Sue Gray has shown the dangers of thinking officials are more ethical than the rest of us
Sue Gray #SueGray
Sue Gray used to be my boss. As the authorised biographer of Margaret Thatcher, I was given special permission by the Cabinet Secretary to see government papers not yet released to the public. For much of that time, Ms Gray held a senior position in the Cabinet Office, including being head of the “Propriety and Ethics Team” (PET). Her role grew. She was often called “the ethics Tsar”.
She was also in charge of the histories and records of government, and therefore of me. I worked on the Thatcher papers in the Treasury. In the same building was the heart of the Tsar’s court, a terrifying area known as “the Ethics Corridor”. We lived in fear of being deemed Improper or Unethical. It struck me that the power this role gave Ms Gray was a bit, well, unethical.
Sue Gray did not seem to like the publication of government records. She also appeared particularly keen on enforcing the rule that an incoming government of a different party should not see the records of the one before.
She got rid of official histories, which, before her, had a long tradition in British government. (This did not affect me personally because my book was not an official – ie, government-sponsored – history, but it was melancholy to see the desks left empty by able official historians as they departed.)
My dealings with my boss were minimal, but when we did meet, I felt my presence was unwelcome to her. My role, after all, was to help expose records to public view: her instinct was to keep them closed.
Then, in 2016, came the Brexit referendum. I wrote a column in The Spectator explaining that I had, technically, voted twice. At home in Sussex, I voted Leave. I also had a vote in London because of having a flat there. At my local London polling station, I spoiled my ballot paper, writing on it that I was thereby exposing the system as wide open to cheating by double voting. Ungratefully, the Electoral Commission put the police on to me. The cops kindly declined to press charges.
Much later, I learnt something else. After my article had appeared, Sue Gray had tried to withdraw my security clearance because of my – as she saw it – unethical behaviour. This would have meant I would no longer have been able to see Thatcher papers or quote from those I had seen.
Two volumes of the book had already been published. Ms Gray’s intervention, if successful, would have undermined the final one. In the event, I learnt, a minister had persuaded her to drop the matter. My life as a biographer continued unimpeded.
I tell this minor story to help illustrate certain difficulties about the fact that Ms Gray, it was revealed this week, has accepted the job of chief of staff to Sir Keir Starmer, and will therefore leave the Civil Service. No civil servant of anything like her seniority (she is a permanent secretary) has ever made such a move.
It is wrong to attack Sir Keir for recruiting her. Ms Gray is deeply experienced in the ways of government, especially in those bits, such as appointments to Cabinet or to public bodies, and conflicts of interest, which are often so tricky politically.
Besides, although no one alleges that she ever displayed party-political preferences while a civil servant, she has links to the Labour tribe. Her son is a party activist. She delivered a eulogy at the memorial service for the Blairite minister, Tessa Jowell.
She and Sir Keir will be at home with one another, and she will tell him much he did not know. Quite possibly, if he becomes prime minister, he will be a better one because of her advice.
Nevertheless, problems remain. The first is the retrospective light which will now be shed on Ms Gray’s long period of high office in Whitehall. People will look again at the choices she made. Whom did she treat easily? On whom did she come down heavily?
Moans like mine may be echoed by scores of stories from those who feel hard done by. Her decision to politicise herself gives them licence to speak out.
Of these grievances, the most important, obviously, is Boris Johnson’s. His supporters say the Gray report on the Downing Street lockdown parties is now invalidated. Sir Keir was Leader of the Opposition when that controversial merriment was taking place. He stood to benefit from the fall of Boris.
What contact did Sir Keir, or those acting for him or his party, have with Sue Gray at that time, fewer than 18 months ago? Was she planning her future when she put Boris in her dock?
It is asserted, and it could well be true, that Ms Gray would not allow her professional duty to be corrupted by political considerations or considerations of a career outside. That is the Civil Service ethic.
But, as the former PET chief, she knows better than anyone that, in public life, “perception” matters almost as much as hard fact. When you accept a post or a payment or even a party invitation, you must ask yourself not only whether your conscience is easy about it, but also how other people will perceive your actions.
There is a thing called the Acoba (the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments). It recommends whether senior Crown servants can take up a job offer outside government without improperly trading on their inside knowledge – just the sort of thing in which, as PET boss, Ms Gray was deeply involved.
How will it look once the gamekeeper turns poacher?
If, for example, Ms Gray is at Sir Keir’s side when he reaches No 10, she will know most senior officials there and across Whitehall. She will be able to advise Sir Keir, from personal knowledge, who is sympathetic to his policies and who is not. Should she be allowed to be in that position of power?
Two things emerge. The first is that Ms Gray is showing questionable judgment. Without a background in politics, as opposed to government, she will be inexperienced in all that side of things on which Sir Keir will need much help.
It would have been more obviously ethical – and better for her skills and for the country – if she had sought a secondment from the Civil Service to advise Sir Keir on all the “How government works” issues which any incoming party needs to know, but had nothing to do with assisting a Labour victory.
The second is that this politicisation of someone at the apex of Whitehall power is not good for the reputation of the Civil Service. It tends to confirm the suspicion of many voters that our bureaucrats are not neutral public servants, but people with political axes to grind, and that their views tend to the Remain cause and to the Left. Specifically, many will ask how long Sue Gray has been secretly negotiating to work for the Opposition, while being paid by the Government.
The Gray saga illustrates a point this column likes to repeat. It is not automatically true that “independent” officials, Platonic guardians of public virtue, are more ethical than the rest of us; and it is not correct to think that our country is necessarily safer when they sit in judgment on those we democratically elect.
Try this thought experiment: how would Sue Gray, the ethics Tsar, have handled the case of Sue Gray, the would-be Labour Party operator? I hope that she would at least have insisted that she delay taking up her post for two years after leaving Crown service.
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