Gordon will miss his loyal servant, Shriti the Shriek

Mrs Thatcher had a Willie, Gordon Brown had Shriti. That's how important Baroness Vadera has been to the Prime Minister.

Just as Thatcher relied on Willie Whitelaw as a reliable pair of hands, so did Brown come to depend on Vadera. She held two titles — business minister and Parliamentary under-secretary in the Cabinet Office — and three desks, in the Business Department, Cabinet Office and Number 10.

Yet Vadera was neither a politician nor a career civil servant. She's a business person parachuted into government. And she is a woman and Asian, to boot.

Her Whitehall nickname is Shriti the Shriek, in reference to her occasionally demanding manner.

Famously, earlier this year, she blotted her copybook by heralding economic "green shoots" when there were none. She also came under fire for the poor working of the Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme, a Labour attempt to help small firms in the credit crunch.

Born in 1962, the daughter of Ugandan Asian parents, she was privately educated and went to Oxford. She has never married and lives alone. Her first job was in the City, at SG Warburg. She worked with the South African government on boosting the country's infrastructure.

Vadera was made a trustee of Oxfam which brought her to the attention of Brown. She became a sounding-board on sovereign-debt relief and steered the Government's Jubilee 2000 and Make Poverty History campaigns.

Her brief widened to pretty much anything that crossed Brown's desk, including Railtrack, the part-privatisation of the Tube and the collapse of Northern Rock and the banks' rescue package. Brown will miss her — Vadera was the most loyal of his servants.