"Some would hail Rab Butler as beyond question the most important and the greatest Conservative of his generation; and certainly his continuous record as a minister or shadow minister from 1932 to 1964 is a tribute to his endurance. Helped by his young lieutenants he rebuilt the Tory Party; he taxed his countrymen's income less than any other chancellor; he abolished wartime controls; and under him began the prosperity for which Macmillan claimed the credit. His admirers thought the title he chose for his memoirs exemplified his exact understanding of politics: The Art of the Possible. And yet for all his reputation among us as a liberal Conservative who had re-educated his party after 1945 as Peel did after 1832, for all his patronage of a generation of clever young Conservatives in Central Office, for all his amusing deviousness, afraid to strike yet willing, well, not to wound but to scratch, he was so cautious, so much a man of Munich that few major initiatives came from the succession of departments where he presided. He had a record that looked fine as home secretary, chancellor and foreign secretary and, of course, as minister for education: hardly a foot put wrong. But, then, some of us considered, his feet had not moved all that far. If you stride you may put a foot wrong, and Butler failed to stride into the European Community. He and Eden reinforced each other's scepticism. "Whenever I met Anthony, the sort of conversation was, 'Simply nothing doing, you know.'" On major issues he hardly ever questioned the wisdom of his advisers. The paradox remains. He could have won the 1964 election for the Tories but was the only contender for the leadership towards whom his colleagues felt lukewarm."