Political career of Rab Butler: 1929–1941 Political career of Rab Butler: 1929–1941 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. Butler was elected to Parliament for Saffron Walden in Essex at the 1929 General Election, and soon became a parliamentary assistant to Samuel Hoare, the leading Conservative politician associated with Indian policy. Butler attended the Second Round Table Conference and early in 1932 he visited India on Lord Lothian's Franchise Committee, which recommended an increase in the Indian franchise.
Rab Butler reshuffle was imminent. He himself referred to it as the "Massacre of Glencoe". Macmillan later told Selwyn Lloyd (1 August) that he thought Butler had been planning to split the party over EEC entry. In the reshuffle Butler lost the Home Office (although he kept the Central Africa Department) but at last received the formal titles of Deputy Prime Minister and First Secretary of State. At this point Macmillan told him that he was still his most likely successor as Prime Minister. However, Macmillan used the occasion to promote younger men such as Lord Hailsham (in charge of negotiating the