Ed Butler son of Sir Adam Butler MP and grandson of Conservative politician Richard Austen "Rab" Butler. Ed Butler Brigadier Edward Adam Butler CBE, DSO (born 27 February 1962) is a former British Army officer who commanded Task Force Helmand. Educated at Eton College and the University of Exeter, Butler was commissioned into the Royal Green Jackets in August 1984. He was mentioned in dispatches for his service in Northern Ireland in November 1991, received the Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service for his service in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia in Autumn 1997 and received the Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service again
Rab Butler the comparatively early age of 62, Butler left office with one of the longest records of ministerial experience amongst contemporary politicians. After the election, he lost the chairmanship of the Conservative Research Department, which he had headed for twenty years, and refused an earldom. Butler remained on the Conservative front bench into the next year. Harold Wilson felt that the Conservatives had made Butler a scapegoat after the "“Daily Express”" incident during the election, and offered him the job of Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, where his great uncle Henry Montagu Butler had previously been Master, on 23 December 1964.