Her Sueness is surely too powerful to lower herself with party politics
It’s all in the name. If Sue Gray had been called Cruella Gray or Sue de Vil, no one would trust her – but the Sueness and Grayness combine to create the impression of a sweet civil servant who knits her own sweaters. That she would resign on Thursday and Labour would announce on Friday that it had offered her the job of Sir Keir’s chief of staff is as shocking as discovering the church organist is a secret swinger – and even Starmer struggled to explain it. Ten times he was asked on LBC when he first approached her. Ten times, he failed to answer. (Sir Keir denied having any contact with Ms Gray during the preparation of the partygate report.)
Are we to believe that she auditioned one afternoon, sang her little heart out and he hired her on the spot? Stranger still, I’m told that Sir Keir’s last chief of staff resigned in October, which means no one’s been running the small office he presumably rents above Ladbrokes for five long months. Does this explain the rush to employ Sue? If someone doesn’t water that spider plant sharpish, it’s going to die... Determined to get some answers, several MPS submitted urgent questions; and I couldn’t help but notice, said the Speaker, they “all had the same wording and same length of sentence”. The story stinks, cried the Conservatives (you’d imagine, from their outrage, that Sue had turned up in Moscow with the nuclear codes). Labour’s strategy was to laugh it off, but only about a dozen of their MPS felt courageous enough to show, so they had to deliver exaggerated stage laughs. This question, said Barry Sheerman equably, is a “shabby little manoeuvre” – then, forgetting that he was meant to be amused by it, yelled that the Tories were here on a “five line whip!”, and turned as red as a tomato. That’s not an actual question, said the Speaker gently. He suggested that Barry sit down.
The Conservatives are indulging in “conspiracy theories”, rebutted Angela Rayner. What next? “A debate on the Moon landing?” A motion to “dredge Loch Ness?” She jokes, but if anyone does know what happened at Roswell, it’s probably the Gray Eminence. One Tory after another, desperate to make themselves sound critical to the life of the nation, began by saying how much “I myself have enjoyed working with her” – proving the claim Sir Oliver Letwin once made that “our great United Kingdom is actually entirely run by a lady called Sue Gray”. The real mystery is why anyone this powerful would want to enter politics.
The Speaker ruled out any mention of Boris Johnson, not to spare the elephant any blushes – he wasn’t in the room – but because Gray was judge in his inquiry and Parliament is still weighing up a verdict. Is it not significant, however, said Jacob Rees-mogg, that we now know Red Sue’s report was written “by a friend of the socialists”? I telephoned Starmer’s office for comment. Nobody picked up and the voicemail was full, but the good news is I was redirected downstairs and ended up winning £40 on the 3.15 at Wetherby.