Ronald Butt

Ronald Herbert Butt, CBE (17 February 1920 – 13 December 2002) was a British journalist who wrote a political column for The Times from 1968 to 1991 and was the author of two books on Parliament.

Before the outbreak of the Second World War he held pacifist views and had to wrestle with his conscience before deciding to join the Army.

A former colleague, Sir Geoffrey Owen, described Butt as "having added another dimension to the FT with sophisticated, highly intelligent commentary and reportage".

From 1964-65 he was a resident research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, where he worked on his first book The Power of Parliament published in 1967.

This assessed the function of Parliament in contemporary British politics and questioned the prevailing view that the power of the House of Commons had declined.