She’s the name that’s on everyone’s lips in Westminster. As Tory ministers flounder to defend their beleaguered leader over partygate, their oft-repeated line ‘let’s wait for Sue Gray’s inquiry’ has elevated the little-known civil servant investigating No. 10’s parties into something of a Delphic oracle, the woman whose judgements could make or break a Prime Minister. But just who is the mandarin dubbed by her colleagues ‘Deputy God?’
Gray is, in some respects, a classic Whitehall mandarin. Now in her mid-sixties, she’s spent the bulk of her career climbing the rungs in the civil service since the 1970s, with stints in the Transport, Health and DWP ministries. Yet what distinguishes her from many of her safety-first peers is a willingness to embrace challenges fraught with political difficulty. Her greatest hits include spearheading the inquiries into ‘Plebgate’ and the Damian Green porn scandal. For it was while serving as the Cabinet Office’s director-general of the propriety and ethics team between 2012 and 2018 that she really made her name.
In short: Sue Gray knows where the bodies are buried
Her power has extended over the last five prime ministerships and is at its greatest when things go wrong.
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