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Rab hammered the bill through with the slogan: "Education is the spearhead of social reform." Its passage in 1944 gave him senior status in the party, and Cabinet rank as the first Minister of Edu cation. But the "Butler Act" did more. In the public's view, Rab's name no longer stood for a man of Munich, but for a leader of social reform. When the time came, Butler was the logical choice as the spokesman for the new progressive Toryism.
The time to speak came soon. With peace, the bitter recollection of bread lines, hunger marches, closing shipyards and pits, employers who exploited unemployment to depress wages under prewar Tory governments flooded back into British memories. The Tories were unceremoniously bundled out of office. Butler himself survived by only 1,158 votes.
Many another Tory had long recognized the need for modernizing the Conservative Party (Beveridge's cradle-to-grave plan was instigated by Churchill's Tory-dominated wartime coalition government, and was endorsed by most Tories). Essentially, however, the modernization finally came not so much because the Tories sought it, as because they were forced to it. No sudden lightning flash of inspiration and generosity on the part of the Tories brought about the change; the electorate, by administering a resounding rebuke, made it imperative. But in the swirling waters of social change now loosed by the Socialists intent on nationalizing all major industry, sharing all wealth, leveling all distinctions, where was the Tory Party to take its stand and find its feet?
Rab Butler was picked to find the answer. He took over the two chairs and one desk which constituted the Tory research department, and set to work "to wrest the initiative in the realm of political ideas from the Left." His first step was something hitherto unknown in Tory circles—he called on party members for ideas. Said Rab: "When I first knew the Tory Party, policy was brought down from Mount Sinai on tablets of stone. The faithful who waited for the tablets were often blinded by the light they saw."