No, minister, it was your fault

To The Times

The Gray report still has the power to shock. Much of what happened – the parties, drunken behaviour, rudeness to cleaning staff – would have been unacceptable at any time, much less during lockdown. Those senior civil servants involved must acknowledge their share of the blame. It is important to say, though, that most civil servants will feel equally angry and dismayed, if not more so. Their reputation has been damaged through no fault of their own and they too deserve an apology. To those who ask why there haven’t been consequences for those involved, the answer is clear: how could they be held to account when the person whom the buck ultimately stops with hasn’t been?

Lord Kerslake, head of the civil service 2012-14

To The Times

I served in the senior civil service for more than 30 years. When we got things wrong it wasn’t pleasant, but we mostly had the consolation of integrity to fall back on. That is conspicuously absent from the follow-up to Sue Gray’s report, which describes a sordid sub-culture at the centre of government in which the head of the civil service was so complicit that he had to be stood down from the investigation he was initially asked to lead. Boris Johnson clearly will not resign on the basis of this evidence, but Simon Case should do so now. Michael Johnson, London

To the Financial Times

What concerns me about the evidence in Sue Gray’s report is that whereas there is much consideration of the “comms” consequences, there is little or no thought of whether the behaviour was right or wrong. Clearly the current PM has no idea of the difference between right and wrong, but it is a matter of regret that the Gray report reveals top civil servants colluding in clearly wrong – and arguably – illegal behaviour. Boris Johnson will go, the civil service will remain. This needs to be remedied. But I am not clear who can do that.

Philip Warland, London