Keith Sinjohn Joseph, Baron Joseph, (17 January 1918 – 10 December 1994), known as Sir Keith Joseph, 2nd Baronet, for most of his political life, was a British politician. A member of the
Conservative Party, he served as a minister under four prime ministers:
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Nickn ...
,
Alec Douglas-Home
Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel ( ; 2 July 1903 – 9 October 1995), known as Lord Dunglass from 1918 to 1951 and the Earl of Home from 1951 to 1963, was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative ...
,
Edward Heath, and
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
. He was a key influence in the creation of what came to be known as
Thatcherism
Thatcherism is a form of British conservative ideology named after Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher that relates to not just her political platform and particular policies but also her personal character a ...
.
Joseph introduced the concept of the
social market economy into Britain, an economic and social system inspired by
Christian democracy
Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics.
Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well ...
. He also co-founded the
Centre for Policy Studies writing its first publication: ''Why Britain needs a Social Market Economy''.
Early life
Joseph was born in
Westminster
Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...
,
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, to a wealthy and influential family, the son of Edna Cicely (Phillips) and
Samuel Joseph. His father headed the vast family construction and project-management company,
Bovis, and was
Lord Mayor of London
The Lord Mayor of London is the Mayors in England, mayor of the City of London, England, and the Leader of the council, leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded Order of precedence, precedence over a ...
in 1942–3. At the end of his term he was created a
baronet
A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...
. Joseph's family was Jewish. On the death of his father on 4 October 1944, 26-year-old Keith inherited the
baronet
A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...
cy.
Education and academic career
Joseph was educated at
Lockers Park School in
Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, followed by
Harrow School, where, uncharacteristically, he did not do particularly well academically. He then attended
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and ...
, where he read
jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values ...
, obtaining first class honours. He was elected a Prize Fellow of
All Souls College, Oxford in 1946.
Early career
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, Joseph served as a captain in the
Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...
, and suffered a minor wound during German shelling of his company's headquarters in Italy, as well as being
mentioned in dispatches. After the end of the war, he was called to the Bar (
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...
). Following his father, he was elected as an
Alderman
An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denotin ...
of the City of London. He was a Director of Bovis, becoming chairman in 1958, and became an underwriter at
Lloyd's of London. In 1945, Joseph joined the leadership of the Post-War Orphans’ Committee of the Central British Fund for German Jewry (now
World Jewish Relief).
Member of Parliament
Joseph failed to be elected to the marginal seat of
Barons Court in West London by 125 votes in the
1955 election. He was elected to parliament in a by-election for
Leeds North East in February 1956. He was swiftly appointed as a Parliamentary Private Secretary.
In government
Following 1959, Joseph had several junior posts in the
Macmillan government at the
Ministry of Housing and the
Board of Trade. In the '
Night of the Long Knives' reshuffle of 13 July 1962 he was made Minister for Housing and Local Government. He introduced a massive programme to build
council housing
Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council housing or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011, when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in social housing. D ...
, 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.
Social Services
In opposition, Joseph was spokesman on Social Services, and then on Labour under
Edward Heath. He was one of twelve founder members of the
National Council for the Single Woman and Her Dependants on 15 December 1965. According to Tim Cook's ''The History of the Carers' Movement'', Joseph and
Sally Oppenheim were critical in raising funds from the
Carnegie Trust and other organisations, which enabled the carers movement to succeed and thrive through its formative years.
Trade spokesman
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.
After 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
The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...
. 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.
Joseph’s largest intervention was a proposed major reform of the
British pension system. Whilst the
State Pension would have survived the reforms, Joseph instead planned for workers to contribute towards
occupational schemes provided by employers (similar to
Australian Superannuation). A ‘State Reserve’ scheme would have been set up for low-earners and the self-employed, but critically without any prior funding, meaning a worker would only reach the maximum entitlement in 2019.
Although legislation was passed in the
Social Security Act 1973, it was abolished by Labour under the
Social Security Pensions Act 1975.
Graduated Retirement Benefit was still abolished in 1975, replaced by the
SERPS scheme in 1978.
1974
Following the
election defeat of February 1974, Joseph worked with
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
to set up the
Centre for Policy Studies, a think-tank to develop policies for the new free-market Conservatism that they both favoured. Joseph became interested in the economic theory of
monetarism as formulated by
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and ...
and persuaded Thatcher to support it. Despite still being a member of Heath's Shadow Cabinet, Joseph was openly critical of his government's record. In 1976, Joseph delivered his famous Stockton lecture on the economy ''Monetarism Is Not Enough'' in which he sought to discredit previously dominant Keynesian economic strategies and 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.
Many on the right wing of the Conservative Party looked to Joseph to challenge Heath for the leadership, but his chances declined following a controversial speech on 19 October 1974. It covered a variety of
socially-conservative topics and drew on an article that had been written by
Arthur Wynn and his wife and published by the
Child Poverty Action Group. The notion of the "cycle of deprivation" holding down poor people was the basis of his speech. He linked it to current theories of the culture of poverty, especially to the chaotic lifestyle of the poorest people. However, he suggested that poor people should stop having so many children. In his highly publicised speech at
Edgbaston, he reflected on the moral and spiritual state of Britain:
The outrage, despite his repeated apologies, in reaction to his speech sharply undercut Joseph's campaign to replace Heath as party leader. The speech was not largely written by
Jonathan Sumption (who later went on to become a Supreme Court judge in United Kingdom) though it has been erroneously suggested that this was the case.
Margaret Thatcher
Joseph withdrew from the contest against Heath and informed Margaret Thatcher, who responded "if you're not going to stand, I will, because someone who represents our viewpoint has to stand." He now became a major advisor. Thatcher later referred to Joseph as her closest political friend. His overnight conversion to free-market, small-government policies "had the force of a religious conversion". This conviction earned him the nickname the "Mad Monk", courtesy of
Chris Patten, the then director of the
Conservative Research Department. In 1975, Joseph said:
This remark expressed Joseph's sense of failure during multiple Conservative governments that had automatically followed the
post-war consensus of a welfare state with strong labour unions. Their policies to stabilise the economy retained government control on industries and created an intricate system to control wages and dividends. In the eyes of Thatcher and Joseph, that pragmatic approach was contrary to the true "Conservative" ideology. As he had done a great deal to promote Thatcher, when she won the leadership in
1975
It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe.
Events
January
* January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
, she determined to put him in a position that would facilitate a profound influence on Conservative Party policy.
In Thatcher's
Shadow cabinet, Joseph wanted to be
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, but that was impossible since his notorious 1974 speech. Instead, he was given overall responsibility for Policy and Research. He had a large impact on the Conservative manifesto for the
1979 election, but frequently, a compromise had to be reached with Heath's more moderate supporters, such as
Jim Prior. Thatcher named Joseph
Secretary of State for Industry. He began to prepare the many nationalised industries for privatisation by bringing in private sector managers such as
Ian MacGregor but was still forced to give large subsidies to those industries making losses.
Secretary of State for Education and Science
As Thatcher's
Secretary of State for Education from 1981 he started the ball rolling for
GCSEs, and the establishment of a national curriculum in England and Wales.
Mark Carlisle, his predecessor in the Conservative government in 1979, had cancelled the plans of
Shirley Williams, his second-last predecessor, to merge
O Levels and
CSEs, but he achieved that policy. Although that was not normally the responsibility of central government, he insisted on personally approving the individual subject syllabuses before the GCSE system was introduced. His attempts to reform teachers' pay and bring in new contracts were opposed by the trade unions and led 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 dependent children of more affluent parents. That plan provoked heated opposition from fellow members of the Cabinet (particularly,
Cecil Parkinson) and a compromise plan was found necessary to secure consensus. The compromise involved the abandonment of Joseph's plan to levy
tuition fees but preserved 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.
Joseph emerged unscathed from the
Brighton hotel bombing during the Conservative Party Conference in 1984. In 1985, he published a White Paper on the university sector, ''The Development of Higher Education into the 1990s''. It 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 controversial. Joseph was the primary influence on the
Education (No. 2) Act 1986, enacted soon after his resignation as secretary, which abolished
corporal punishment
A corporal punishment or a physical punishment is a punishment which is intended to cause physical pain to a person. When it is inflicted on Minor (law), minors, especially in home and school settings, its methods may include spanking or Padd ...
in most schools, established regular
parents' meetings, and increased parents' influence in school governance.
Backbenches, retirement and peerage
Joseph stepped down from the Cabinet in 1986, and retired from Parliament at the
1987 election. He was appointed to the
Order of the Companions of Honour
The Order of the Companions of Honour is an Order (distinction), order of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded on 4 June 1917 by King George V as a reward for outstanding achievements. It was founded on the same date as the Order of the Brit ...
in 1986. He received a
life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. Life peers are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister. With the exception of the D ...
age in the dissolution honours, being created Baron Joseph, of
Portsoken in the
City of London
The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...
on 12 October 1987. Joseph died on 10 December 1994.
30-year rule and official documents
At the end of 2011, the release of confidential documents under the UK Government's
30-year rule revealed Joseph's thoughts regarding the
Liverpool riots. In response to
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, (; born 21 March 1933) is a British politician. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket Media Group in 1957. Heseltine se ...
's regeneration proposal, Joseph suggested that there should be a "managed rundown" of Merseyside instead.
Later, his private secretary asked for minutes of a meeting to be amended to remove reference to explicit economic regeneration as Joseph believed "it is by no means clear that any such strategy could lead to a viable economic entity".
Legacy
Joseph's 1976 speech "Monetarism Is Not Enough" was described by
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
as "one of the very few speeches which have fundamentally affected a political generation's way of thinking". 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
Thatcherism is a form of British conservative ideology named after Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher that relates to not just her political platform and particular policies but also her personal character a ...
. 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. The Sir Keith Joseph Memorial Lecture is held annually by the Centre for Policy Studies.
Personal life
Joseph was married twice: first, in 1951, to Hellen Guggenheimer, with whom he had four children. They separated in 1978,
finally divorcing in 1985.
In 1990 he married Yolanda Sheriff (née Castro), whom he had known since the 1940s.
References
Sources
* Denham, Andrew and Mark Garnett. ''Keith Joseph'' (Acumen, 2002)
* Halcrow, Morrison. ''Keith Joseph: A Single Mind'' (Macmillan, 1989)
* Harrison, Brian. "Mrs. Thatcher and the Intellectuals," ''Twentieth Century British History'' (1994) 5#2 pp 206–245.
* Harrison, Brian. "Joseph, Keith Sinjohn, Baron Joseph (1918–1994)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,'' Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 201
accessed 6 June 2013* Moore, Charles. ''Margaret Thatcher: From Grantham to the Falklands'' (2013)
* O'Connell, Jeffrey and Thomas E. O'Connell. "Global Raising and Razing of Statism: The Mirror Roles of Two Law-Trained Englishmen – William Beveridge and Keith Joseph," ''Journal of Law & Politics'' (2000) 16#3 pp 639–662.
External links
*
Joseph's speech at Edgbaston, 1974*
ttp://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/modern/cpa/private/kj.html Sir Keith Joseph papers in the Conservative Party Archive*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Joseph, Keith
1918 births
1994 deaths
People educated at Lockers Park School
People educated at Harrow School
Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford
Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford
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Councilmen and Aldermen of the City of London
Jewish English politicians
Gluckstein family
Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Royal Artillery officers
UK MPs 1955–1959
UK MPs 1959–1964
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