Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance in the UK is a sharp and provocative speaker and writer. Two nights ago, he gave a fiery address to the Conservative Future, a group of young Tories. Here is how the group reported the speech on its website:

Last night Dr Sean Gabb, director of the Libertarian Alliance, gave an impassioned speech in the cause of liberty to members of Conservative Future at the monthly Star Social event of the Cities of London and Westminster Conservative Future, of which I am chairman. In it he bluntly laid bare the actions that a truly conservative government should take, and his fears for the likely incoming Conservative government.

It was fiery oration, and no doubt shook some of the audience who came with more blissfully sedate views. But it underscored the importance of the conservative movement, the broad church of organisations and individuals which generates the ideas to drive forward the pursuit of liberty. All who attended were of the opinion that whilst they may or may not agree with Dr Gabb, he was an excellent speaker with fascinating ideas.

For my part, I think memories of his speech will live long in attendees' memories, and, uncomfortably perhaps, at least at first, they'll come to see some of the wisdom therein. There can be no question that more young people need to hear from Sean and his ilk, purveyors of fresh thinking.

You can read the transcript of the speech here along with a bit of introductory commentary. I hesitate to provide any excerpt because the speech hangs together as a whole--and you especially want to read the hostile questioning as well as Gabb's responses. But perhaps the most interesting juxtaposition is his advice to abolish the BBC immediately upon obtaining power:

[Y]ou should not try to work with the Establishment. You should not try to jolly it along. You should not try fighting it on narrow fronts. You must regard it as the enemy, and you must smash it.

On the first day of your government, you should close down the BBC. You should take it off air. You should disclaim its copyrights. You should throw all its staff into the street. You should not try to privatise the BBC. This would simply be to transfer the voice of your enemy from the public to the private sector, where it might be more effective in its opposition. You must shut it down - and shut it down at once. You should do the same with much of the administration. The Foreign Office, much of the Home Office, the Commission for Racial Equality, anything to do with health and safety and planning and child protection - I mean much of the public sector - these should be shut down. If at the end of your first month in power, you have not shut down half of the State, you are failing. If you have shut down half the State, you have made a step in the right direction, and are ready for still further cuts.

But retaining welfare and national health care.

Following from this, however, I advise you to leave large areas of the welfare state alone. It is regrettable, but most people in this country do like the idea of healthcare free at the point of use, and of free education, and of pensions and unemployment benefit. These must go in the long term. But they must be retained in the short term to maintain electoral support. Their cost and methods of provision should be examined. But cutting welfare provision would be politically unwise in the early days of our revolution.

The purpose of moving on the former but not the latter is explained this way:

Let me emphasize that the purpose of these cuts would not be to save money for the taxpayers or lift an immense weight of bureaucracy from their backs - though they would do this. The purpose is to destroy the Establishment before it can destroy you. You must tear up the web of power and personal connections that make these people effective as an opposition to radical change. If you do this, you will face no more clamour than if you moved slowly and half-heartedly. Again, I remember to campaign against the Thatcher "cuts". There were no cuts, except in the rate of growth of state spending. You would never have thought this from the the torrent of protests that rolled in from the Establishment and its clients. And so my advice is to go ahead and make real cuts - and be prepared to set the police on anyone who dares riot against you.

This last remark about the Thatcher "cuts" reminded me of how I felt during the Reagan administration. Reagan was loudly and persistently condemned for making radical changes to the size and scope government that he never made. So it always seemed to me that he would have been no worse off politically had he actually had made the radical changes for which he was blamed. Then at least his supporters would be heartened and the benefits of these changes would be felt. But not making the changes, but being blamed for having done so, was the worst of both worlds. So too with the Bush Administration, though Bush's critic have a hard time keeping a straight face when they accuse him of promoting Laissez-Faire. Still, how much worse would Bush's political standing have been if he had actually done what he was accused of doing? I would wager his approval rating would have been higher. 30-35% opposition to any Republican administration is fixed. So you don't get to Bush's low approval numbers without substantial disapproval from his base. However, although I do not know either man personally, I suspect a big difference between Reagan and Bush is that Reagan truly wanted a smaller government and Bush truly did not.