Kenneth Robert Minogue (September 11, 1930 – June 28, 2013), also known as Ken Minogue, was an Australian academic and political theorist. Long residing in the United Kingdom, Minogue was a prominent part of the intellectual life of British conservatism. Associated for much of his career with the London School of Economics, where he was Professor of Political Science from 1984 to 1995, he was described as a central figure in a group of prominent conservative philosophers and commentators at the LSE that included Maurice Cranston, Elie Kedourie, and William Letwin. Biography Minogue was born on 11 September 1930 in Palmerston North, New Zealand. He was educated in Australia, attending Sydney Boys High School and the University of Sydney. Graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1950, his time there was influenced by John Anderson, who had built up a reputation on campus for his firm belief in free speech, secularism, and anti-communism. Minogue was involved in student journalism – which he admitted was to the detriment of his studies – and wrote for Honi Soit and a short-lived free-thinking broadsheet, Heresy. Friends included Murray Sayle and Peter Coleman. Deciding to move to England, Minogue made his way there by working as a cabin boy on a ship bound for London via Odessa and Port Said, and, once arrived, soon found himself lodging at a hostel in Russell Square. After a brief stint as a freelance writer, he found steadier income by working as a supply teacher with the London Education Authority for eighteen months. Turned down for a master's degree at the LSE, he instead enrolled for a second undergraduate evening school course in economics at the same institution. Following graduation he spent a year teaching at the University of Exeter, and in 1956 at the invitation of Michael Oakeshott returned as assistant lecturer to the LSE, where he would spend the rest of his academic life. Career Minogue wrote academic essays and books on a great range of problems in political theory. He first came to public attention with his 1961 book The Liberal Mind, which criticised the 'drift' toward collectivism and progressivism in Britain's post-war consensus, which he believed acted as a 'prop to the mediocre' and deprived individuals of personal initiative. A running theme in the book was Minogue's distate for the 'melodrama of oppressors and victims' that he saw as constituting liberal historiography. Minogue,