Word: butlered
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Member of Parliament for 34 of his 60 years, Butler is a dedicated organization man who nonetheless takes irreverent delight in the impish indiscretion and bland ambivalence. When Eden's ditherings with economic and colonial problems stirred angry criticism in 1956, it was Butler who declared slyly: "He is the best Prime Minister we have." He once said that Britain's sacrosanct civil service is "a bit like a Rolls-Royce-you know it's the best machine in the world, but you're not quite sure what to do with it." His sallies have earned...
When Churchill became Prime Minister, he could not forgive Butler for having defended Chamberlain's actions, but he recognized Rab's talents and in 1941 offered him a choice between the important Ministry of Information and the backwater Board of Education. Remote as it was from the war effort, Butler plumped for education, knowing that it would be one of the key areas of postwar social reform. When he thanked Churchill for the job, legend has it that the Prime Minister retorted: "I meant it as an in sult." Nonetheless, the highly acclaimed Butler Act in 1944 became...
...importance of the individual in a "property-owning democracy" and redefined Conservatism as a "policy of humanity and common sense." Almost as important to the party's future as his New Conservatism were "Rab's Boys," the bright young back-room protégés whom Butler enlisted to help formulate policy. Among them: Chancellor of the Exchequer Reginald Maudling, House Leader and Party Co-Chairman Iain Macleod, Lord Privy Seal Ted Heath. According to a House of Commons quip, "Rab gave Macmillan his brains...
...Butler was an outstanding Chancellor of the Exchequer for four years after the Tories' return to power in 1951. His less able successor was Macmillan, and the two top Tories have coolly coexisted in the years since. During an economic crisis in which he successfully resisted Cabinet pressure to curtail the government's newfangled social services, Rab said pointedly: "We have lived too long on old port and overripe pheasant." On another occasion, he gave John F. Kennedy a cue by exhorting the voters "not just to think you are going to get something out of government; think...
Tories for his cell-to-ceiling program of reform for Britain's Dickensian prison system. Since 1962, when he was named First Secretary of State, Butler has supervised a variety of thankless tasks, notably mapping independence for the three states of the Central African Federation. He is outspokenly pro-American and, with Foreign Secretary Lord Home, has probably been the staunchest Cabinet advocate of British membership in President Kennedy's "mixed manned" multilateral force...