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 a younger man. This may explain why Butler did not put up all that much of a fight for the leadership that autumn, although in fact Home, the eventually successful candidate, was almost exactly the same age as Butler, and both men were substantially younger than Macmillan himself had been when he first entered 10 Downing Street. In the summer of 1963, Macmillan told Lord Hailsham, "Rab simply doesn't have it in him to be Prime Minister". Just before Butler departed for the Victoria Falls Conference in July 1963, John Morrison, still Chairman of the 1922 Committee, told him bluntly