Leon Brittan was undoubtedly one of the leading British Jews of his generation. He rendered great service to this country in all the great offices he held, and but for the vagaries of political life might well have gone on to achieve even greater things.
His parents had come to Britain from Lithuania before the war, his father, Joseph, becoming a well-loved GP in Cricklewood, north London. Leon grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household, attended Haberdasher's Aske School and from there won an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge.
It was when we were at Cambridge that I first met him. We were members of a generation of Conservative politicians who became known as the Cambridge Mafia. Leon, Ken Clarke, John Gummer, Christopher Tugendhat, Norman Fowler and many more contested office in the University Conservative Association, stood for office in the Cambridge Union and interrogated visiting government ministers with all the precocious arrogance of youth.
Leon was our undoubted leader. He was the cleverest, the most eloquent and much the most formidable debater. So none of us were surprised at his later achievements.
