Thursday 26 July 2012, 6.30pm-7.30pm, followed by a drinks reception until 8.15pm

To call someone a reactionary is to insult them and to end any argument. But what if one were to gratefully accept the label? What would it mean to wilfully and honestly be a reactionary?

But is reaction compatible with the free market? What is the proper response to raid economic and political change? And how does reaction relate to current conservative and libertarian thought?

In this lecture Peter King considers the nature of reaction as a justified response to the constant call for progress. He seeks to relate reaction to broader political and economic issues and provides a defence of tradition and established ways of conducting politics.

Dr Peter King is Reader in Social Thought at De Montfort University. His researches in the areas of conservative social thought, housing policy and welfare reform. He is the author of fifteen books including an IEA monograph entitled Choice and the End of Social Housing in 2006 and The New Politics: Liberal Conservatism or the Same Old Tories? (published by The Policy Press in 2011.) Peter King edited a special issue of the IEA journal Economic Affairs on housing for the poor in June 2008.

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