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.