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Keith Joseph
Historical figureUnited Kingdom1918-1994

Keith Joseph

Secretary of State for Education and Science (1981-1986) · Secretary of State for Industry (1979-1981)

Conservative minister and thinker who worked with Margaret Thatcher to launch the Centre for Policy Studies and drive the monetarist, free-market thinking behind Thatcherism.

Compare yourself See the 12 scores
Profile on 12 axes9 of 12 documented
ECONOMYSTATESOCIETYWORLDOwnershipMarketsWelfareAuthoritySecurityStructureMoralityReligionTechnologyCultureTradeForeign
Where they stood

Keith Joseph, axis by axis

  1. 01Ownership+60
    PublicPrivate
  2. 02Markets+75
    PlannedFree
  3. 03Welfare+45
    SharedSelf-reliant

    He was driven by a wish to end poverty and ran a high-spending department, yet later pressed for cutbacks and turned against the post-war welfare consensus. The score tilts toward self-reliance.

  4. 04Authority-10
    DemocraticStrong leader
  5. 05Security+25
    LibertyOrder
  6. 06Structure+30
    LocalCentral

    He gave Whitehall control over exam syllabuses and began the move toward a national curriculum, while warning that Brussels would centralise power. For UK policy the score is mildly central.

  7. 07Morality+45
    ProgressiveTraditional

    In 1974 at Edgbaston he asked for a renewal of the nation's moral life and spoke of a cycle of deprivation. His school reforms also ended the cane in most schools. The score is moderately traditional.

  8. 08Religion+10
    SecularReligious

    He stayed committed to Judaism and often spoke about Britain's moral and spiritual condition, but did not ask for religion to play a larger political part. The score is close to neutral.

  9. 09TechnologyNo clear record
    EmbraceCaution
  10. 10CultureNo clear record
    MulticulturalNational identity
  11. 11Trade-50
    GlobalProtected
  12. 12Foreign policyNo clear record
    CooperationStrength

    Foreign affairs played little part in his career, so this axis is null.

3 axes have no clear record, so matching leaves them out.

Who was Keith Joseph?

Keith Joseph grew up in a wealthy Jewish family in London. His father built the Bovis construction firm and became Lord Mayor. Joseph studied law at Oxford, fought in Italy as an artillery captain, and won a fellowship at All Souls. He became an MP in 1956. In Edward Heath's government he ran social services. After the defeats of 1974 he said he had never truly been a Conservative and began preaching free-market ideas. A speech at Edgbaston that October wrecked his chance at the leadership. He backed Thatcher, served in her cabinet until 1986 and was made a peer in 1987.

Political views

  • Championed monetarism, took ideas from Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, and brought Thatcher round to it.Source: theguardian.com
  • Told a Stockton audience in 1976 that sound money alone would not do, and that the part of the economy that makes wealth must be allowed to grow.Source: margaretthatcher.org
  • Was a founder of the Centre for Policy Studies in 1974, a body meant to develop free-market policy, and he popularised the social market economy idea.Source: en.wikipedia.org
  • Spoke at Edgbaston in 1974 about a moral decline in Britain and asked for a renewal of the country's moral life.Source: margaretthatcher.org
  • As Industry Secretary he got state industries ready for privatisation, yet he kept paying big subsidies to firms that lost money.Source: en.wikipedia.org
  • At Education he joined O-levels and CSEs into one exam, the GCSE, and suggested parents help pay university fees, an idea he later dropped.Source: theguardian.com

Legacy

Fans call Joseph the mind behind Thatcherism. Thatcher said his Stockton lecture was one of only a few speeches that altered how a generation thought. The CPS gives an annual lecture in his name. His critics remember Edgbaston, where he warned that "our human stock is threatened" by births to poor mothers. Many found this offensive, and he said sorry for how he put it. Others argue his time in government was cautious compared with his speeches, and he thought his own ministerial record had failed.

In their own words

“Let me emphasise: to say that 'monetarism is not enough' is not in any sense to retreat from monetarism.”
Stockton Lecture, "Monetarism Is Not Enough", 5 April 1976

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Keith Joseph: questions

Which party was Keith Joseph in?

The Conservatives. He sat for Leeds North East from 1956 until 1987 and served in cabinets under Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Heath and Thatcher.

How did Keith Joseph shape Thatcherism?

He and Thatcher started the Centre for Policy Studies in 1974. After that he made the case for monetarism and free markets in speeches, and from 1975 he was in charge of Conservative policy while the party was in opposition.

Sources

Portrait: Sir Keith Joseph visits Llangefni and Caernarfon (1469270) Crop.jpg by Geoff Charles, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped and converted to grayscale by 12axes-test.com.