1 min read
The appearance of Amber Rudd, the low-profile new Home Secretary, at a Jewish charity dinner on Monday included a series of incidents which struck me as both utterly remarkable, and completely predictable at the same time.
It made for a fascinating and peculiar evening. Ms Rudd, who has only been an MP for six years, is virtually unknown in the community and has almost no experience whatsoever of engaging with the established organisations and charities of British Jewry.
On arrival at the Guildhall in central London she was visibly nervous. The early part of her speech - which was still being written by her special adviser as the dinner started - was as formulaic and predictable as could be.
At first the guests listened in silence. But Ms Rudd warmed to her task, and the diners responded. After a few ripples of applause following paragraphs on combating antisemitism and supporting Israel, she stepped down from the podium and received a standing ovation.
"She speaks very well," the chap next to me exclaimed as I pondered how many politicians I must have heard trotting out pre-prepared, standardised lines about working towards a two-state solution in the Middle East or deriding hatred of Jews over the years.
It does not take Churchillian prose to get guests out of their seats
I subsequently raised my eyebrows as those around me raised their glasses in Ms Rudd's direction. Clearly it does not take Churchillian prose or a barnstorming appeal to get dinner guests out of their seats these days.
But speaking to me after her address, Ms Rudd was warm, affable, and clearly very intent on developing a rapport with the community. She has big shoes to fill following six years of Mrs May's cordiality while at the Home Office.
We have been blessed in the past few years to have the government's big beasts - David Cameron, Mrs May, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson spring to mind - regularly touring the Jewish after-dinner circuit and leaving donors eating not just off the fine china, but out of their hands.
With the arrival of the Prime Minister's new ministers we begin the relationship-building cycle again. Many cabinet figures, like Ms Rudd, start from a low base. But if this opening gambit is anything to go by, they could be heading in the right direction.