Rab Butler Rab Butler Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden, (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), generally known as R. A. Butler and familiarly known from his initials as Rab, was a prominent British Conservative politician. "The Times" obituary called him "the creator of the modern educational system, the key-figure in the revival of post-war Conservatism, arguably the most successful chancellor since the war and unquestionably a Home Secretary of reforming zeal." He was one of his party's leaders in promoting the post-war consensus through which the major parties largely agreed on the main points of domestic policy until
Rab Butler him “the last real policy-making Chancellor”. In the alternative reality depicted in John Wyndham's short story "Random Quest", where the Second World War did not happen, Butler is the prime minister. The story was written in 1954, when Butler acceding to the premiership was a serious possibility. Butler becomes World War II prime minister in the 2007 alternative history novel "Resistance" by Owen Sheers. However, he leads a collaborationist puppet government after Germany has largely conquered the British Isles. Butler and Lord Halifax engineered a June 1940 British surrender to Germany, and occupation, in the background to the alternative history