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 telling him that it would be "like Herbert Morrison" if he took the job ("fantastically insulting" in Campbell's view, as Morrison was then regarded as "the worst Foreign Secretary in living memory"). Butler disagreed with the analysis, but accepted it, enabling Macmillan to claim once again that he had declined the Foreign Office (Butler declined to accept Home's old place as Commonwealth Secretary). In the October 1961 reshuffle Butler lost the party chairmanship to Iain Macleod, who also insisted on getting the job of Leader of the House, which Butler had held since 1955. Butler retained the Home Office, and