Lord Butler of Saffron Walden
The irony of politics
William Rees-Mogg
D ab Butler was the most lovable politi-
cian of his generation. Of those who did not become Prime Minister his work was the most substantial and is already pro- ving the longest lasting. Indeed, there are few Prime Ministers who have left behind so important a legacy. It will always be ask- ed why he did not become Prime Minister, which at least is better for a man than for it always to be asked why he did.
I first met Rab Butler during the period after 1945 when he was reconstructing the Conservative Party. The post-war form of the Conservative Party owes more to his creative ideas than to the work of anyone else. I first got to know him well in the period after he had lost his first wife and ceased to be Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1955 and 1956. That was a low point in his fortunes, from which he made a remarkable but never a complete political recovery. He never had quite the same power in the Con- servative Party as he had enjoyed under Churchill's leadership and he had an uneasy relationship with Harold Macmillan during his time as Prime Minister.
Apart from his work in education and the Conservative Party, Lord Butler was one of the two best post-war Chancellors and in- deed rather better and rather more impor- tant than Roy Jenkins, who ranks next to him. It is interesting to contrast these two admirable and civilised English statesmen. Rab was not much of a European. For bet- ter or worse, he cared more about the English farmers and became reconciled to Europe as the Community turned out to be good for them. He had Roy Jenkins's deter- mination, but perhaps not his bravado. In similar circumstances, I believe he would have been capable of standing in Warr- ington, but I doubt very much whether he could have been persuaded to stand in Hillhead.
I always remember Rab as one might always have remembered Samuel Johnson: not by his specific works, but by his conver- sation. In the first place, one could never discuss any political subject with him without learning of aspects of it which one had not considered. A political conversa- tion with him was symphonic in character. It would move through the whole range from the most serious analysis of policy to the most 'lighthearted discussion of per- sonalities. But he understood the whole range of politics, both in terms of ideals and of the limitations of reality, in a way that very few men I have known have ever understood anything.
His conversation was not malicious, but it was ironic and ridiculous and his sense of their absurdity sometimes disturbed his more pompous colleagues. He had more humour than wit and the delight of his con- versation was that strange fantasies would half-emerge in an ironic form when discuss- ing serious subjects. This could happen in the House, where he would use his gift for oblique expression in order simultaneously to reveal and to conceal parts of his mind. It could happen on public occasions. I can remember at some great Rhodesian dinner, when he was in fact engaged in winding up the Federation, that he offered reassurance to the white settlers by saying: 'Those of you who have made your homes in Africa — and when I say homes, I mean homes ...', and received tumultuous ap- plause from an audience plainly unaware that no meaning could be attached to so gnomic a reassurance.
But it was in private conversation that he was at his most enjoyable. There is a story which I think he tells in his memoirs of his conversation with Churchill shortly before Churchill resigned: Churchill said to him about Eden's succession, 'I think I have made a terrible mistake'; and what Rab most enjoyed was Churchill's following words which were, 'It's all right, old cock, it isn't going to be you'. Many of Rab's stories had an ironic element about himself and all of them had-some double element, just as the Churchill story reveals doubts about Eden (which Rab fully shared) as well as putting Rab himself in a slightly ridiculous light.
It was not always clear where the elements of his fantasies came from. I remember shortly after I had got to know him, that someone at a dinner attempted to introduce us. Rab replied: 'I know William Rees-Mogg well. We served together in the Afghan wars'. The Afghan wars were then a much more suitable subject for humour than they are now.
About the same time, I came back from a meeting in the North with him and stopped overnight at Halstead. Rab, for some reason, became concerned that he had in- convenienced my sister, with whom I then shared a house, and walked round the borders of his garden scooping up great quantities of tulips and daffodils. He com- mented: 'It is more important to be generous than to be efficient — that is what I learned at the Treasury'. Again, the remark has the feel of a succession of receding ironies and if Eden was intended to be put in a slightly unfavourable light by the Churchill story, the Treasury was equal- ly intended to be put in a slightly un- favourable light by his comment.
It cannot be said that Rab was hapPY with Harold Macmillan. They were in many ways complementary. Rab, much the more creative man with a deeper insight into the processes of politics, and particularly of domestic politics. Macmillan, with a harder, more Scottish view, perhaps less wise in counsel, perhaps more effective in action. It was, of course, Macmillan who stopped Rab Butler becoming Prime Minister and who wrecked the Conservative Party in doing so. He stopped him in 1956 because he wanted the job for himself. In 1963, he stopped him again for motives which are perhaps less clear. I have always thought it was a matter of conscience: Mac- millan found it difficult to behave well to a than to whom he had once behaved badly. What is certain is that in 1963 Rab could have had the leadership had he stood out for it. It would not have been possible for Lord Home to form a Government unless Rab had agreed to serve under him. I was at the time one of those who urged Rab t° stand out and I still regret that he did not. He later took a philosophical view of his own decision, though it was inevitably a wound that never quite healed. But for the great happiness of his second marriage it would, I think, have been unbearable. Hardly any other statesman in English history has narrowly missed becoming Prime Minister twice.
He came to think that it made less dif- ference than I have argued. He thought he would have won the 1964 election which Lord Home came quite close to winning, but that a year or two later people would have become bored with him and the pressures which ended Macmillan's own leadership would have ended his. Yet, in fact, 1963 was a critical year for the Conser- vative Party and therefore for British politics. Between 1945 and 1963 under three different leaders, Rab held together the Conservative Party's heart and its head. Since 1963, the heart and the head of the Conservative Party have never been on the best of terms with each other. There was 3 wisdom about Rab's politics which even the most gifted of subsequent statesmen have not found. His wisdom and humour will live for their lifetimes and perhaps beyond in the minds of his friends.
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