Patrick Cosgrave presents us in this short book with a remarkable analysis of why Mr Butler was never chosen to be prime minister. When I think of Rab Butler, I recall Addison’s words: ‘’Tis not in mortals to command success, but we’ll do more, Sempronius, we’ll deserve it.’ He undoubtedly had one of the best brains in post-war government – but he was never popular. As Ian Macleod said, ‘Rab loves being a politician among academics and an academic among politicians: that is why neither breed of man likes him all that much.’ With the exception of Winston Churchill, no man in recent years has held more offices and for so long a period of time. On at least four occasions he acted as Deputy Prime Minister. For most men this would have been an amazingly successful political career – yet for him it was not.
According to Dr Cosgrave, Butler has said that he had three ambitions in life and that he failed to achieve any of them. His first ambition was to go to Eton, but he was frustrated when he failed an examination. It is interesting that he had the temerity, even as a boy, to question the supervising master as to whether a mistake hadn’t been made in failing him. Rather than go to Harrow, with which there were long family connections and which was what his family wished for him, he chose to go to Marlborough. Secondly, because he had spent a good deal of his child-hood there, he hoped to become Viceroy of India.
Thirdly, his sights were, of course, set on becoming prime minister. He believed, with reason, that he should have been chosen in 1963, instead of Douglas-Home, and in 1957 instead of Macmillan; he has even said that he felt he, rather than Anthony Eden, should have followed Churchill as prime minister. Butler had little regard for Eden, of whom he said, ‘he is the best prime minister we have got,’ adding when asked to amplify the remark: ‘Oh, capax imperii and all that.’ In other words, capax imperii nisi imperasset, which roughly translated means ‘apparently capable of governing until called upon to do so’. Equally derisive were his words to Patrick Cosgrave: ‘Anthony’s father was a mad baronet and his mother a very beautiful woman. That is what Anthony is, half a mad baronet himself and half a beautiful woman.’
Acid comments of this kind must have made Butler many enemies. In my small contacts with him I found him extremely sympathetic and helpful, but one was aware of a kind of flabbiness in him which inhibited positive action or a definite stance on any question. For example, after the 1950 Election, Butler asked the nine members of the One-Nation Group to have drinks with him at his house in Smith Square, and he told us he would like to write a foreword to our booklet, ‘One Nation’. He recommended the book as a healthy piece of constructive work which would capture the interest of everyone who was anxious to sustain the confidence of the democracy in the programmes which had been undertaken. But he capped his approval by stating: ‘There has been no question, or indeed opportunity, of approving these essays as part of Parliamentary policy. Responsibility both for the editing and for the views expressed rests with the authors.’ This is how Butler’s mind worked. He always seemed to be hedging his bets and never came down wholeheartedly on one side or the other. One might say that this attitude was politically sound, given his belief that politics is the art of the possible. But it is not surprising that he was known to some as ‘Mr Facing Both Ways’.
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