After Reading Joseph continued his planned round of speeches. But there was little press interest, and the chastened crusader had dropped the ploy of hacking through his own ranks. He was taciturn in the Commons over the next few months, and the minutes of Shadow Cabinet meetings suggest that his interventions were rare and subdued at this time. In July 1967, for example, the Shadow team discussed a Research Department paper on “Strategy and Tactics”. The debate revolved around the question of whether there were recognisable movements (or “watersheds”) in public opinion. An active crusader would have taken this as an invitation to seize his lance, but Iain Macleod set the tone of the discussion by asserting that the public was not ready to listen to the Conservatives with no immediate prospect of an election. Joseph merely observed that the party should establish a few broad principles, such as “we were in favour of thrift in public spending, and that we sought to look after the needy and the disabled”. Despite all the work of the policy groups it was felt that the party should not go beyond this; even Powell felt that movements of public opinion were difficult to predict or control, and warned against offering hostages to fortune at this stage in the form of detailed policy pronouncements. Joseph would have to keep his armour in storage, at least for a year or two.