CRAIG

Hello, and welcome to the new series of Desperately Seeking Wisdom with me, Craig Oliver. This is a podcast for anyone who wants to lead a wiser, more fulfilled life, but is tired of all the snake oil and dubious life hacks that are out there. I talked to well-known people and some experts, about what life has taught them as they share the wisdom they gained, particularly during tougher times. We've got some amazing guests coming up in this series, including the comedian and writer, David Baddiel, The Reverend Richard Coles, actor Jack Davenport, the BBC's World Affairs Editor, John Simpson, and its Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet. But our first guest is the former Home Secretary Amber Rudd. Amber has had an extraordinary life, from her father going blind in her teenage years to a tumultuous career at the top of politics. She married, had children with and later divorced the celebrated writer AA Gill. During the Brexit referendum, she famously put Boris Johnson in his place. But it was the Windrush scandal that perhaps taught her most about life.

AMBER

There is a moment where the brave thing is to step down. It's a lesson in politics, and, you know, it's a lesson in life. Very, very difficult for me, but I feel a bit self-conscious saying that when it was a bit more difficult for the victims of the Windrush scandal.

CRAIG

There was so much to talk to Amber about, but our conversation started in an unusual place: a small but crucial role in the making of the low-budget, but ultimately smash hit movie Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Okay, I'm going to start in quite an unusual place. Aristocracy Coordinator on Four Weddings and a Funeral..?

AMBER

That was mean of them to call it that, because what actually happened was, I was in my 20s, a friend of a friend of a friend making a small British film called me and said, we can't afford extras, we need some hanging around in the background - and we need them to be aristocrats. And I said, aristocrats? What do you mean by that? They said, well, mainly people with titles. And I said, what are you paying these people who are mainly people with titles? And they said 110 pounds a day. 110 pounds a day?? Now, this was over 30 years ago - 35 years ago, I think about? - and I said that's no problem. It was my early political choice I made to perhaps allide the truth. And so I called up various friends and said, ‘you need to dress up in your wedding outfit, the nice clothes you might wear to a wedding, and turn up at…’ and I was given the addresses, Luton Hoo was one of them, various other places.

CRAIG

So how did they alight on you, though? Why you?

AMBER

It was literally a friend of a friend of a friend. I think they'd asked about half a dozen people before me. And it was a friend who was one of the assistant producers on the film, and somebody said, try Amber. I have no idea why. But I do know that everybody else sort of laughed at them and said it was ridiculous. And I think I was the first person to accept their absurd request, but provide, get my friends, 20 or 30 of them, to turn up. And what was a result for the producers was that people turned up in their own nice clothes, rather than having to go to costume and find their own.

CRAIG

And then basically it was because it didn't have any budget.

AMBER

Yeah, it had no budget. That is the short answer. That's right. They had no budget. So instead, there was a bit of a row, I have to say, not unreasonable now I look back on it, from the real actors, who were from, obviously, equity members, they were like, ‘who the hell are these posh knobs turning up?’ And there was a bit of row, yes.

CRAIG

I mean, you say that they were quite mean calling it aristocracy coordinator. Was there a sense in which people thought you'd had some kind of gilded life or something?

AMBER

Well, I mean, yeah, to a large extent I had. I remember the producer saying to me, ‘we don't just want people who went to public school’, I’m thinking, well, that's exactly what you're gonna get. But I don't know why he thought he could really tell the difference.

CRAIG

We meant even posher.

AMBER

Yeah, even posher, and I said, no problem. And so I just used my address book and got hold of a lot of people who had been to public school.

CRAIG

And you saying that, you know, accepted, you had sort of a very gilded life, like, I mean, was it very happy and stable childhood?

AMBER

Yeah, I had very loving parents. We had all been to very nice schools. And we all got on very well. So I would say, from my point of view, it was a very happy childhood. With some perspective, I can see it was a pretty extraordinary family, in that my father, who was, you know, self-made, he created the financial stability for the family until he went blind, aged, I think about 40, and he was blind for the next 50 years of his life.

CRAIG

And how old were you then?

AMBER

About 15.

CRAIG

And what impact did that have on you?

AMBER

No, because those were the sort of parents I had: didn't visit any of these problems on us.

CRAIG

So this is so interesting. So knowing you so well, that to me is so you, saying that my father went blind and it didn't have an impact on me.

AMBER

When you say it like that Craig, it feels a bit unkind. I mean, it had to -

CRAIG

No I don’t mean it unkindly. I just mean that I think what's very Amber about it is like that, actually, you get on with it, and you find a way through.

AMBER

But it’s not that I got on with it, it's that they got on with it. And… but I can see now when I became an adult, really, rather than as a teenager, obsessed with my own lives, like most teenagers, that it was a huge deal for my parents, you know, one of them going blind. I mean, financially, it was devastating for them to work out how to continue to support the family. And my father could no longer do the things he really loved. And so they had to find a different way of living. It was a huge thing for them. But what I find so remarkable, it didn't change anything that mattered for us in the family.

CRAIG

And can you see looking back, you know, the struggles he had dealing with it and the problems?

AMBER

Yeah, I definitely can, I can see - he couldn't read, for instance, reading was a hugely important thing for him. And those were the days before audiobooks in the same way that you can get them now. And so we would all read to him the whole weekend when we went home for the weekend, so we all got to know financial newspapers before we expected to. And he loved being read to.

CRAIG

What sort of fiction books did you read? Can you remember?

AMBER

Well he was very good at helping us with our O Level or A Level set texts, making me think about… It was Thérèse Desqueyroux, or the, I know the one, the Albert Fournier one? Yeah, that one. L’étranger! About the man who just commits this crime when he's dazzled by the sun. And you put it like that, and it seems so extraordinary. Why would anyone commit a crime because they were dazzled by the sun? But there's so much more to it… and discussing all that with him. So I think in a way, perhaps, as a child, he was more available to us, because he had to engage with people in order to be sociable rather than read things.

CRAIG

And I want to come on to all your many achievements in a moment, and I don't want to see you as defined by others. But before we do that, I wanted to talk a bit about you being married to AA Gill, who’s sort of still revered, he died, how many years ago now?

AMBER

Six years ago.

CRAIG

Six years ago, but you know, he's known as a brilliant journalist, a great writer, and he's written on lots of things, not least his own sort of alcoholism and dyslexia, I think too -

AMBER

Yes.

CRAIG

-didn’t he, he had both of those things. Just describe what it was like being married to him, and that experience.

AMBER

Well, the marriage was quite a short marriage, but quite a productive one, in that I had two fabulous children. I have two fabulous children. But I mean, he was an extraordinary person to meet, I've never met anybody quite as provocative, interesting, confident, even though he had, possession-wise, nothing, he didn't have a bank account, didn't have a driving licence. And he was in his mid-30s. I remember him doing a piece of work for a friend, I think he painted a picture of their dog or something similar, and he'd got 50 pounds. And it was just a huge deal that he had 50 pounds - he didn't have money at all, really. And for a long time, in those early years, when he went to the bank to get money out of the hole in the wall, he’d get five pound notes, so he could feel all those five pound notes, like a sort of crisp amount of money. So no, he wasn't successful at all. He had, he didn’t have a bean to his name. And in fact, after I got married to him, he presented me with his butcher's bill, which was 120 pounds, which he'd been holding back on. So it came at a cost, my marriage to Adrian, but that soon turned round because he was absolutely brilliant. And he got, he got his confidence, and he got his commercial sort of feeling about what he could do successfully. He was initially a painter. And so we'd have the occasional show, and he’d sell pictures and that was good. But I remember him saying to me once, the thing about painting is that I’m a good painting, I'm a good painter, artist, I'm just not a great one. But I'm gonna be a great writer. And that's what he did.

CRAIG

And he's known, you know, as a great journalist and actually some of the pieces I know were taught for like storytelling as you know, nonfiction storytelling, and how do you actually construct a piece, but what, some of his writing is also about alcoholism and when he writes about it, it sounds truly epic. So being married to him in that situation, having children, that must have been incredibly difficult.

AMBER

Yeah, no, but I didn't know him when he was an alcoholic. He was always a recovered alcoholic when I met him. In fact, when I first started seeing him, he kept on going off to meetings. And I had no idea what these meetings were, I just thought he was working really hard. And then I realised that they were AA meetings, was the first time I'd come across it.

CRAIG

But that’s interesting that it sounds like he almost hadn't shared it with you.

AMBER

Correct. He hadn't shared it with me. But I mean, I would say, he wasn't sharing it, but it wasn't a secret. I think a smarter person might have worked out what these meetings were at six o'clock in the evening, but, then we did talk about it. And I'd never come across somebody who'd had a drinking habit, and hadn't stopped drinking before. But it made absolutely no difference to our lives at all. If you form a relationship, it's got nothing to do with a drink, at least hopefully not. So I had no knowledge of the man who had been drinking before. And he never touched a drink again.

CRAIG

Yeah. And one of the things that strikes me about you in the years that I've known you is your equanimity. And I think people can hear it now, you're very sort of balanced and straightforward. But a good example of that, I think, is in the breakup of your marriage, because he went off with somebody else, and I think what's interesting about you is when you talk about it, how keen you were to make sure that everything, particularly your children, all right, and still had a relationship with him and that kind of thing, and you still speak of him very well, which often when you meet divorced people, doesn't happen. Was that a choice? Was that something that you really thought through? Or did it come naturally?

AMBER

I think that I was incredibly lucky to have a very strong family around me. And I think that made a huge difference. I mean, you know, I could walk across the road and go and see my mother, and my brother lived around the corner, and I think one of the first people I went to see to tell about the breakup of my marriage was my sister. So I have very strong, immediate family who I would see the whole time. So that made a huge difference to not feeling isolated. But I remember one girlfriend saying to me, ‘don't allow them to hate their father’. And that, what had happened to her when a similar situation, ie. her father had left her mother, and her mother had been very poisonous about her father, and it became very difficult for them when they were all adults in their teenage years, how the children were able to form a relationship from the father when they'd had all this at them. And it really landed with me. And so I was always very positive about him.

CRAIG

This podcast is a lot about what people learn, and how people work about and the wisdom that they get from certain situations, but often that is hard work, often that's difficult.

AMBER

It was difficult. And it was painful. And it was difficult letting go of the love I felt for him. But the love I felt and feel for my children was always going to be more important. And there's also a kind of, a selfish bit to it I would say, which is, it's hard work being a single parent. And you, I have friends who were in similar situations where the children would not go with the father away for a weekend, or few days, or on holiday. They live with the mother, they just didn't want to go. And I don't think that helps either the relationship with the children, or your own sanity, as the primary carer as the mother, you need your night off, your week off, to be able to form your own friendships and hopefully relationship. So it was also a practical one, I would say.

CRAIG

And you're a single mother and working

AMBER

Single mother and working. Yes, I think at that point, I was still in banking, where I'd moved into venture capital. But I was working pretty much full time, yeah. A highly pressurised environment. But nothing as pressurised as an environment where I met you, Craig, later on.

CRAIG

So you're a single mother, are your children grown up, when you sort of, how old were they?

AMBER

Teenagers.

CRAIG

Teenagers.

AMBER

So I'd always been interested in politics, but I'd never seen myself as someone who was gonna become an MP. And I was actually at an event. It's an, and I was boring on to somebody who was also boring on about politics. And they just said, well, why don't you try it? And so I decided to try it. Try to become an MP. I didn't expect to do so. Really, I was a member of the Conservative Party, but I turned up on their doorstep, went to see the head of candidates and asked for a form and started applying.

CRAIG

You and I both know quite how hard that can be. You know, lots of people spent years of their life maybe trying to get on a candidates list trying to, you know, find a seat, there's often no chance, then finally getting their opportunity, it costs them money, huge amounts of energy and effort. Was it like that for you? Or did you actually just get pretty much straight through?

AMBER

No, I didn't, I didn't get straight through, it took me years. But it gave me a sense of purpose. And part of wanting to be an MP was to get a sense of purpose because I was sort of lurching from sort of interest, quite interesting jobs, but nothing that really made me want to commit beyond five or six o'clock in the evening, or spend more time on it and explore it. I was just kind of a bit of a wage earner, really, my children were at boarding school: by that point, Adrian, he’d become very successful. And I began to see some light at the end of the tunnel, of being able to do something for myself. And I decided that becoming an MP, if I could pull it off, was what I was going to try and do.

CRAIG

Was it as you expected, because I see a lot of people who try and get into politics and I think they end up quite disappointed quite quickly, partly through the whole process of trying to become an MP because it's a lot of slogging around and people being rude to you, or, and you have to have an incredibly thick skin. But then I also think once they become MPs, they're surprised by the extent to which they're sort of lobby fodder. And there's not, there's not this suddenly this perfect world where you're at the centre of everything and everything's happening, it's, there's another series of barriers to be gone through.

AMBER

Well, I didn't really have very high expectations. I just thought that rather simply, it would give my life a sense of purpose, really, to be a local MP, and to be in Parliament, potentially becoming a minister and doing something I thought, I hope, useful. I found that I really did enjoy the local constituency stuff. And I think that some people do it through gritted teeth - I really enjoyed going to the schools, talking to them about politics, telling them what was going on. I quite liked going to the primary schools and talking to all the young kids. I liked going to the churches, and I liked, I mean, to sort of put it crudely, I kind of like people, so I liked going out and meeting them and talking to them and chatting, sitting on the bus, campaigning for a new bus route. All that came quite naturally to me, and I enjoyed it.

CRAIG

What strikes me about a lot of politicians, particularly successful politicians, is you have to have a fabulously thick skin. I mean, people are writing about things and saying snide remarks about you, criticising you, particularly, I think, if you're a woman. Did you experience that?

AMBER

Well I did experience it, but you don't experience it, I don't think, until you become an MP and then become quite senior. You certainly don't experience it hardly at all when you're a candidate. I mean, the only time you do is from your local opposition, particularly if you're in a marginal seat, who tried to destabilise you before an election. So I got a bit of that from Hastings Labour Party -

CRAIG

What did they, go at you?

AMBER

‘She's from London, she's, you know, she's not from Hastings’. And that's absolutely true, I wasn't from Hastings, but I lived down there in the years before I got elected, and then afterwards, so I was able to say that but it wasn't a strength because their man who was the existing Labour MP hat, was sort of Hastings born and bred. So he had that strength against me. So I think that the thick skin bit comes later.

CRAIG

Well look, you were promoted fast, so you did become senior quickly. How did that all happen? Didn't was that all a bit of a whirlwind?

AMBER

Well, you say I was promoted fast. It didn't feel fast to me! In that, I got in in 2010, but 11-12 other people who got in 2010, were making their way and I was still on the back benches. But then I got spotted by George Osborne, actually, everyone thinks I knew him, but I didn't at the time. And he made me his PPS. And then I'd started and then I got my first ministerial role was as energy minister.

CRAIG

And I can remember the first time I met you - I doubt you can remember it, can you remember when it was?

AMBER

No.

CRAIG

No, actually, you were leaving No. 11, and I was leaving No. 10, and it was a very sunny afternoon. And I recognised you as George’s, George Osborne's PPS, and we got chatting. And I remember by the end of coming to the bottom of Downing Street thinking, god, she's quite normal. And I remember going the next day and saying to David Cameron, ‘I met Amber Rudd, she's really good’. And I'm not saying I was responsible at all, but I think that -

AMBER

Thank you Craig!

CRAIG

-no, but I think - no, I'm not responsible! - but I do think that that sort of thing of wanting to alight on somebody who can actually speak in a normal, sensible way. And it's a bit strange, how uncommon that is.

AMBER

Yeah. I mean, I used to get that quite a lot from people saying, I talk to them, and they say, oh, gosh, you're… and I think they're gonna say something really complimentary or nice and, ‘you're normal’, which is indeed a compliment in politics, such as what it has come to.

CRAIG

One of the reasons I wanted you to be on the Remain side debates in the referendum was because you were normal and articulate and could make a point. When I asked you to do that, how did you feel?

AMBER

Well, I remember you sitting there in the Department of Energy asking me to do it. And internally, I was screaming because it was a big, it was gonna be the biggest thing I'd ever done in public speaking terms. But it was in front of a few other people, including my special advisers, so I felt I had to hold my own, and go, ‘Gosh, marvellous, delighted Craig’.

CRAIG

I realised it was a big ask and I also thought you covered very well. You, in the debate, you famously were up against Boris Johnson. And you use the line, ‘You're the life and soul of the party. But I wouldn't want you to take me home at the end of the evening’, which really was a sort of arrow straight to his heart. And I remember actually watching it and seeing him, like recoil. Had you planned that?

AMBER

I certainly had, I'd certainly planned - I wasn't sure I was going to use it. And I used it in my summing up in the event, because I could feel that we were on the backfoot. And if I had a good line, and I thought it was a good line, I might as well deliver it. And I could, when I did deliver it, I could hear a sharp intake of breath from the audience, who obviously thought I'd gone too far. But I think it landed for good reason. It was of course, a metaphor for Boris not being the person I wanted to lead us into a referendum that was going to lead us out of the EU.

CRAIG

And subsequent to that you had a reasonable relationship with him, but I think he would sometimes refer to it or feel like he'd, you know, let you know that it’d hurt.

AMBER

I really don't think it did hurt Boris, because if it had, he perhaps wouldn't have put me in his cabinet, we wouldn't have had a good working relationship when he was Foreign Secretary or, and I was home secretary so, or maybe he covered it up. But there was a time when we met, the two of us, I was Home Secretary, he was Foreign Secretary, we had our meeting, there were a lot of cars outside, because we were both protected people. And we came out and he said, ‘come on, Amber, I'm going to give you a lift home”. And I said no, I'm sorry, I have not changed my mind Boris. And all the protection officers were just in a row, howling with laughter, he'd obviously told them he was gonna say it. ‘Come on, get into my car!’, hamming it up. It's very funny. I think in the end he laughed.

CRAIG

It's very funny. But it is also a hell of a thing to say about somebody?

AMBER

I don't think so. I mean…

CRAIG

It is - oh, come on. You're basically saying, you can't be trusted.

AMBER

You’re saying you’re not safe in taxis. Like my mother would have said -

CRAIG

Well that’s quite a hell of a thing to say about a man, particularly in the modern world.

AMBER

I don't think it was a surprising thing to say about Boris.

CRAIG

No, no no and look, perfectly fair, I'm not - actually you did discuss it with me beforehand. And we agreed that it would probably be a thing to say, but I think it is, I think you'd be surprised, for a man hearing that kind of thing about themselves saying that basically, you're not taking taxis or you can't be trusted around women, particularly in a kind of MeToo environment. I just think it's interesting, and it landed didn’t it really.

AMBER

It did land.

CRAIG

David Cameron said to me once in a private moment that he felt that Boris Johnson was almost like an affair that the Conservative Party had to have -

AMBER

..that’s very good!

CRAIG

-even though in its heart, it probably knew that it would end badly.

AMBER

I think that's probably true. He's like a sort of a candle that the moths go around him the whole time. And they get burnt. They know it's going to end badly, but they can't quite resist it.

CRAIG

And do you think that he's finally gone? Or do you think that it's likely that he could pop back?

AMBER

I think it's unlikely, but I don't think it's impossible. I don't think, I mean, the voters of Oxbridge are not going to reelect him. But I mean, there's a lot of people who aren't going to be reelected as conservatives in the next general election. But there is talk about him getting another seat, we will see, I'm sure he wants to keep a seat in the house, in the House of Commons. I expect the party will try and find him one.

CRAIG

And just on that point that, you know, it does feel, particularly as we're recording this, the total chaos in politics that has been around, and, you know, we saw all the three years of rows about Brexit, then the partygate scandals that finally did for Boris Johnson, 44 days of Liz Truss. I'm just interested in your reflections of how on Earth that all happened and why the Conservative Party ended up in that state and what you think of politics going forward?

AMBER

I think there were two big themes. And not surprisingly, I'm afraid from, I think that Brexit is the biggest one. And if you get a Brexiter on a sort of quiet moment, perhaps they've had a drink or two, they will admit it's been a disaster. They will admit it's been a disaster, but of course ‘it wasn't the Brexit I wanted!’. So they still feel legitimate to campaign and vote for Brexit, but this Brexit is not the one I wanted, somebody else's… I do remind them that's rather like saying, you haven't got the right sort of socialism as Jeremy Corbyn would always say. But that, that is their view. But it has been a disaster in that, you know, exporting businesses find it really hard. We have shrunk our economy.

CRAIG

There was a leading businessman the other day, saying, you know, it wasn't the kind of Brexit that he voted for, and that he wanted there to be more immigration and I was thinking, what on Earth did you think you were voting for? Because the whole of the referendum felt to me to ultimately be about immigration?

AMBER

No, it's very sad that we have committed this act of self-harm. So I think it's one of the things sets for, specifically for the Conservative Party, so they can't reconcile how to be the champions of Brexit, but also be pro-business. I think it's very difficult to do those things. And I think that what we're seeing is the consequence of that dichotomy, really.

CRAIG

And do you still feel a conservative, given that all that happened?

AMBER

I do feel it, but I feel abandoned by the party as far as those of us who can see the truth about Brexit is concerned. And one of the reasons I'm not in politics, and a lot of my former colleagues aren't in politics anymore, is because we can't get up and say Brexit is a success. You have to be able to say, Brexit is a success, to be a spokesperson for the Conservative Party.

CRAIG

I want to talk to you about your time as Home Secretary, First of all, you know, an extraordinary achievement to become Home Secretary. And you know, that is no small thing for any, you know, for anybody in politics. And also, I imagine quite a leap in terms of suddenly, you're responsible for some incredibly serious things. I mean, like, you would be called away to sign warrants, and that kind thing. Talk about learning about that on the job?

AMBER

Well, it was an extraordinary step. It's not something I'd ever sought. And it came as a huge surprise. And I had never been in the home office, I thought I was the sort of person who would be in an economic department where it's more of interest to me, business or the Treasury. But Home Office it was, and you have to learn very quickly, what's going on. And you're immediately as you knowing, in government anyway, once you become a new Secretary of State, you're straight and in the chamber the next day defending the decisions of the former departmental head, which in my case, was the Prime Minister. So that's quite a challenge.

CRAIG

That’s so interesting, isn't it? Because actually, anybody who knows anything about government knows, the Home Office is an infinitely complex department. And wasn't it Jack Straw who said the, you know, he went to bed at night thinking that there were at least a dozen people in the home office who might be doing something that could just end his career the next day. So you're basically in a way, that's a way of saying, you're in charge and responsible of something that you couldn't possibly be across from the first moment.

AMBER

That's exactly true. That is the challenge with being Home Secretaries, there's always going to be stuff going on. But the other thing that I discovered as Home Secretary is it's all about events. It's not like for instance, I just done energy before that, where you are planning how to deliver the best outcome, cheapest, most carbon-reducing energy you can, with energy security, all these different things - so you're planning and looking ahead and trying to get the policy together. In the Home Office, you've got, you've got terrorist activity, you've got knife crime, you've got things coming at you the whole time.

CRAIG

And I can imagine when somebody pulls it back, and you start seeing the secrets that suddenly you're like, oh, my God, that's really….

AMBER

Yeah, the scale of it. And also, I mean, that's why I'm sort of generally sympathetic to every Home Secretary, whoever they are, because you're also immersed in the worst of humanity. Really, you go around to see police stations and counter terrorist stations, and you are looking at and talking to the people who are trying to protect us from really terrible crime.

CRAIG

And what do you feel you learned from seeing that up close? What was the thing that you took away from it?

AMBER

Well, you do, I mean it is, politicians always go around saying the UK is brilliant at this or brilliant at that, but we do have our secret services that are very good. MI5 and MI6 are very good at what they do, so that's sort of reassuring. I think I learned in terms of the series of terrible events that took place under my watch, in 2017, the terrorist attacks, and then the Grenfell fire, is that if you've rehearsed something, your response to it, you are so much better. I mean, it's an obvious thing to say, but when we had the terrorist events, we had rehearsed to the degree that we were able to respond very quickly. The shocking thing about the Grenfell fires that nobody had, you couldn't plan for that sort of event. And so when it happened, the government's response was slow and inadequate to start with. And then we started to get, I hope, the right response, but it took time, and there will have been that learned experience so if it ever happens again, I hope that won't happen as slowly as it did.

CRAIG

And why do you think it did happen so slowly over Grenfell?

AMBER

I think because people hadn't ever seen something like that before and I remember being in COBRA and Greg Clark saying, ‘it's like a flood’. So we've got to get 500 pounds out to people today, and 4000 pounds next week. And there's somebody else in the meeting saying yes, but what if we get it to the wrong people? We will lose money? Of course, we'll lose money, it doesn't matter, what matters is getting people some financial aid today.

CRAIG

So that's, that's absolutely right. You know, the practical, how do we actually help people who are homeless, but also huge number of people had died. And they were very poor, certainly, in comparison to their neighbours in Notting Hill. That was what was interesting wasn’t it, that in the heart of London, there was this building with completely inadequate fire regulations and people who, you know, not the right plans to get them out of there, you know, died in terrible circumstances. A lot of the problem was also the failure to comprehend and have an emotional response, wasn't it?

AMBER

Yes, I agree. It was. And again, I think that that was because it was, it felt so incomprehensible. It was difficult to work out what was happening and why, we should have had a better response, a more emotional response, as well as a practical one. And I, I like to think that we had a better grip on it when it happened with terrorist events. But that's because we'd seen more of them.

CRAIG

That's interesting. So let's talk about you resigning.

AMBER

Yeah, which one? OK

CRAIG

The home office. So when we started talking about doing the interview, you were saying, well, you know, I'm not really sure I've had an interesting that I’ve learned from and I would say, having to resign as Home Secretary is a huge moment to, you know, to learn from and to grow from and that kind of thing, but, in your own words, tell the story of how you ended up in a position of having to resign.

AMBER

I would say the main reason is that the UK Government had been treating people as illegal in the UK when they should have been treated as legal. And this was a cohort of people who’d come over in the 50s, what was called the Windrush, on the Windrush boat, but it was actually a lot of people from the Caribbean, whose status had never been regularised, a very Home Office word, but I, when they needed a passport to travel, or when they needed to evidence that they were UK citizens to rent property, which recently came in, they were unable to do so. And they were unable to prove that they were here legitimately. And some of them were treated badly. Some of them lost their jobs. Some of them were even deported.

CRAIG

Yeah. And I think, looking back, what was interesting was that a lot of these people had been here, you know, they had been here for 50 years, and they were expected to produce documents from that time. And it felt like the cruel, unfeeling side of people who were desperate to show their bona fides on immigration and being tough on it. Is that an unfair thing to say?

AMBER

Well, I mean, I found it that the when it was sort of revealed over a sort of, I'd say about a four to six-week period, I found it very difficult to comprehend that it was taking place on a scale which turned out to be, and the, I think it was the Guardian, the Guardian was running a series of articles about individuals. And I was probing at the Home Office saying, what, what is going on here? And I actually asked, are we actually deporting people who are legally here? And I was told, absolutely not, Home Secretary… and so you take the wrong comfort.

CRAIG

What I find interesting talking to you about is, I know, your heart and that you know, it's in the right place and you’re an amazingly good person. I'm not sure that's true of some of your predecessors or successors in that role, that they don't necessarily look at the real human side to that of like, what on earth are we doing? Is it, what is this department doing? Trying to chase people who've been in the country for 50 years -

AMBER

I think you're wrong, because I don't think I know any member of parliament, who would have been relaxed about the idea of treating people who were here illegally as being here illegally. That's basically what it came down to. And I don't think any Home Secretary would have willingly done that, and allowed the consequences to sit. And also, just to finish, as the Home Office was reassuring, to me as the Home Secretary, that that was not taking place, and when it was revealed that it was taking place while I was still in office, it was quite small numbers still, and I requested a complete trail and going through all the documents of people from the Caribbean region who might have been here legally but have been treated so they were here illegally. I said, we gotta go through all those documents where we have treated people so they were here illegally and find out if they might have come in at that period and therefore be legal. And I need to know whether anybody has had the ultimate sanction which is to have been illegally deported. And they said to me, no, nobody. And the next day, when Sajid became, Sajid Javid became a secretary - two days later, they came out with the number 63.

CRAIG

So look, this isn't a political interview and I'm definitely not here to try and catch you out. What I think is interesting, though, is I think there's a difference between saying that I don't want to hound somebody out of the country who's legally got a right to be here and also creating an environment where, because of technicalities, people do end up being here illegally, and are chased out of the country, which I do think there are quite a few people in, who were predecessors to you and successors to you in that role, who felt like that. And it feels to me increasingly, that it is a very complex subject, there are human beings involved with rights and emotions and ties to this country who need to be treated fairly. And we also need to be able to control our borders. Even though we technically now have control, complete control of our borders, we still struggle to control immigration - we never have that grown-up conversation about it and I wonder if we just, if you felt that having been in the Home Office?

AMBER

Oh, I definitely did feel that, that there was no attempt to really explain what was actually possible and what wasn't, there was only the attempt to try to keep up with what various political, what our political, my political party and how many to, Labour does it as well, was promising people. I mean, I think the problem with immigration is that everybody wants better hospitals, everybody wants better schools, people have very different views on immigration, what they think they do want, what they don't want, how they want our borders to be. And there's only so much you can deliver through policy and regulation. So sometimes there is a huge number of people who are coming. I mean, this year, for instance, with the large number of people coming in small boats, it's, the rest of Europe is having a huge number coming as well. We're not an isolated case, it's part of a wider movement. And the only way you can really try at least, I think, to have an immigration policy that makes sense, is to have it with your neighbours.

CRAIG

And we're recording this on a day where the world's population has hit 8 billion. Climate change is gonna drive people out of those certain positions, so it's only going to become more of an issue. And we need to talk about it, I guess.

AMBER

We definitely need to talk about it. Because I mean, it's ironic, you were saying earlier on that one leading businessman was saying how much he needs more people to work as a Brexiter he laments the fact there's no longer freedom of movement. And yet, we don't have a policy to bring in the lower paid into the UK to try and compensate for that.

CRAIG

Yeah. So look, I mean, I think that's a really interesting thing to talk about learning about how do we actually have complex grown up conversations?

CRAIG

I also want to talk about that moment where you realised you're gonna have to resign and the moments leading up to it. So actually, you know, we talked to each other in the days running up to that. And it's, there's nothing like that experience of suddenly, you're on the run. And questions are being fired at you and everything, in every moment there's another question and another question. Just tell me how you felt in that moment?

AMBER

Well, it was, it was very, very difficult for me. But I feel a bit self-conscious saying that when it was a bit more difficult for the victims of the Windrush sort of scandal, really, but it was difficult, it was building up and I couldn't get my arms around trying to manage it in a way that allowed me to set the record straight of what the UK government was doing. And I kept on having to go back into the chamber and saying, well, when I said that yesterday, actually, this is what's happening. And it was over a weekend, we were talking, you were giving me some great advice. Basically, I remember you saying to me, once you resign, it's over, stay on the chessboard until the last minute if you can, because you might be able to find a way to handle it and go back into the chamber and set the record straight. But on the Sunday night, I remember I just felt that there was new information coming out that the Home Office had steps they've taken that weren't sustainable with what I've been saying the previous week. So I decided to resign. And it was in that moment, in that moment it was quite a relief

CRAIG

And I remember having a conversation with you on the Sunday afternoon that I think that you were sort of seeking and there were a few people on the call, and you were seeking their view, but it was clear that you and most other people thought, okay, we've now passed a point. And I think that there's a point there where some of it is also about salvaging dignity at that moment.

AMBER

Yeah.

CRAIG

And you see some people say stay on the chessboard, I would say, stay on the chessboard, while it's realistic, but there is a point where you're just gonna lose all credibility and dignity if you continue. So you need to go. And I think that that's a big lesson.

AMBER

I do agree with that. It's a lesson in politics. And you know, it's a lesson in life, really, there is a moment where the brave thing is not to carry on, the brave thing is to step down and say that that's it, for now anyway.

CRAIG

And looking back, what was interesting was that subsequent to all this when there was a proper inquiry, and it turned out, I hope I've got my facts right here, it turned out that basically, you had been badly advised, and so you resigned because you'd said that there was no evidence that that you were aware that this was going on that people were being pushed out of the country when they shouldn't have been. And then it emerged that there was evidence so they did a letter that they’d written to you. But it subsequently emerged that, what, you hadn't seen it? Or that you..?

AMBER

There was an inquiry as to whether I had been properly supported, that was the civil service term, by the staff around me at the Home Office, so should have known various things. And the conclusion was that I had not been very well supported, it actually came down to the Select Committee that I was in front of with Yvette Cooper, where I said that there weren't certain things taking place. And it was then backed up by the department, certain things weren't taking place, which turned out to be false. So the fact that I had delivered it honestly, been given this evidence was what the report said, and that I should not have been given all the wrong information,

CRAIG

And that if that had come out earlier, would that have saved you?

AMBER

I don't know, I have a feeling that it was such an egregious sin that the UK Government had committed against quite a big cohort of people, that it required somebody to take responsibility and leave.

CRAIG

And standing back now, a few years later, what do you think of it? What did you learn from it? What did, you know, did you think actually, I got experiences and knowledge of the way things are, because of that, or did you feel bitter about it?

AMBER

No, I don't feel bitter, and that's partly because I feel that, you know, there was some real terrible behaviour from the Home Office to innocent people, and that is the terrible thing that took place, not what I had to encounter. But I do feel that personally, it was a very difficult period to go through. But having gone through it, if it happened again, I think I would handle it better.

CRAIG

Yeah. And how's life been? Since you've stood down as an MP.

AMBER

I had another job in between.

CRAIG

You were recalled.

AMBER

I was recalled, I was back in cabinet. And that enabled me to have a platform to start working again with the gang that I had in cabinet, who, with whom I was trying to make sure that we didn't leave the European Union without a deal, which we successfully did. So it mattered to me.

CRAIG

Right. Okay, I'm going to avoid discussion of that.

AMBER

Fine.

CRAIG

But you did decide to step down and leave politics, so how long were you actually in politics?

AMBER

Nine years.

CRAIG

It's amazing, isn't it? When you think of that career arc?

AMBER

Yeah, it's amazing. It's, you know, three different Prime Ministers, four years in cabinet, three different jobs. So when people say to me, would you ever go back? I'm like, no, because why would I try and ever do that again? It was extraordinary.

CRAIG

Because you were on this amazing trajectory?

AMBER

Yeah. And I was very, very lucky. You know, I look at some of my friends. It's my friends in the Labour Party who joined in 2010, at the same time as me, not only was their government, their party in opposition the whole time, but they, you know, they didn't even get some shadow cabinet roles. So, you know, I was very lucky.

CRAIG

And if you met, you could transport back in time and you could meet yourself when you were going into politics - what would you say? What advice would you give you?

AMBER

Buckle up, it's going to be quite a time! I've had no idea I was going to have so many different challenges on the way.

CRAIG

And looking back, what do you think you've learned from the whole experience?

AMBER

That you should take risk? I mean, I took risks with myself. You know, I set myself challenges on things that I didn't think I could do when I started in politics, to do with public speaking for instance, so if you'd, if I'd said to myself 2010 that you would be the person of choice to do some of these big debates, not just the Brexit debate, but standing for Theresa May at the election, all those things, I'd never have believed it. So I would say I've learned how to learn and to take risks and to be bold and sometimes to win.

CRAIG

One thing that is very clear as well is like how important you feel, you know, standing up with other women in politics supporting them -

AMBER

Yes.

CRAIG

We've now had three women Prime Ministers, some… one more successful than perhaps the other two. But anyway, we've had three women Prime Ministers, we've had the number of female Home Secretaries. Do you still feel that there is a need to make sure that you know, women are properly supported and pushed or do you think that battle has been won?

AMBER

No, the battle has absolutely not been won. I mean, you look at, there's a picture of Theresa May at the G20 and she is the only woman standing there, so internationally, it's incredibly important to keep on talking about how vital it is to have women in politics, but also here in the UK, Parliament is a very bloke-y environment. And while you have, I think it's about 70%. male at the moment, it's 65%, maybe 65%-70%? But it still feels that way. We need to keep on fighting for equal numbers, and we need to make sure that women are properly respected.

CRAIG

But you would still encourage women to go in?

AMBER

I always encourage women to go in, it is absolutely worth it. There is fantastic stuff you can do. And you will find out, find yourself much more resilient if you're actually sticking to your values and doing good things.

CRAIG

And did you feel there was a sisterhood there? Did people support each other?

AMBER

Yes, yes, there was definitely a sisterhood, not just amongst your own party, but with Labour as well. It was easy to be chummy with some of the Labour women in a way it wasn't the Labour men.

CRAIG

That's interesting. So we're coming to the end of the podcast, and you've been incredibly generous and interesting. The one question we always ask at the end is, you know, having been through everything you've been through, if there was one piece of wisdom you could pass on, what would it be? What would yours be?

AMBER

Well, I think that you need different pieces of wisdom at different ages. So when I go round and talk to young people, I do a lot of that at colleges and universities and schools. One of my phrases is ‘Hard work beats raw talent’, because most people think they can't do things. And you can learn to do things, that would be an odd thing to say to somebody who's approaching 60. So I think that what I have learned that I find, I hope I conveyed to other people who are in their professional life, who are as I like to think I am Craig, like Miss Jean Brody, still in my prime, is be bold, it's never too late to learn. And there's lots of people who start writing in their 70s, or doing interesting things. So there's plenty more to do, plenty more to learn and plenty more opportunities.

CRAIG

And what’s the thing that you've done, that's new since?

AMBER

I've immersed myself in the energy sector. And I now work with a number of companies to try and help them navigate the energy transition. And being able to do that has been a really rewarding thing. And it's my learning from being in policy that helps inform what I'm doing now.

CRAIG

And that's your professional life, but you know, family?

AMBER

Yeah, I find my family very forgiving. Really, I mean, my two children who are 29 and 31, I sort of look back on it, and I hardly saw them when I was in politics. In fact, when I became an MP, my sister said to my son, who was 17, you must be so proud, now your mother's an MP. And he said, yes, she's never home. So I'm amazed they sort of put up with-

CRAIG

And it’s interesting, your relationship with your daughter. I mean, actually, I think it's died down a little bit, but a couple of years ago on Twitter, she was telling you all sorts of things just to basically wind you up and that kind of thing.

AMBER

Yeah, we discovered sort of Twitter exchanges in public winding each other up amuse both of us and some other people as well. But you're right, we've dialled it down now.

CRAIG

Amber Rudd, thank you very much. That was great.

AMBER

Thank you Craig.

CRAIG

A big thank you to Amber for talking so openly about her life. What I really admire is how she's managed to roll with life's punches, and still managed to be optimistic, enthusiastic, and keep her family close. Next week, our guests are an extraordinary couple, Tanya and Nadim Ednan-Laperouse. Their daughter Natasha died in horrifying circumstances, after having a severe allergic reaction to a Pret A Manger sandwich that was incorrectly labelled.

NADIM EDNAN-LAPEROUSE

…losing your child and going through that whole process in such a shocking way, it feels like part of your very own soul dies, and is buried underground.

TANYA EDNAN-LAPEROUSE

We've heard the saying that broken people break others and that could easily have happened to us, I think, we were both broken and we could have just hurt each other so much.

CRAIG

It's a hard but ultimately uplifting conversation. And one I think you'll learn a lot from - I certainly did. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, follow, and even write a review for Apple and Spotify. Desperately Seeking Wisdom is produced by Sarah Parker for Creators Inc. Goodbye for now.