Amber Rudd is a former investment banker, venture capitalist and financial journalist who decided to enter politics in her 40s in order to get ‘a grip on her life’.
David Cameron put Ms Rudd, 54, on his controversial A-list of candidates and she took Hastings and Rye back from Labour in 2010.
She enjoyed a rapid rise through the ranks, serving as parliamentary private secretary to then-chancellor George Osborne two years later.
She was promoted to junior minister at the Energy and Climate Change department in 2014, entering Cabinet as secretary of state for the same brief in 2015.
Earlier in her life, she was appointed ‘aristocracy coordinator’ by Four Weddings And A Funeral director Richard Curtis after he gave Ms Rudd – who is believed to briefly appear in a church scene in the film – the job of casting extras for the movie because she ‘knew a lot of dukes and earls.’
David Cameron put Ms Rudd, 54, on his controversial A-list of candidates and she took Hastings and Rye back from Labour in 2010. Pictured: Ms Rudd delivering her speech to the Conservative Party conference in 2016
During a live TV clash she declared: ‘Boris is the life and soul of the party, but he is not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening’
Ms Rudd’s time at the Climate Change department was stormy.
When she piloted fracking legislation through the Commons as its junior minister, she was accused by the opposition of reneging on pledges not to let the controversial gas extraction process occur in national parks.
She announced that drilling would be allowed underneath such protected areas, if it began outside their surface boundaries.
After becoming secretary of state at the department, her attitude to renewable energy was strongly criticised by environmentalists.
Ms Rudd was a committed Remain campaigner, who raised eyebrows with the highly personalised attacks she launched on her now Cabinet colleague Boris Johnson.
During a live TV clash she declared: ‘Boris is the life and soul of the party, but he is not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening.’
She then came to Theresa May’s aid in the short-lived but bruising run-off campaign with Andrea Leadsom as she slapped down her own junior minister at the Energy Department by questioning Ms Leadsom’s experience.
The ex-Cheltenham Ladies’ College pupil and Edinburgh University history graduate has a son and a daughter from the five years she was married to the late columnist AA Gill, who used to refer to her as ‘the silver spoon’ in his restaurant reviews.
Ms Rudd was a committed Remain campaigner, who raised eyebrows with the highly personalised attacks she launched on her now Cabinet colleague Boris Johnson. Pictured: Ms Rudd photographed for a feature on thirtysomething women when she was 35
The ex-Cheltenham Ladies’ College pupil and Edinburgh University history graduate has a son and a daughter from the five years she was married to the late columnist AA Gill, who used to refer to her as ‘the silver spoon’ in his restaurant reviews. Pictured: Ms Rudd, aged 35, with children Alistair and Flora
She said that, after becoming involved in the production of Four Weddings and a Funeral, she was involved in her ‘first negotiation’ when she bargained to get the extras she recruited seats at the British premiere.
Speaking at a Times Red Box event at the Conservative Party conference two years ago, she said: ‘We all have certain political hinterlands certainly and that was a particularly unusual proposal I got when I was on maternity leave at the time, it was 23 years ago.
Ms Rudd campaigning with her ex-husband, the writer AA Gill, in Liverpool in 2005
‘A friend of a friend called up and said: “We’re making a small British film and we can’t afford to pay extras and what we need is some people in some smart wedding outfits hanging out at weddings”.
‘I think I was about the fourth or fifth person they asked so I said: “How much will you pay these people?” And bearing in mind this was 23 years ago, he said to me: “We’ll pay them £100 a day”. I said: “Well, no problem”.
‘So it worked out that if you wanted to put on a smart frock or wedding outfit of some form and call a number, [I] could arrange for you to have 100 a day to hang out in the background of a small British film, that’s what I did.’
She added: ‘They made up that particular title [aristocracy coordinator] – not ideal for someone who went into politics, I have to say.’
Ms Rudd was appointed Home Secretary on July 13, 2016.
During her time in the role, which included having overall responsibility for security and terrorism, she dealt with the UK falling victim to a number of terror attacks such as the Westminster Bridge and Manchester Arena murders, as well as the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury.
In January this year she also became Minister for Women and Equalities.