Keith Joseph’s lesson to today’s political pygmies

Thirty-five years ago Sir Keith Joseph was the first politician to provide a coherent response to the collapse of the postwar economic settlement. Our ruling elite continued to analyse the financial and social catastrophe of the mid-1970s in traditional terms. But Sir Keith — in an act of quite astonishing courage for a front-rank politician — departed from the orthodox. This meant that he was misrepresented, he was insulted, and in career terms he may have paid a heavy price. In those lonely speeches made in those now far-off times, Sir Keith Joseph invented a revolutionary new political economy. In doing so, he changed British history and saved us from stagnation and disaster.

Today, as in the 1970s, our economic system has collapsed and once again our political class is trapped by defunct paradigms. Once again we urgently need a fresh analysis.

I have been reporting from Westminster for almost 20 years. During that time I have realised that British politics is governed by two almost infallible rules. The first is this: the nastier a politician appears to be, the nicer he really is. This rule works equally well in reverse. Indeed it was spelt out explicitly by Tony Blair in conversation with the Foreign Secretary David Miliband as he was about to enter parliament for the first time eight years ago. This is what Blair told Miliband: ‘Go around smiling at everyone and get other people to shoot them.’ This appalling anecdote appears in Chris Mullin’s diaries, published this week.

Sir Keith, by contrast, was agonisingly honest in his personal dealing. This straight- forwardness could make him seem unbending and austere, but he never spoke to anyone as if they were a non-person. He never insisted on his own status.