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 respect Churchill after serving under him. Butler was reappointed to his Foreign Office job on 15 May 1940. On 17 June 1940, three days after the Fall of Paris and the day Marshal Petain asked for an armistice, Butler had a mysterious meeting in St James's Park with the Swedish trade envoy Dr Björn Prytz. The meeting continued for a few minutes in the Foreign Office, during which Butler conferred briefly with Lord Halifax in his office. Prytz reported back to Stockholm that Butler had declared that British policy must be determined by "common sense not bravado" (the phrase was