One important aspect of Tony Blair's speech on social exclusion, given to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in York on 5 September 2006, has been ignored-that its content was prefigured by Sir Keith Joseph, in his famous ‘cycle of deprivation’ speech, on 29 June 1972. This article seeks to explore these continuities over the past thirty-four years, tracing similarities and differences between the two speeches. Moreover, it also reflects on the earlier Joseph speech and subsequent Research Programme, to see where government policies on social exclusion might lead. The article argues that while earlier writers have acknowledged the intellectual debt that New Labour owes to Joseph, and noted similarities between current policy approaches to child poverty and earlier debates about transmitted deprivation, recent moves on social exclusion mean that these continuities are now more striking than ever before.