He was unusual in his generation of men in that women teachers influenced him profoundly in the sixth form and at the LSE, notably the prominent social and economic historian, Professor Eileen Power.
[6] With Sir Ernest Benn, and others, Abel was co-author of the Individualist Manifesto (1942), a response to the prevalence of dictatorship in Europe from Spain to the Soviet Union.
[7] The manifesto argued that it was imperative that civil liberties and individual responsibility be rapidly restored in Britain after the war and not eroded further by an ever-expanding bureaucracy.
The Manifesto also contended powerfully against restrictive practices by trade unions and the collusion between the state and big business that negated the goal of a wide diffusion of wealth in a property-owning democracy.
[6] From the sixth form onwards, Abel was active in the Liberal Party, standing unsuccessfully in St Albans at the 1950 general election[2] and Torquay in 1951.
[8] He shared the ambition of other activists like Lord Rea, Nancy Seear, Sir Andrew McFadyean and Leonard Behrens of reshaping and reviving the Liberal Party by leaving behind the internecine divisions of the inter-war period and making the case for a reconciliation of traditions of Gladstonian fiscal policy, individualism and the welfare state collectivism of Sir William Beveridge.