Last January, Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner became the Movement for Reform Judaism's first Movement Rabbi. The post is representative, described by the organisation as being its "rabbinic face in the national arena". In that capacity she was invited to the funeral of Baroness Thatcher.

Rabbi Janner-Klausner rejected the invitation because "I think that she was a cataclysm for the fabric of Britain". But the rabbi was invited as the national representative of Reform Judaism, not as Laura Janner-Klausner. So her views of Baroness Thatcher are, in this context, entirely irrelevant.

When, in 1996, Lord Sacks refused to attend the funeral of Rabbi Hugo Gryn, he was attacked by the Reform movement because he would not attend the funeral of someone with whom he disagreed. The wheel has now turned full circle.