Adrian Lee is a solicitor-advocate in London, specialising in criminal defence, and was twice a Conservative parliamentary candidate.
“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.” Keith Joseph
As we embark upon another term in opposition, let us turn to the years between 1974 and 1979 for inspiration. In contrast to the other two post-war spells in the wilderness between 1964 and 1970 and 1997 to 2010, the Conservatives used their time in this period more productively, charting the course of the next two decades of political development.
The Conservative Party which had been intellectually as well as literally defeated twice in the general elections of 1974, would turn the tide by 1979, and in 1983 won its greatest landslide since the War. This was the era of re-discovering Conservative philosophy, the formation of the Centre for Policy Studies, a new style of party leader, and the readoption of conviction politics. At the heart of this rejuvenation was one Conservative MP: Keith Joseph.
Keith Sinjohn Joseph, 2nd Baronet, was born in Westminster on the 11th, September 1918. His parents were Jewish and Samuel Joseph, his father, was head of C.W. Bovis and Co. Samuel, the family construction business, and a former Great War Captain in the Royal Irish Regiment, and was also successful as a Lloyd’s underwriter and an Alderman of the City of London. Between 1942 and 1943, he served as Lord Mayor of London.
Keith Joseph was educated at Harrow and later at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a first-class honours degree in Law. His career was interrupted by the Second World War. Like his father, he served as a Captain in the Royal Artillery and was mentioned in dispatches. Joseph received injuries during the Italian campaign. After the War, he was called to the Bar at Middle Temple (but did not subsequently practice law) and later became Director of Bovis. Keith’s career was looking similar to that of his father, especially when he became an Alderman of the City of London. But he had different long-term ambitions.
Keith Joseph joined the Conservative Party in 1948, later admitting that it had never crossed his mind to join any other political party. He first ran for Parliament in 1955 in the West London constituency of Baron’s Court. The seat only existed between 1955 and 1974 and it was one of the most marginal constituencies. Despite the improving economy and the glamour then attached to Anthony Eden, Joseph lost by 125 votes. However, in February 1956 he was elected in a by-election in Leeds North-East, which he retained until his retirement in 1987.
Keith Joseph served as a minister under four Conservative Prime Ministers: Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, Edward Heath, and Margaret Thatcher. He was also to become the first Jewish Conservative Cabinet Minister. Just in case some readers scratch their heads in confusion at this point, it should be remembered that Benjamin Disraeli converted to Anglicanism as a child and Sir Leslie Hore-Belisha was a National Liberal (although he did join the Conservatives much later).
Joseph’s early years in government followed an ideologically conventional path. The post-war Keynesian consensus was firmly established. When he served as Macmillan’s Minister of Housing, he introduced a colossal programme of council house building. Joseph’s target was to construct 400,000 state-owned homes per year. However, during the 1960s years of opposition, Keith Joseph slowly changed his perspective.
Simon Heffer has noted that Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph entered Heath’s Shadow Cabinet at the same time. They soon became friends, but just as significant was their curiosity about the ideas of Enoch Powell. Powell would soon be sacked by Heath over his Birmingham speech in April 1968, but originally, he was principally known to Conservatives as the High Priest of monetarism and the protégé of the Institute for Economic Affairs.
Powell intellectually dominated Shadow Cabinet discussions by introducing proposals beyond the scope of his Defence portfolio. One such proposal was a rough draft of the concept of extending home ownership through council house sales. Unsurprisingly, Heath dismissed the notion, but Thatcher and Joseph listened to Powell’s vision.
In the months before the 1970 election, Joseph made a series of speeches under the title of “civilised capitalism”, in which he indicated the necessity of controlling public expenditure. He was also pivotal in getting Heath to adopt a monetarist approach at the Conservative policy-setting conference at the Selsdon Park Hotel.
Following the election, Keith Joseph entered the Cabinet as Heath’s Secretary of State for Social Services. He later said that he felt stifled in the bureaucratic structure of this department. Even more galling was the economic U-turn performed by Heath in 1972, but like his friend Margaret Thatcher, he stayed inside the Cabinet.
The first signs of Joseph’s new political honesty came on 22nd June 1974 in a speech made in Upminster where he proclaimed:
“This is no time to be mealy-mouthed. Since the end of the Second World War, we have had altogether too much socialism.”
He went on to condemn his party for wasting time attempting “…to make semi-socialism work”. He urged a break with “the path of consensus”, and pointed out that Heathite Tories were always confusing “a distinctive Conservative approach with dogmatism”. In Joseph’s view, the main task of the state was to control the money supply and to provide a framework in which business could prosper.
Within three years, Keith Joseph had made over 150 speeches across the country, the majority of which were before Left-wing audiences. He particularly enjoyed speaking at universities. However, any leadership ambitions he might have had quickly evaporated in the autumn of 1974 following a speech in Preston. Joseph revealed himself to be an admirer of Mary Whitehouse and asked whether the permissive society would lead to the internal destruction of Britain.
He went on to say that people who could not afford to raise children independently should not have them. He identified two social classes, called Classes 4 and 5, who were producing an above-average number of children, whilst having a below-average income. The speech was immediately pilloried in the media, and even Conservative Shadow Cabinet member, Reginald Maudling denounced Joseph as being “as nutty as a fruitcake.”
Joseph became a tutor and ideological mentor to his friend Margaret Thatcher by bringing her extracts from the works of F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman. He sat in his study reading the books and then synopsising the contents for his busy housewife-superstar colleague. Margaret Thatcher, in her memoir The Path to Power, acknowledged Joseph’s influence on her intellectual evolution.
Both were determined to lay out a new, more distinctly Conservative approach to policy formulation. Social democracy and Keynesianism had failed to tame the trade unions and had led to rapid economic decline. It was time for a new direction. To this end, they founded the Centre for Policy Studies (C.P.S.).
Originally intended to rival the increasingly stale Conservative Research Department, Joseph wanted to name it the Ludwig Erhard Foundation, after West Germany’s second Chancellor. Sadly, the name was simplified, but the content of their published reports was bold and brave. The C.P.S. also published copies of the groundbreaking speeches that Joseph was now making around the country, with titles like “Stranded on the Middle Ground?” and “Monetarism is Not Enough.” Alfred Sherman, the first Director of the C.P.S, summed up the significance of Joseph’s contribution thus:
“If it hadn’t been for Keith, Heath’s position would not have been shaken, and Margaret would not have become Leader.”
Keith Joseph served in Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinets until his retirement in 1987. He had an increasing reputation for eccentricity. When he was Secretary of State for Industry, he once visited a high-tech factory and asked one of the directors “Do you think television has really come to stay?”. Likewise, later as Education Secretary, he paid a visit to a bird sanctuary and asked, “How do the birds know it is a sanctuary?”
So, what does Joseph’s career teach us today? Firstly, it challenges the media-peddled myth that elections are always won on the centre ground. If that were true, neither Clement Attlee nor Thatcher would have been elected. Equally, if the centre ground is the most politically desirable position, why haven’t the Liberals won a General Election since 1910?
Joseph recognised that dynamic political parties win power by seizing the high ground of intellectual discourse and then adapting the principles into practical policy solutions.
