1 week ago
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Five weeks after Sue Gray resigned as the prime minister’s chief of staff, with the prospect of her being sacked hovering close, she is off again.
And just like last time, even the manner of her departure is contested.
We have been told the prime minister had decided to withdraw the offer for Ms Gray to be his envoy to the nations and regions.
And, we understand, the cabinet secretary, the most senior civil servant in the country, had spoken to her to confirm this.
This chain of events is not disputed by other figures in government.
But Ms Gray is adamant it was her decision, we are told, and she never spoke directly to the prime minister about it.
A friend of Ms Gray told the BBC: "Sue has taken a decision not to take the role. She’s going to focus on other things."
They added: "She’s taken time to think about it properly, talking to stakeholders, but ultimately she’s decided she doesn’t want to do it."
It appears the prime minister had grown tired of Ms Gray’s failure to actually start the paid, part-time job that she had been demoted into when she left Downing Street.
Given the 38 days which have gone by since it was publicly known she had been offered the new job she had yet to start, it had been clear for some time that she didn’t want to do it.
It seems reasonable to conclude, at the very least, that both sides were having second thoughts.
It also seems reasonable to say that a second bout of messy and not entirely consistent briefing from each camp underlines the central truth in all of this - the hurt, the rows, the anger, the mistrust which has been there for all to see.
Her apparent lack of enthusiasm was almost immediately evident, when she failed to turn up at the first ever meeting of a new Council of the Nations and Regions in Edinburgh just days into the job.
What followed were daily questions to the prime minister’s official spokesman from reporters about whether she had taken up her post.
After weeks of stonewalling, an answer: no.
One insider got in touch about the envoy role and said: "We all thought it was a bad idea that would lead to endless drama and probably another resignation down the line."
In other words, what might have seemed like a mutually convenient layby into which Ms Gray could be shunted, ended up perpetuating a rather public soap opera.
Some sceptics had seen the new gig as a non-job from the start. The government saying it isn’t looking to fill the vacancy will do little to dispel that instinct from those who thought it all along.
The Scottish National Party MP Pete Wishart mocked the news, telling the Commons: "We got the crushing news today that our British envoy to Scotland will no longer be coming there to represent this Parliament."
"We were practicing the street parties and the haka just to be sure that she was properly welcome to the northern territories," he added.
So, what might happen next?
Some have pondered that Ms Gray may be offered a seat in the House of Lords – but would that revive all of these issues again?
Incidentally, beyond all the noise about Ms Gray it is worth reflecting on other more recent changes in Downing Street – both in personnel and managerial instinct.
Two Blair-era Labour advisers are returning to the heart of government in senior roles – Jonathan Powell as national security adviser and Liz Lloyd as director of policy delivery and innovation.
This reconfiguration coincides with Sir Keir Starmer coming to a view four-and-a-half months into the job as prime minister that it isn’t sufficient for No 10 to merely empower government departments to crack on with their work.
They need "a strong team captain", as one source put it.
"This is the broader part of the post-Sue reset," the source added, saying it amounted to a "significant reassessment" in how Sir Keir wanted to approach a job he has been learning how best to grapple with.
Ms Gray has been a case study in the early difficulties of that grappling, which Downing Street might now finally hope to have put behind it.
