The appointment of Sue Gray as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff (Boris Johnson allies furious as Keir Starmer hires Sue Gray as chief of staff, 2 March) can be interpreted in one of three ways: 1) Her appointment makes her retrospectively unfit to conduct an inquiry into (inter alia) Boris Johnson’s behaviour; 2) What she saw in her inquiry, as a civil servant of the highest integrity, has made her keen to work with a cleaner alternative; 3) The inquiry and her appointment are unrelated.
The first interpretation, the Moggist (Jacobean) view, is interesting. Presumably it means that any minister who subsequently takes a job in the private sector with any link of any sort to his previous ministry was unfit to do their ministerial job. Maybe it even means that Lord David Frost, who became a Tory minister, was unfit to be a civil servant. It certainly means that Dido Harding, as a Tory peer, should not have been appointed to a non-partisan job as head of NHS test and trace.
Calum Paton
Emeritus professor of public policy, Keele University
• The Tories’ furore over Sue Gray’s new job shows that they do not understand the role of public service and the professionalism of those in it. The fact that Boris Johnson and top ministers were taken by surprise that Gray is now identifying with Labour itself demonstrates how professional she has been throughout her civil service career.
Margaret Thatcher did not understand that an individual with strong political views could act without bias, and her government passed an act in 1989 banning what she called “twin-tracking”, to prevent an elected councillor on one authority becoming an officer on another. No doubt there is some abuse by controlling parties anxious to provide employment for their friends and this should be punished. But to ban all such individuals prevents many professional men and women from using their skills in the public service. In any case, to be aware of the politics of individuals in the civil service or in local government itself ensures their professionalism.
Michael Meadowcroft
Leeds
• Comments by Jacob Rees-Mogg and other Tories simply reveal the way they think – that all people are self-serving and corrupt. It is much more likely that Sue Gray has been saddened by the behaviour of many in the Conservative party and that this has recently prompted a move to heal Britain with a new Labour party and herald a return to respecting, listening to and working courteously with civil servants.
Anita Charlton
Corbridge, Northumberland
• Following the privileges committee report saying there is evidence that Boris Johnson may have misled the Commons (3 March) , he insisted he had done nothing wrong and sought to discredit Sue Gray for her scrupulous inquiry. A line in a poem by Hilaire Belloc leapt to mind: “Matilda told such dreadful lies / It made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes.” It does not end well for Matilda.
Steve Richards
Bath
• Boris Johnson frequently mentions his classical education, so surely he understands that Sue Gray’s new post is an excellent example to illustrate the phrase post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this). But there is one phrase he doesn’t use or understand: mea culpa.
Tony Mayer
Swindon, Wiltshire
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