), is the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in office from 1979 to 1990. ... The Centre for Policy Studies is a United Kingdom-based think tank. ... Monetarism is a set of views concerning the determination of national income and monetary economics. ... Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and public intellectual who made major contributions to the fields of macroeconomics, microeconomics, economic history and statistics while advocating laissez-faire capitalism. ... Manufacturing, a branch of industry which accounts for about one-quarter of the worlds economic activity, is the application of tools and a processing medium to the transformation of raw materials into finished goods for sale. ... Wikibooks has more about this subject: Marketing In economics and marketing, a service is the non-material equivalent of a good. ...

Many on the right-wing of the Conservative Party looked to Joseph to challenge Heath for the leadership, but when Joseph made a misguided speech at Edgbaston on 19 October 1974 which sounded like an argument against lower-class families having children, he accepted that he had no chance of winning and urged Mrs Thatcher to stand. Joseph claimed he received 2,000 letters after this speech, with critics outnumbered by fourteen to one by supporters. The day after the speech Mary Whitehouse said that she was "tremendously grateful" to Joseph and that "the people of Britain have been like sheep without a shepherd. But now they have found one."^[3] Edgbaston constituency shown within Birmingham Edgbaston is an area and ward in the city of Birmingham in England. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Thatcher was later to refer to Joseph as her closest political friend. In 1975 he claimed that "It was only in April 1974 that I was converted to Conservatism. (I had thought I was a Conservative but I now see that I was not really one at all.)"^[4], a remark that expressed Joseph's feeling of failure during the Heath government. Heath and his cabinet took office believing they were Conservative, setting up policies strengthening government control on industries and creating an intricate system to control wages and dividends. All of this was contrary to the "Conservative" ideals, not to be confused with a "political moderation" in Joseph. Having done a great deal to promote Mrs Thatcher, when she won the leadership in 1975 she determined to put him in a position to have a profound influence on Conservative Party thinking. The Conservative Party Leadership Election was held during early February, 1975. ...

In Mrs Thatcher's Shadow Cabinet, Joseph was given the overall responsibility for Policy and Research. He had a large impact on the eventual Conservative manifesto for the 1979 election although frequently a compromise had to be reached with the more moderate supporters of Edward Heath such as James Prior. In government, he was appointed Secretary of State for Industry. He began to prepare the many nationalised industries for privatisation by bringing in private sector managers such as Ian McGregor, but was still forced to give large subsidies to those industries making losses. The Shadow Cabinet (also called the Shadow Front Bench) is a senior group of opposition spokespeople in the Westminster system of government who together under the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition (or the leader of other smaller opposition parties) form an alternative cabinet to the governments, whose... Margaret Thatcher James Callaghan David Steel BBC Election 1979 Titles The United Kingdom general election of 1979 was held on May 3, 1979 and is regarded as a pivotal point in 20th century British politics. ... James Michael Leathes Prior, Baron Prior, PC, is a British politician, and was Conservative MP for Lowestoft and Waveney. ... The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is a cabinet position in the United Kingdom government. ...

Education Secretary

As Secretary of State for Education and Science from 1981 he started the ball rolling for GCSEs, and the establishment of a national curriculum. His predecessor in the new conservative government of 1979 had cancelled the plans of Shirley Williams, his predecessor but one, to merge O Levels and CSEs, but this was achieved during his time. Although this was not normally the responsibility of central government, he insisted on personally approving the individual subject syllabuses before the GCSE system was introduced: this entailed, according to press reports at the time, reducing objectionable elements such as reference to risks from radiation in Physics, hazards of industrial processes in Chemistry, environmental pollution in Biology, etc. The Secretary of State for Education and Skills is the chief minister of the Department for Education and Skills in the United Kingdom government. ... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This does not cite its references or sources. ... The General Certificate of Education or GCE was introduced in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 1951, replacing the older SC and HSC. It was intended to cater for the increased range of subjects available to pupils since the raising of the school leaving age from 14 to 15 in... GCSE is an acronym that can refer to: General Certificate of Secondary Education global common subexpression elimination - an optimisation technique used by some compilers This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

His attempts to reform teachers' pay and bring in new contracts were opposed by the trade unions, leading to a series of one-day strikes.

In 1984 his public spending negotiations with his Treasury colleagues resulted in a proposed plan for extra research funding for universities financed through the curtailment of financial support to students who were the dependent children of more affluent parents. This plan provoked heated opposition from fellow members of the Cabinet (in particular Cecil Parkinson) and a compromise plan was found necessary to secure consensus. This involved the abandonment of Joseph's plan to levy tuition fees while preserving his aspiration to abolish the minimum grant. The resulting loss to research funding was halved by a concession of further revenue by the Treasury team. 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

In 1985 he published a White Paper on the university sector, The Development of Higher Education into the 1990s, which advocated an appraisal system to assess the relative quality of research, and foresaw a retrenchment in the size of the higher education sector. Both proposals were highly controversial. 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Joseph stepped down from the Cabinet in 1986, and retired from Parliament at the 1987 election. He received a life peerage as Baron Joseph, of Portsoken in the City of London, in the dissolution honours list. 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Margaret Thatcher Neil Kinnock David Steel Election 1987 Titles The United Kingdom general election of 1987 was held on 11 June 1987 and was the third consecutive victory for the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher. ...

Legacy

Joseph's political achievement was in pioneering the application of monetarist economics to British political economics, and in developing what would later become known as 'Thatcherism'. He knew his own limitations, remarking of the prospect of his becoming Leader of the Conservative Party that "it would have been a disaster for the party, country, and me", and he rated himself a failure in office. His political philosophy speeches, which led to him being nicknamed "The Mad Monk", were ridiculed at the time but they were profoundly influential within the Conservative Party and in practice did set the tone for politics in the 1980s. Margaret Thatcher Thatcherism is the system of political thought attributed to the governments of Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. ... The 1980s refers to the years of 1980 to 1989. ...

Notes

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Keith Joseph

• Joseph's speech at Edgbaston
• Excerpt from Commanding Heights by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw