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More information about this article... The following comments have been left for this page: Important because of his influence over Thatcherism making him a significant late 20th Century UK politician, SqueakBox 19:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC) (edit)

I think the "assesment" section of this page should be removed, not because I agree or disagree with the assesment as such, but simply ANY assesment is bound to be the authors opinion about a certain subject, and therefor by its very nature not a neutral point of view. Jcuk

In the second biography it says at one stage to the effect that "at this point his drinking was under control" (quoting from memory, so possibly not exact). Further details?

"Like many great political thinkers, Joseph was a failure in office."

Are there #any# political thinkers who were effective in office? (Was it Karl Marx or Lenin who said that the point of political philosophy is not to describe the situation but to change it?) - It was Marx. This was the last of his "Theses on Feuerbach." NRPanikker 13:44, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding description as right wing

This is a vague term in the extreme, the changes in the Conservative Party in the 1970's very much were formed by the growth of Neo-Liberalism which was as Mrs Thatcher put it a project to "Roll back the Frontiers of the State", it is not an NPOV nor indeed is Neo-Liberal considered a negative term, Keith Joseph was from the early 1970's on in the vanguard of Neo-Liberalism - deregulation, ending big government and minimising government involvement in the economy - these are all parts of Neo-Liberal theory. On social policy Neo-Liberals could vary a lot from being very libertarian to being very strongly socially conservative.

In fact the term right lumps him together with people who favoured extensive state involvement in the economy but who had a very strong emphasis on a more authoritarian social conservatism.

Our job is to produce an encyclopaedia which is useful to people. Any article on Keith Joseph which does not describe him as being on the political right is being extremely unuseful. The Conservative Party are on the right of British politics, and Keith Joseph was on the right of the Conservative Party - not the authoritarian right, but the economic right. Fys. “Ta fys aym”. 13:48, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

He didn't use the term himself and preferred more specific technical terminology when categorising people and ideas.--Lord of the Isles 19:04, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Playground Slang

As "sir-keith" his name has an entry (based on its sound) in the Online Dictionary of Playground Slang, to be found at www.odps.org NRPanikker 00:13, 27 October 2006 (UTC)