Anger as ex-Hastings MP Amber Rudd gets Times Radio show

Ex-Hastings MP Amber Rudd will host shows with her journalist daughter Flora Gill on the new Times Radio station.

The newspaper’s DAB station will begin broadcasting on June 29. It will include “specially commissioned” programmes by former Home Secretary Ms Rudd and Ms Gill “talking about their different takes on the world”.

“I’m excited to be joining Times Radio, who have already recruited some top political journalists to their team,” Ms Rudd said. “It will be a great platform for me to put Flora in her place.”

Ms Rudd resigned as Home Secretary two years ago after she admitted misleading MPs on deportation targets

But the announcement was met with outrage by some on social media who said Ms Rudd should not have been given the role due to her involvement in the Windrush scandal in which dozens of people were wrongly deported from the UK.

Comedian Josie Long said the appointment was “offensive”.

“The most egregious is Amber Rudd who is now able to be in a fun show with her daughter despite being the Home Secretary during the Windrush scandal,” she wrote on Twitter.

One journalist said she “burst into tears” when she read the announcement. Another said she was “disgusted”.

Ms Rudd did not defend her Hastings seat in the 2019 General Election but said she is 'not done with politics'

The former Conservative MP resigned as Home Secretary two years ago after reports revealed the Government had threatened the children of Commonwealth citizens with deportation if they could not prove their right to remain in the UK. The Government had previously destroyed relevant documents certifying this right.

She resigned in April 2018 after leaked memos copied to her office showed the Home Office had set targets for deportations despite Ms Rudd previously denying their existence.

She previously told MPs she did not know of any deportation targets but wrote in her resignation letter she had “inadvertently” misled MPs “on the issue of illegal immigration”.