Rab Butler

Uncommon card · No. 136028

Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), also known as R. A. Butler and familiarly known from his initials as Rab, was a prominent British Conservative Party politician; he was effectively deputy prime minister to Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan, although he held the official title for only a brief period in 1962–63. 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 the 1970s; it is sometimes known as "Butskellism" from a fusion of his name with that of his Labour counterpart, Hugh Gaitskell. Born into a family of academics and Indian administrators, Butler had a distinguished academic career before he entered Parliament in 1929. As a junior minister, he helped to pass the Government of India Act 1935. He strongly supported the appeasement of Nazi Germany in 1938 to 1939. Entering the Cabinet in 1941, he served as President of the...

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