Political career of Rab Butler: 1929–1941 Haushofer, a foreign policy advisor to Rudolf Hess, listed Butler as somebody in London who was likely to be sympathetic to peace talks. 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
Rab Butler recommendation of the prewar Cadogan Report. Butler gave a very successful speech at the Conservative Conference in 1959. Despite the recommendations of the Wolfenden report he was not able to decriminalise homosexual acts between consenting adults (this did not happen until 1967), although Conservatives were happier to implement Wolfenden's recommended crackdown on street prostitution. He passed the Licensing Act 1961 and reformed the law on obscene publications. The Betting and Gaming Act legalised betting. Annual immigration from the Indian subcontinent had risen from 21,000 in 1959 to 136,000 in 1961; Butler introduced the first curbs on immigration (although the Eden