Thatcher’s Controversial Education Chief Dropped

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dismissed one of her most controversial Cabinet ministers Wednesday and shifted the portfolios of two others in what was viewed as an attempt to revive her government’s sagging political fortunes.

Thatcher’s removal of embattled Education Secretary Keith Joseph had been rumored for several weeks, and severe losses suffered by her Conservative Party in nationwide local elections earlier this month are believed to have accelerated his departure.

Joseph’s inability to end a year-old, work-by-the-book action by Britain’s largest teachers union, his combative personal style and confusion over implementing key educational reforms combined to make education an issue of growing public concern.

Social Services Spending

Thatcher’s government has been most vulnerable on the issue of spending on social services. Education, together with record unemployment and declining quality of health care, is seen as an area where she must improve her government’s image if she hopes to win a third term as prime minister in elections that must be held within the next two years.

A recent opinion poll showed the Tories to be lagging behind the opposition Labor and Social Democrat-Liberal Alliance parties with a popularity of only 28%.

Thatcher replaced Joseph with her environment secretary, Kenneth Baker, a man elevated to Cabinet level only eight months ago but known as a polished communicator.

His primary task will be to make peace with the country’s largest teachers union, restore badly eroded public confidence in primary and secondary education and help to repair the government’s image in its handling of education policy, political commentators said.

A pay dispute involving nearly half the country’s 420,000 teachers was recently submitted to the country’s arbitration service, but no result is expected before July.

Winning New Money

“Teachers and parents will judge (Baker’s) performance on his ability to win new money,” a senior teacher’s union official, Douglas McAvoy, said.

An independent survey of 1,600 state-funded schools published Wednesday classified nearly one-third of all classroom instruction as substandard.

Baker also is likely to attempt to implement programs calling for improved teacher evaluations, incentive pay and a broadening of classroom curricula.

Despite the extent of the government’s problems in the educational field, Thatcher’s decision to replace Joseph is viewed as a barometer of how urgently she believes changes are needed.

The 68-year-old Joseph is a close political ally who helped win her the Conservative Party leadership 11 years ago and has remained an important adviser within the Cabinet. But his aggressive style and failure to settle the teachers’ dispute helped aggravate the government’s image of insensitivity.

Important Architect

In an exceptionally warm letter, Thatcher called Joseph an important architect of policies that led to back-to-back Conservative general election triumphs.

“Our debt to you is great indeed,” she wrote.

The choice of Baker, 51, a well-known party liberal, also reflects Thatcher’s willingness to promote those she once disparagingly dismissed as “wets.” It is a change apparently made in the belief that such men are needed to offset Thatcher’s own hard-nose image.

In the other moves announced Wednesday, Transport Minister Nicholas Ridley was named to replace Baker as environment secretary and John Moore, the financial secretary to the treasury and once a Chicago stockbroker, enters the Cabinet to replace Ridley.