The Big Story A A Gill has been in the news recently, opening up about his struggle with cancer. Rudd’s political career began in earnest when she was selected to contest the Liverpool Garston seat in 2005, an exercise which can only be described as character building, as it was always going to be a Labour stronghold. Her career was fast-tracked when David Cameron took over the leadership of the party and announced plans for an A-List, which was designed to increase the number of female MPs, as well as increase representation from ethnic minorities. Rudd was selected for another Labour-held seat, but this one was definitely winnable. In 2010 she won the Hastings and Rye seat with a majority of 1,993. together all the chair legs in the dining-room.” Rudd helped to find extras for the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral, for which she was credited as the ‘aristocracy co-ordinator’. She made a brief on-screen appearance in one of the church scenes in the film. Director Richard Curtis said he gave Rudd the job of casting extras for the movie, because, ”She knew a lot of dukes and earls.” As her career progressed into serious politics, she retained that sense of fun. In 2008 she won an award for her poem on the subject of safe sex. Rudd submitted the poem to the Hastings & St Leonards Observer in a competition to raise awareness during National Contraception Week. The poem won joint first prize in the over-25s category, with her assertion that if more people chose bingo at the beach over unprotected sex, the world would be a better place. Echoes of Boy George’s declaration that he preferred a nice cup of tea to sex? After university, Rudd joined J.P. Morgan and then embarked on a stint as a financial journalist before founding a recruitment agency. Her business career was not without controversy - or at least it became controversial once she entered public life. The Guardian reported that she was a co-director of Monticello, a company that was at the centre of a share ramping investigation and that, “she was also involved in a company prospecting for diamonds in Siberia, that was traded on a notoriously unregulated stock exchange”.
had investments in a tax haven that imposes no income, corporate or wealth taxes on individuals investing in offshore companies. However, no report has suggested any legal wrongdoing on Rudd’s part.
Director Richard Curtis gave Rudd the job of casting extras for Four Weddings and a Funeral, because: “She knew a lot of dukes and earls.” Amber was married to writer A A Gill between 1990 and 1995, a period when Gill was a recovering alcoholic who was starting to build a successful career in journalism. Although the marriage broke down, Gill publicly declares: “The truth is I adore Amber. We’re still close friends and she’s been the most amazing mother to our two children.”
Rudd moved to Hastings Old Town in 2007 and she embraced the causes that matter to the town. She sat as a Conservative member on the DEFRA Select Committee arguing for improvements to small local fishing fleets, like those found in Hastings and Rye. “Fishing is emblematic of our coastal communities and the fleets in both Hastings and Rye are important sources of jobs, skills and immense local pride,” said Rudd. “After a grossly unfair initial allocation of quota a decade ago, which left our fishermen with catch limits which were too small, working to help the industry has been a constant challenge. However, I am now more optimistic for our fishermen’s future than I have ever been previously.” She has also been a campaigner for improved transport links to the area, and had some success with the go-ahead for construction of the Hastings to Bexhill Link Road. She continues to lobby for upgrades in key rail links.
When a tranche of data, including a list of directors of 175,000 Bahamas registered companies, was leaked to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Rudd’s name appeared. The question was asked why she
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