PoliticsObituaryRonald Butt
The political commentator Ronald Butt, who has died aged 82, was a scholarly analyst of the old school, whose deeply-felt conservatism allowed him to express sympathy for the inherent difficulties of government - even Labour ones led by Harold Wilson or Jim Callaghan. Wilson affectionately called him "Professor Butt", though during Callaghan's time the humour was sometimes strained.
In a mistake to which cerebral journalists are sometimes prone, Butt once gloomily noted what dire straits the country must be in when a moderate, like Callaghan, felt obliged to belong to the leftwing Tribune Group. He was apparently unaware of another Labour MP called Jim Callagan.
After a brief period as commodities correspondent at the Financial Times - he was remembered for devising a sophisticated index which failed to perform - Butt moved into politics, covering Westminster from the fall of Sir Anthony Eden in 1956-57 to the rise of John Major. He observed at close quarters the career of Margaret Thatcher, whose reformist agenda he admired and understood, though she did not act upon a recurring theme of his later Times columns, to challenge the permissive social settlement of the 1960s.
Butt grew up in south London and, after military service which included post-D-Day action in France, he read history at St Catherine's College, Oxford. He did some postgraduate work, then decided that journalism would suit him better than academic life, and, in 1951, joined the FT. Here, he remained as political correspondent (the rampant title inflation of the period upgraded such office holders to political editor) until 1967. Among his close working partners was the Guardian's Francis Boyd, who had excellent contacts.
Butt was then lured to the Sunday Times, as an assistant editor and commentator, by Harold Evans, at the time presiding over what was, pre-Rupert Murdoch, one of the world's great newspapers. He also wrote a column for the Times from 1968 to 1991. However, Ronnie Butt - he was never "Ron" to colleagues, except to Nigel Lawson, with whom he worked on the FT - was not as lively a stylist as Peter Jenkins, David Watt, Anthony Howard, Alan Watkins and others, a deficiency that may have left him below the top rung of his generation of commentators. Nor did he share their enthusiasm for food and drink. Always a little anxious about his health, he drank more glasses of milk and cups of tea than most in his line of work. But he was a seriously knowledgeable and respected colleague; "Beta plus," said one of them this week.
His first book, published in 1967, was called The Power Of Parliament. A History Of Parliament: The Middle Ages appeared in 1989, and he was working on a second volume at the time of his death.
Then, as now, parliament was under pressure, and being widely written off as unable to adapt to changing times. Butt took the view that it remained an important national institution and, as late as 1997, warned that any damage done to the economy by Tony Blair could be more easily repaired than constitutional change.
His social concerns led him to 30 years' involvement with the charity Family and Youth Concern; his political sympathies made him a member of the Carlton Club. A CBE since 1987, he is survived by his wife Margaret, and four children.
ยท Ronald Butt, journalist, born February 17 1920; died December 13 2002
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