Rab Butler Rab Butler 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. "The Times" obituary called him "the creator of the modern educational system, the key-figure in the revival of post-war Conservatism, arguably the most successful chancellor since the war and unquestionably a Home Secretary of reforming zeal." He was one of his party's leaders in promoting the post-war consensus through which the major parties largely agreed on the main points of domestic policy until
Rab Butler century, under any circumstances whatever". Powell and Macleod both refused to serve under Home. Butler had planned to make Macleod Chancellor of the Exchequer and discussed the names of economists who could be asked to advise. Butler was less devastated than in 1957, as this time it was largely a voluntary abnegation. In a BBC radio interview in 1978 he discussed that in 1963, he had been passed over in favour of a "terrific gent", not a "most ghastly walrus". Home and even Macmillan, himself in the 1980s, later conceded that it might have been better if Butler had become