Terror of the Foreign Office high flyer who was carjacked in a trendy London street

The ordeal of Sarah Schaefer is a major setback to Labour's rubbishing of Conservative claims that the rise in violent crime has led to "anarchy in the UK".

Ms Schaefer, senior adviser to Foreign Secretary David Miliband, was attacked just after 3pm on Tuesday near her home.

The mother of two, who is more influential than most women Cabinet Ministers, was driving the family people-carrier used for school runs when a man ran into the road and forced her stop.

The man, who police believe was trying to make a getaway moments after committing burglary and assault, leapt into the passenger seat alongside a terrified Ms Schaefer and ordered her to drive on.

Showing remarkable courage, Ms Schaefer refused, grabbed the keys from the ignition and jumped out of the car.

Astonished onlookers saw the man give chase and demand that she hand them over.

Ms Schaefer again refused – and hurled the keys away to try to stop him stealing her car.

But the man dashed to fetch them, ran back, got into her VW Touran and drove off. Shortly afterwards he crashed into another car, before escaping on foot.

Police arrived to find Ms Schaefer shocked but unharmed.

The attack happened in Victoria Park Road, Hackney, one of the newly gentrified areas of East London where detached Victorian homes can sell for more than £1million.

It is just five miles from Whitehall, two from the City of London and only a mile from the site of the 2012 London Olympics.

Former journalist Ms Schaefer is a key adviser to Mr Miliband and is married to Spectator magazine editor and political writer Matthew D'Ancona.

She and her husband are one of the most prominent couples in Westminster.

Ms Schaefer, who is in her mid- 30s, advises Mr Miliband on party political issues as well as media relations.

Scroll down for more...

Ms Schaefer (right), with Mr Miliband at an event in a Chinese restaurant

However, despite her close links with the media, she refused to discuss the carjacking.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We have no comment." The silence prompted speculation that the Government was trying to play down the incident for political reasons.

Mr Brown's early months as Prime Minister have been marred by evidence of an alarming increase in violent crime, including the gun murder of Rhys Jones, 11, in Liverpool.

Ministers, MPs and Government officials – who work in the heavilypoliced Whitehall and Westminster environments – are mostly immune from the threat of lawlessness faced by millions every day.

The attack on Ms Schaefer is a stark reminder that crimes such as carjacking, once associated only with ghettos in the US and South Africa, are now commonplace here – and can occur in neighbourhoods popular with the middle classes.

Victoria Park was created in Victorian times as a "lung" for London's East End, and adjacent Victoria Park Road – where Ms Schaefer was confronted – was built with a mix of large detached houses for prosperous families alongside small terrace homes for the less well-off.

After a long decline, it has undergone a dramatic revival since the Eighties owing largely to its proximity to the booming City of London, leading to young professionals living alongside the traditional working class population and a large ethnic community.

Ms Schaefer is just the latest highprofile person to fall victim to rising crime.

Muggers stole a mobile phone from Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan's daughter Chloe, 19, while she was making a call in Notting Hill's fashionable Portobello Road in March.

Chelsea and England footballer Frank Lampard's £8million West London home was burgled in May 2005 as the star and his girlfriend Elen Rives slept upstairs.

And high-profile divorcee Beverley Charman, 54 – awarded a £48million payout – was tied up at her Kent home and robbed of jewellery worth £300,000 in March.