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 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