Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Dedication
- Joseph family tree
- 1 “Rather an Enigma …”
- 2 Triumph and Tragedy
- 3 “Altruism and Egotism”
- 4 The Start of an Innings
- 5 The Man in Whitehall
- 6 “Blind”
- 7 The First Crusade
- 8 “Inflammatory Filth”
- 9 A Titanic Job
- 10 “Not a Conservative”
- 11 “A Good Mind Unharnessed”
- 12 “Really, Keith!”
- 13 The Last Examination
- 14 “If you seek his monument …”
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - The Man in Whitehall
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Dedication
- Joseph family tree
- 1 “Rather an Enigma …”
- 2 Triumph and Tragedy
- 3 “Altruism and Egotism”
- 4 The Start of an Innings
- 5 The Man in Whitehall
- 6 “Blind”
- 7 The First Crusade
- 8 “Inflammatory Filth”
- 9 A Titanic Job
- 10 “Not a Conservative”
- 11 “A Good Mind Unharnessed”
- 12 “Really, Keith!”
- 13 The Last Examination
- 14 “If you seek his monument …”
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
When Richard Crossman became Minister of Housing and Local Government in October 1964 he realised that:
the name “Ministry of Housing and Local Government” is an extraordinary misnomer. In fact the Ministry does no house building at all. The people who build are either the local authorities or private-enterprise builders. Our Ministry is a Ministry for permissions, regulations, an administrative Ministry where the Minister should be someone passionately interested in the judicial activities of making decisions or giving planning permissions for the future of New Towns.
Crossman was a keen observer of government machinery, but this corner of Whitehall had escaped his special scrutiny because he had expected to be sent to the Department of Education and Science. Consoled by the Prime Minister Harold Wilson with the thought that he “was to lead the housing drive”, Crossman soon grasped that he was in no position to drive anything. His predecessors at the ministry, he felt, had done little more than:
add up the figures and take credit for the creation of houses which are largely the responsibility on the one side of the Ministry of Public Building and Works, who deal with the housing industry, and on the other of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who fixes the rate of interest which largely determines how many private-sector houses are built.
This realization was an unfortunate start to his relationship with the ministry. Crossman was only cheered by the expectations that the Government's target for house building would be met regardless of his decisions – and that he was unlikely to stay at Housing for very long.
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- Information
- Keith Joseph , pp. 87 - 115Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2001