If, as the Westminster rumour mill suggests, business minister Baroness Shriti Vadera is about to resign from the Government, it is a far greater blow to the beleaguered prime minister than the loss of a PPS no one’s ever heard of over the Baroness Scotland affair, the potential loss of Lady Scotland herself, or even the refusal of Barack Obama to grant him a private audience ahead of the G20 summit. Vadera has been one of Brown’s most loyal sidekicks for more than a decade, and unlike anyone else who fits that description, she is the very opposite of a spin doctor or political hack.
A City financier by background, known (and in some quarters loathed) for her ferocity at the negotiating table and in Whitehall meetings, she has never had any feel for the cut and thrust of politics, or any clue how to handle the media.
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