Keith Joseph (17 January 1918 – 10 December 1994) was the British Conservative Party MP for Leeds North East from 9 February 1956 to 18 May 1987, succeeding Osbert Peake and preceding Timothy Kirkhope. Joseph, originally an advocate of Christian democratic economic principles, later experienced a conversion to neoliberalism and was one of the chief architects of "Thatcherism" during the 1980s.
Biography[]
Keith Joseph was born in Westminster, London, England in 1918, the son of Lord Mayor Samuel Joseph. Keith inherited his father's baronetcy on his death in 1944, having served as a British Army artillery captain during World War II. In 1956, he was elected to Parliament in a by-election in Leeds, and he served as Minister for Housing and Local Government from 1962 to 1964, Secretary of State for Health and Social Services from 1970 to 1974, Secretary of State for Industry from 1979 to 1981, and Secretary of State for Education and Science from 1981 to 1986. In 1962, Joseph introduced Harold Macmillan's massive council housing building project. Under Prime Minister Edward Heath, he outlined his political philosophy of "civilized capitalism", which combined the Christian democratic "social market economy" principle with cuts in public spending. He later persuaded Margaret Thatcher to support Milton Friedman's theory of monetarism, emphasizing the need to control the amount of money in circulation. In 1975, he briefly challenged Heath for the Conservative leadership, but after giving a controversial speech on "low intelligence" mothers producing "problem children" which threatened "the balance of our human stock", he dropped out and supported Thatcher. He became one of Thatcher's closest friends and advisors, and they both moved to the hard-right; he experienced an overnight conversion to free-market principles and challenged the post-war consensus on a welfare state with strong labor unions. As Education Secretary from 1981 to 1986, he abolished corporal punishment in most schools, established regular parents' meetings, and increased parents' influence in school governance. He retired at the 1987 election and received a life peerage in 1987, dying in 1994.