Invisible Hands: 2. The Mad Monk

Summary

The History Podcast: Invisible Hands – Episode 2: The Mad Monk

Host: David Dimbleby
Release Date: April 2, 2025
Description: David Dimbleby explores the pivotal role of Keith Joseph, known as the "Mad Monk," in igniting the free market revolution that reshaped Britain. This episode delves into Joseph's transformation, his influence on key political figures, and the broader impact of his ideas on British politics.

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1. Introduction to the Mad Monk

Timestamp: [00:46] – [02:10]

David Dimbleby sets the stage by introducing Keith Joseph, a senior Conservative politician deeply committed to transforming Britain's economic landscape. Known as the "Mad Monk," Joseph was driven by a mission to shift the nation's mindset towards free-market principles.

• Notable Quote:
  • Keith Joseph: "Generally known during the late 1970s and 1980s as the Mad Monk." [01:55]

2. The Post-War Consensus and Economic Turmoil

Timestamp: [02:10] – [05:09]

Post-World War II Britain operated under a post-war consensus where both Labour and Conservative governments maintained economic controls and prioritized welfare. However, by the early 1970s, this model began to falter due to rising inflation, widespread strikes, and soaring unemployment.

• Key Points:

  • The government's dual agreement to steer the economy and protect welfare.
  • Economic indicators showing distress: inflation, strikes, unemployment hitting 1 million.
  • The oil crisis of 1973 exacerbates economic instability, leading to severe petrol shortages and power cuts.

• Notable Quotes:

  • Keith Joseph: "We have built our defence against want and sickness and we're proud of it." [03:51]
  • David Dimbleby: "Oil prices skyrocketed. People started queuing at petrol stations, motorists filling their tanks before the supplies ran out." [05:09]

3. Keith Joseph's Transformation and Ideological Shift

Timestamp: [06:04] – [12:34]

Amidst the economic crisis, Keith Joseph begins to question the efficacy of the post-war consensus. Influenced by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), founded by Anthony Fisher, Joseph undergoes a significant ideological shift from traditional Conservative beliefs to advocating for reduced government intervention and promoting free-market capitalism.

• Key Points:

  • Joseph's exposure to IEA's free-market ideas changes his perspective.
  • His "Damascene conversion" leads him to publicly renounce previous beliefs.
  • Advocates for handing decision-making power back to individuals and the market.

• Notable Quotes:

  • Keith Joseph: "Every time the government takes a decision, it takes away the power of decision from the people. And we've gone too far along that road." [10:10]
  • Keith Joseph: "The only answer is more houses." [10:28]
  • Keith Joseph: "We have to spread the resources through all the needs, that is the slums, the homeless and those who want to own homes of their own as well." [10:46]
  • Keith Joseph: "I thought I was a Conservative, but all the time I was in favor of shortcuts to Utopia." [12:07]

4. The Battle of Ideas and Public Campaigning

Timestamp: [12:34] – [18:00]

Determined to champion free-market principles, Joseph embarks on a grassroots campaign, speaking at lecture halls, working men's clubs, and debating societies. His relentless advocacy, however, meets significant resistance within the Conservative Party and the broader political landscape.

• Key Points:

  • Joseph's campaign for capitalism challenges established political norms.
  • Faces opposition, heckling, and even physical attacks during his public appearances.
  • Influences a new generation of free-market advocates, including future leaders like David Willits.

• Notable Quotes:

  • Keith Joseph: "The facts are on our side. We need to wage and win the battle of ideas." [13:36]
  • Bernard Donahue: "It amounts to a restated Tory creed, different from the voice we've been accustomed to hear from the Conservative Party." [14:21]

5. The Rise of Margaret Thatcher

Timestamp: [22:22] – [27:54]

Joseph's mentorship proves pivotal in shaping Margaret Thatcher's political ideology. Recognizing Thatcher's potential as a compelling communicator, Joseph trains her in free-market economics and the importance of reducing state intervention. This mentorship lays the groundwork for Thatcher's emergence as a dominant political figure.

• Key Points:

  • Bernard Donahue recounts his first meeting with Thatcher and her evolution under Joseph's guidance.
  • Joseph imparts principles from influential works like Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" to Thatcher.
  • Thatcher adopts and propagates Joseph's free-market ideals, positioning herself as his political heir.

• Notable Quotes:

  • Margaret Thatcher: "We would make private enterprise worthwhile. Profit would no longer be a dirty word." [24:45]
  • Margaret Thatcher: "We'll bring in a society which lives within its means, where public expenditure is cut and where waste of taxpayers money is ruthlessly expunged." [25:02]

6. The 1979 Election and the Realization of Joseph's Vision

Timestamp: [25:26] – [28:35]

The economic and political turmoil culminates in the 1979 general election. Despite Joseph's initial setbacks, including a controversial speech in Birmingham, his influence on Thatcher helps steer the Conservative Party towards his free-market agenda. Thatcher's subsequent victory marks the fruition of Joseph's decades-long mission.

• Key Points:

  • The catastrophic winter of 1979, marked by strikes and economic hardship, undermines the Labour government.
  • Joseph's influence ensures the Conservative Party adopts a free-market stance.
  • Thatcher's leadership victory signifies the beginning of a new economic era in Britain.

• Notable Quotes:

  • Keith Joseph: "I saw that ship sink and I saw that ship break in half." [22:09]
  • Margaret Thatcher: "Her Majesty the Queen has asked me to form a new administration and I have accepted." [28:19]

7. Conclusion: The Legacy of the Mad Monk

Timestamp: [28:35] – [30:37]

David Dimbleby reflects on Keith Joseph's enduring legacy. Despite facing opposition and controversy, Joseph's unwavering commitment to free-market principles reshaped British politics. His mentorship of Thatcher ensured the widespread adoption of his ideas, fundamentally altering the nation's economic policies.

• Key Points:

  • Joseph's strategies broke the post-war consensus and paved the way for neoliberal reforms.
  • His influence extended beyond his political career, affecting future generations and policy directions.
  • The episode concludes with reflections on the mixed reception and lasting impact of Joseph's free-market revolution.

• Notable Quotes:

  • David Dimbleby: "Keith Joseph, certainly one of the most interesting politicians I'd ever met and to many people one of the weirdest, had in the space of just five years, broken the post war consensus." [27:54]
  • Keith Joseph: "I have no regrets for what I said, because it is true." [20:55]

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Key Takeaways:

• Keith Joseph's Transformation: From a traditional Conservative politician to a staunch advocate of free-market capitalism, Joseph's ideological shift was driven by disillusionment with the post-war consensus.

• Influence on Margaret Thatcher: Joseph's mentorship was instrumental in shaping Thatcher's policies, which would later define her tenure as Prime Minister and transform Britain's economic landscape.

• Impact of the Free Market Revolution: Joseph's relentless campaigning and intellectual advocacy dismantled long-standing political agreements, ushering in an era of reduced state intervention and increased market freedom.

Final Thoughts:

"The Mad Monk" episode offers a comprehensive exploration of how one politician's vision and determination can alter the course of a nation's history. Through Keith Joseph's journey, listeners gain insight into the complexities of political transformation and the enduring power of ideological conviction.

Transcript

[David Dimbleby]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

[Paul McGann]

Titanic Ship of Dreams, the new podcast from the award winning Noiser Network. Join me, Paul McGann, as we explore life and death on Titanic. I'll delve into my own family story following my great uncle Jimmy as he tries to escape the engine room. We'll hear the harrowing tales of the victims and the testimonies of the lucky survivors.

[Keith Joseph]

I saw that ship sink and I saw that ship break in half.

[Paul McGann]

Titanic Ship of Dreams. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[David Dimbleby]

BBC Sounds Music Radio podcasts It was.

[Keith Joseph]

Karl Marx who has done more to alter the world. I say for Hill.

[David Dimbleby]

It's 1974 and a man is standing in front of a room full of students. The room is small but packed.

[Keith Joseph]

How did he have the time to write his work?

[David Dimbleby]

Some of them are laughing at him, some heckling. The speaker is tall, slightly disheveled, eyes darting around the room, looking out of place in his suit and tie, hectoring an audience who are goading him on.

[Keith Joseph]

It was Karl Marx who had more effect on the world.

[David Dimbleby]

He's out of place, but he's on fire. On fire with his determination that things must change or all will be lost. His name is Keith Joseph and he's a senior Conservative politician. But he's also known by another name.

[Paul McGann]

What was the nickname of the barrister and Conservative Cabinet minister Sir Keith Joseph?

[David Dimbleby]

The Conservatives, Rasputin.

[Keith Joseph]

Generally known during the late 1970s and.

[Paul McGann]

1980S as the Mad Monk.

[David Dimbleby]

He was called the Mad Monk. Mad Monk.

[Paul McGann]

The Mad Monk is correct.

[David Dimbleby]

And this Mad Monk was on a mission, a mission to transform the country's hearts and minds.

[Bernard Donahue]

For 30 years, Keith Joseph believes the Socialists have made the running in British.

[David Dimbleby]

Politics to convince Britain that For the past 30 years, every government, both Tory and Labour, had got it wrong.

[Bernard Donahue]

So Sir Keith is on the warpath, goading his opponents to join the battle of ideas.

[David Dimbleby]

It was a mission that would transform politics and Britain forever.

[Margaret Thatcher]

I stand before you tonight in my red star chiffon evening gown, the iron navy of the Western world.

[David Dimbleby]

I'm David Dimbleby and from the history podcast and BBC Radio 4, this is invisible, the story of the free market revolution, a hidden force that changed Britain forever and the invisible hands that shaped it. Episode 2 the Mad Monk we ended the last episode with that chicken farmer, Anthony Fisher. He had set up a radical think tank called the Institute of Economic affairs and he was working away in the background, trying to convince Britain's movers and shakers that the free market was the answer. But the Problem for Fisher was that in the decades following World War II, his ideas were way outside the mainstream. He was battling against the current because whether it was a Labour Prime Minister, we believe that it is essential to maintain the economic controls necessary or whether it was a Tory one.

[Keith Joseph]

We have built our defence against want and sickness and we're proud of it.

[David Dimbleby]

They basically both agreed. Government's job was to steer the nation's economy and to protect the welfare of the people. This was the post war consensus and Fisher's ideas were out in the cold. But in the early 1970s this model was showing signs of weakness. For one thing, inflation kept rising. Strikes began to have a serious impact on people's lives.

[Keith Joseph]

Certainly there was no love lost between the Post Office and the Postal Workers Union. While services were suspended during the strike, post offices were shut and pillar boxes sealed.

[David Dimbleby]

The miners were threatening to walk out. Unemployment hit 1 million. It was clear something was badly wrong. But neither party, Labour or Conservative, seemed to have a way of of putting things right. And then in 1973 things really started to unravel.

[Keith Joseph]

The government have declared a state of.

[David Dimbleby]

Emergency because of the threat to oil.

[Keith Joseph]

Supplies from the Middle east situation.

[David Dimbleby]

War in the Middle East.

[Keith Joseph]

The garage decided to start its own petrol rationing when it received a letter from its suppliers warning that the situation had seriously affected the company's supply of crude oil and petroleum products.

[David Dimbleby]

Oil prices skyrocketed. People started queuing at petrol stations, motorists filling their tanks before the supplies ran out. Good evening.

[Bernard Donahue]

It's really been one of those weeks, hasn't it?

[David Dimbleby]

I was working on the BBC's Nationwide at the time. It was an early evening magazine program that went out after the news every night.

[Bernard Donahue]

As always, everyone's been blaming everybody else for what's happened. The government have blamed the motorists for causing a panic run on petrol. The motorists have been attacking the garages. Some of the garages have been attacking the oil companies.

[David Dimbleby]

And this petrol shortage was the only thing people were talking about. The soaring price of oil meant the government now had to rely on coal to provide electric power. So the miners chose this moment to ramp up their threats and demand more money. And the government took extreme measures in response.

[Keith Joseph]

The government has ordered severe cuts in electricity for industry and commerce. For many workers it will mean a three day week and less pay.

[David Dimbleby]

The country was plunged into darkness whilst.

[Keith Joseph]

We celebrated the start of another year. The lights were going out all over.

[David Dimbleby]

Britain and the government gave advice about how to cope.

[Paul McGann]

You don't need to do your teeth.

[David Dimbleby]

With a Light on.

[Keith Joseph]

You can do it in the dark.

[David Dimbleby]

Ordinary life was completely disrupted. It was almost like being back in the war. I mean, I remember streets in darkness, shop fronts with their lights switched off. The cinemas were closed, theaters apparently working by candlelight. I can't think of anything in my lifetime that resembled it, except perhaps the restrictions imposed after Covid.

[Keith Joseph]

I want to speak to you simply and plainly about the grave emergency now facing our country. We shall have a harder Christmas than we have known since the war.

[David Dimbleby]

There was a headline in the American Wall Street Journal that summer which read, goodbye, Great Britain. It was nice knowing you. We had become a laughingstock on the world stage. In 1974, I began presenting Panorama. Panorama, certainly the flagship of BBC current affairs television programs, celebrated its 21st birthday this week with a new presenter, David Dimbleby. And in program after program, we debated the serious issues facing Britain. I think if we're going to get to the root of this 30 year decline, you mustn't be frightened of a bit of discussion. Successive governments seem to have run out of options. We do face what is generally agreed to be a very grave economic crisis. People came on the program with all kinds of different ideas of what to do.

[Bernard Donahue]

In tonight's program, we'll be examining the government's plans for regenerating British industry by by a massive extension of public investment and ownership.

[David Dimbleby]

There were even wild suggestions that what the country really needed was a military takeover, a coup. I believe that all the leaders in Parliament are tending to ignore the threat to the Constitution. And I believe it is time for good men to stand up and do something about it. It's hard to believe, but people were completely serious about it.

[Bernard Donahue]

This polarization in society I think might lead to a situation of authoritarian government which would use military force to maintain.

[David Dimbleby]

Its position and keep its power.

[Keith Joseph]

The question is, what can we do now to stop the likes of civilization going out altogether?

[David Dimbleby]

The point is, at the time, everyone was asking, what are we going to do? But no one seemed to have an answer. Then one day we invited onto the program someone rather eccentric. He had wild curly hair, he sometimes sweated as he spoke, and his eyes were always off to one side, scanning the room. His name was Keith Joseph, and a few months before he'd been in the Conservative cabinet. But in spite of that, he seemed to lack confidence. He was so nervous, we didn't actually dare to bring him into the tense atmosphere of the studio and decided instead to talk to him at a place where he'd feel at home. His Oxford college, All Souls but even that wasn't enough to calm him down. The driver who brought him to Oxford afterwards told me that on the journey, Joseph had asked him to stop the car so that he could be sick on the verge. Keith Joseph was nervous because this interview was really important to him. He was a man on a mission and he was about to make his argument on Panorama with a huge audience. An argument that would shake the foundations of the British political system. He wanted to tell the country that there was only one way of solving Britain's problems and that was to get government off people's backs.

[Keith Joseph]

Every time the government takes a decision, it takes away the power of decision from the people. And we've gone too far along that road.

[David Dimbleby]

Keith's argument was astonishing because it was coming from someone who most people knew as a rather conventional politician, someone who was very much a believer in the post war consensus.

[Keith Joseph]

The only answer is more houses.

[David Dimbleby]

Minister for housing in the 1960s, reaching.

[Keith Joseph]

And maintaining a level of 400,000 houses.

[David Dimbleby]

A year, in charge of one of the biggest house building programs in British history. He believed in using the power of government for good.

[Keith Joseph]

We have to spread the resources through all the needs, that is the slums, the homeless and those who want to own homes of their own as well.

[David Dimbleby]

But over time, Joseph began to have doubts. He took a close look at the government that he was serving at, the trade unions, which seemed to be more and more powerful, at taxation, which was always high. And he started to think that maybe the country had got it wrong. Then one day he was sitting on the beach with his children on a summer holiday, reading the newspaper, when an article caught his eye with the catchy little title, the Subsidized Road to Good Intentions. Joseph devoured it. The author was connected to something called the Institute of Economic Affairs. Yes, that Institute of Economic affairs, the one started by our chicken farmer, Anthony Fisher. Joseph was intrigued. He began reading their many pamphlets, even going to their lectures. And slowly but surely his mind was being changed. And by the mid-1970s, when we made the film about him for Panorama, he was a fully paid up member of Fisher's cult and he wanted to tell the world about his Damascene conversion.

[Keith Joseph]

I thought I was a Conservative, but all the time I was in favor of shortcuts to Utopia. I was in favor of the government doing things because I was so impatient for good things to be done, to.

[David Dimbleby]

Loudly proclaim that everything he had believed in his entire life, his whole career, was wrong.

[Keith Joseph]

I didn't realize that the government generally makes a mess. The government is overwhelmed. It's trying to do far too much and it's doing it very badly.

[David Dimbleby]

And his solution.

[Keith Joseph]

And now I realise that we've got to try to hand back more decisions to the people. We've got to trust the people.

[David Dimbleby]

And for him, that meant taking decision making power from government and giving it to the market. Free people making a free choice about what they wanted. I put it to him that it was, to put it mildly, a pretty surprising thing for a senior Tory politician to be saying.

[Bernard Donahue]

Isn't there a real danger that the public hearing you say this, will say to themselves, it is incredible that a party can go the way it's gone, ask for our vote for 30 years and then suddenly a conversion to something so radically different that it represents a really entirely different kind of policy and we don't actually find it credible.

[Keith Joseph]

Do you not think that the public recognizes that some things with the best of intentions haven't gone awfully well?

[David Dimbleby]

At the end of that interview, there was no doubt in my mind how committed he was.

[Keith Joseph]

The facts are on our side. We need to wage and win the battle of ideas.

[David Dimbleby]

But what was Joseph going to do? He decided that the best thing was to go around speaking to anyone who'd listened to him, to working men's clubs, debating societies, anywhere that would have them.

[Bernard Donahue]

Every day of the week, before university and polytechnic audiences like this, as well as gatherings of the party faithful. Sir Keith wages his intellectual offensive.

[David Dimbleby]

As we heard at the beginning. He'd stand at the front of lecture halls where posters were showing Marx and Che Guevara, and he'd tell the young idealists that what they were fighting for was wrong. What Britain needed was not more, but less interference by the state.

[Bernard Donahue]

It amounts to a restated Tory creed, different from the voice we've been accustomed to hear from the Conservative Party, more aggressive, more clearly defined and not at all apologetic about the more controversial articles of the faith.

[David Dimbleby]

He called it his campaign for capitalism. And he met fierce opposition. He was heckled, he was boycotted. One time he was even physically attacked.

[David Willits]

He was agonized and passionate. There was this kind of vein on his temple that was throbbing.

[David Dimbleby]

That's David Willits. He'd later become one of Britain's most ardent free marketeers. But in the early 1970s, he was a student who just arrived at Oxford.

[David Willits]

University and I'd been interested in socialism. There was a time as a boy when I got the Morning Star and used to read the Morning Star in my youthful teens.

[David Dimbleby]

The Morning Star was a paper partly funded by Moscow by the Soviet Union itself.

[David Willits]

I did think, well, communism must be the obvious thing. What's the point of anybody having a different income from anyone else?

[David Dimbleby]

David Willits didn't quite see himself as a communist, but he was searching for a solution to Britain's problems. And then one day he went to a talk at the Students Union, as he often did. The speaker was this middle aged Tory politician. It was of course, Keith Joseph.

[David Willits]

He seemed almost haunted by kind of what had gone wrong, had he had a role in what had gone wrong. And he was really appealing to us as a younger generation, as the next generation, not to make the mistakes he had made.

[David Dimbleby]

David was intrigued and he started exploring these ideas and inevitably one place he went to was a radical think tank.

[David Willits]

I became a subscriber to the Institute of Economic affairs, started getting their pamphlets, ripped the covers off with excitement when they arrived.

[David Dimbleby]

Soon David's Morning Star days were over. Now he was reading articles which dealt.

[David Willits]

With things like why planning controls were stopping us building houses or why the control of prices in some industry or other was doing damage and why the monopoly in air transport was a bad thing.

[David Dimbleby]

Probably not what most young people in the 70s were reading, but to David these were exciting ideas, ideas that had the potential to change the world. And David started following Keith Joseph.

[David Willits]

He was as intellectually serious as the papers and books I was reading. And he was also active in politics. He had real power and he wanted to use political power to deliver some of these ideas.

[David Dimbleby]

And so by the time David left Oxford, he decided he'd go into politics, follow Keith Joseph's vision and change the country.

[David Willits]

I was definitely, when I left, a free marketeer and I didn't believe that just as a piece of sort of economic theory. I also thought it was a better society with greater freedom.

[David Dimbleby]

So Keith Joseph was clearly winning over some hearts and minds. But he had to do something else, something far more difficult. He had to win over his party. Because in the mid-1970s many conservatives were skeptical of Joseph's free market vision, just like he used to be. But Joseph was determined to change that. So he did what any good politician would do.

[Unknown Speaker]

I became aware that he was starting a think tank.

[David Dimbleby]

That's Bernard Donahue. Bernard was Keith Joseph's ideological counterpart. On the opposite side he worked for the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. And in 1974 he set up the number 10 policy unit. And his job was to support the government, defend the post war status quo, make it work and find out what the Tories were up to.

[Unknown Speaker]

I was a bit of A spy. That's how I got my information I was brought up on. You crossed those margins and you dealt with all the serious political people, even if they were on the other side.

[David Dimbleby]

And the enemy on the other side Bernard was most interested in was Keith Joseph.

[Unknown Speaker]

I mean, some people found they couldn't talk to him because he didn't necessarily listen to what they said. And he would tell them something else, mainly of supporting the free market economy. Sometimes in a discussion, he would suddenly wave his arms all around and start to babble.

[David Dimbleby]

Keith Joseph was single minded, obsessive, totally devoted to one thing free market capitalism. And then in October 1974, he spotted his opportunity. The Tory leader Edward Heath was standing down after losing two elections to Labour in a single year. And Joseph thought this could be his moment and he prepared to run for the leadership of the Conservative Party and of course, to win it round to his radical ideas. He talked to the press, he lobbied his colleagues, trying to build up enough support to win the leadership. It was all going well until he made a fatal error. In October 1974, he gives a speech in Birmingham to Conservative Party members and he'd arranged to talk about something close to his heart and to the hearts of the gathered party members. That was family values. And that's when he says something that's truly shocking, something nobody saw coming. He says, too many children nowadays are being born to women with little education and the balance of our population, our human stock, is threatened. What he seemed to be saying is that the poor were breeding too much. It had the disconcerting ring of eugenics. Inevitably, next morning, the press were camped on his doorstep.

[Keith Joseph]

Are you having any thoughts of compulsory birth control? It's unthinkable, literally inconceivable. Of course not.

[David Dimbleby]

He claimed he was misrepresented, but then he seemed to make things worse.

[Keith Joseph]

And it is just emotional security that these one parent households from this group.

[David Dimbleby]

Are least able to give again and again.

[Keith Joseph]

I have no regrets for what I said, because it is true.

[David Dimbleby]

His leadership hopes were now in ruins and he must have wondered whether his crusade to turn the country round was dead. But luckily there was someone waiting in the wings who could take his place. Someone who'd been inspired by him and mentored by him.

[Margaret Thatcher]

When he became convinced, finally convinced that a proposition was correct, he felt he had to defend it. When he faced those raging, spitting Trotskyite crowds at our great liberal centers of learning, I suspect he wondered sometimes whether he would have to die for it.

[Paul McGann]

Titanic Ship of Dreams, the new podcast from the Award winning Noiser Network. Join me, Paul McGann, as we explore life and death on Titanic. I'll delve into my own family story following my great uncle Jimmy as he tries to escape the engine room. We'll hear the harrowing tales of the victims and the testimonies of the lucky survivors.

[Keith Joseph]

I saw that ship sink and I saw that ship break in half.

[Paul McGann]

Titanic ship of dreams. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[David Dimbleby]

Margaret Thatcher. We were always going to get to her. Bernard Donahue remembers meeting her for the first time a decade earlier in 1964.

[Unknown Speaker]

An October evening, absolutely pouring down. We sat there waiting and then suddenly the doors flew open. And in through the door, taking off her soaking wet raincoat, came this quite smart lady. She rolled her wet raincoat up and without looking back, she threw it over her shoulder without looking. And one of the men behind her caught it.

[David Dimbleby]

He was immediately impressed.

[Unknown Speaker]

She was always very sharp, almost aggressive at times.

[David Dimbleby]

But Donoghue says what she didn't have at the time was a clear political agenda.

[Unknown Speaker]

And I saw the change over the years that like in 64, she was full of this sharpness. But she didn't have many particular policies.

[David Dimbleby]

That was until she started sitting at the feet of the mad monk.

[Unknown Speaker]

She would, you know, refer to her guru, Keith Joseph.

[David Dimbleby]

She became his disciple.

[Unknown Speaker]

He told me he felt she had got all the right instincts but not much knowledge.

[David Dimbleby]

And so he set about training her Yoda to Thatcher's Luke Skywalker. He taught her about how to cut spending and about the case for a leaner state. He gave her pamphlets to read and books.

[Margaret Thatcher]

The view, which became an orthodoxy in the early part of this century was that the story of human progress in the modern world was a story of increasing state power. It was in revolt against this trend that Hayek wrote the Road to Serfdom, which had such a great effect upon me when I first read it, and a greater effect still when Keith suggested that I go deeper into Hayek's other writings.

[David Dimbleby]

Soon Margaret Thatcher was singing from the Keith Joseph hymnbook.

[Margaret Thatcher]

We would make private enterprise worthwhile. Profit would no longer be a dirty word.

[David Dimbleby]

So when Keith's campaign collapsed, he knew who to turn to. She was a far better communicator and she had the common touch.

[Margaret Thatcher]

We'll bring in a society which lives within its means, where public expenditure is cut and where waste of taxpayers money is ruthlessly expunged. Yes, we'll bring in a conservative society.

[David Dimbleby]

The leadership baton had been passed, but that of course didn't guarantee that Thatcher would be the next Prime Minister, she was still way out of the political mainstream. And for a time it seemed as though the Labour government was doing all right. They'd made a deal with the unions. Maybe the crisis was averted. But then came the winter of 1979.

[Keith Joseph]

With the worst weather conditions for over 30 years, it looked the proverbial winter of discontent.

[David Dimbleby]

Inflation at 10%, the government offering workers only a 5% pay rise. And one by one, the unions go on strike in a power struggle that's.

[Keith Joseph]

Plunged the country into its toughest crisis since the General Strike of 1926 and plagued the the daily life of every sector of the population.

[David Dimbleby]

And this time it did truly feel as though the country and the government was at breaking point.

[Keith Joseph]

And bodies are literally piling up. In Liverpool alone, 300 have been stored, possibly for a mass emergency burial at sea. This time it's been a short, sharp strike, but it's already had a knock on effect. There are empty beds up on Bland Sutton Ward because the hospital stopped all but emergency admissions last Thursday.

[David Dimbleby]

All these dreadful people holding us to ransom. We were the laughing stock of the world. The post war consensus was dead. People were ready for change. And on a bright spring day in May 1979.

[Bernard Donahue]

Good evening. We'll be on the air here with decision 79. Until 4:00.

[David Dimbleby]

I stayed up all night covering every tense moment.

[Bernard Donahue]

And that scoreboard behind me, which at the moment shows nothing, will be giving us some clue as to who is to form the next government of Britain.

[David Dimbleby]

And Bernard Donahue was watching from inside number 10.

[Unknown Speaker]

It was very clear early on, the first few results that Mrs. Thatcher was going to win.

[Bernard Donahue]

Waving there, coming out in a smart new suit at Flood Street. We recognize Flood street by the cherry blossom.

[Unknown Speaker]

And then I walk out of the back of number 10. I had to stop to let pass the little convoy of Mrs. Thatcher. Turning down Whitehall. I gave a wave. And that was the start of the new transformation.

[David Dimbleby]

Keith Joseph, certainly one of the most interesting politicians I'd ever met and to many people one of the weirdest, had in the space of just five years, broken the post war consensus. He changed the minds of students, of politicians and eventually of the country. His disciple was now in power.

[Margaret Thatcher]

Her Majesty the Queen has asked me to form a new administration and I have accepted. It is, of course, the greatest honor that can come to any citizen in a democracy. There is now work, work to be done.

[David Dimbleby]

But would Keith Joseph's free market revolution actually work? There was no great automatic enthusiasm. Lots of people said, look, it's absurd. That's next time. Invisible Hands is from The History Podcast, Radio 4's home for story driven history documentaries and if you subscribe on BBC Sounds and switch on push notifications, we'll tell you as soon as new episodes of this series become available. Invisible Hands is a Sam as DAT audio production for BBC Radio 4 and the History Podcast. It's hosted by me, David Dimbleby. The producer is Joe Barrett. The Executive producers and story editors are Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitsina. Sound design by Peregrine Andrews. The commissioning editor at Radio 4 is Dan Clark and our thanks to Phil Tinline, Peggy Sutton and Leo Schick. I'm Helena Bonham Carter and for BBC Radio 4 I'm back with a brand new series of history's secret Heroes. And he tells her that she will.

[Keith Joseph]

Be sent to France as a secret agent. She will work undercover and if she.

[David Dimbleby]

Is caught, she's going to be shot. Join me for more stories of unsung heroes, acts of resistance, deception and courage from World War II. Subscribe to History's Secret Heroes on BBC Sounds.

[Paul McGann]

Ship of Dreams, the new podcast from the award winning Noiser Network. Join me Paul McGann as we explore life and death on Titanic. I'll delve into my own family story following my great Uncle Jimmy as he tries to escape the engine room. We'll hear the harrowing tales of the victims and the testimonies of the lucky survivors.

[Keith Joseph]

I saw that ship sink and I saw that ship break in half.

[Paul McGann]

Titanic Ship of Dreams Listen wherever you get your podcasts.