 In the debate about educational standards in the 1960s, he found the Labour government hostile to his idea of a university outside the state-financed framework and felt the Liberal Party was "moving increasingly to the left".That inclined him to join the Conservative Party upon his retirement in 1979.He received a knighthood in 1980, and on 26 May 1981 he was created a life peer, taking the title Baron Beloff, "of Wolvercote in the County of Oxfordshire".