Her name became a kind of mantra for those hoping the UK could restore order amid the debauched chaos of Boris Johnson’s administration. “Sue Gray”, ministers and opposition leaders told the media last winter, as anger heightened over drunken No 10 parties held during lockdown, while the public was banned from comforting dying loved ones. “Sue Gray is investigating Partygate. Sue Gray will uncover the truth.”
In two separate, explosive releases – an interim report in January, and a final report in May – the former head of propriety and ethics, with a fearsome reputation for acquiring political scalps, left little doubt. In short, uncompromising sentences, she laid out the failings of politicians and senior civil servants: “The events that I investigated were attended by leaders in the government. Many of these events should not have been allowed to happen.”
But a year after Gray was handed the task of establishing the facts around Partygate – a job that was taken off the cabinet secretary Simon Case after it emerged that his office had itself held a party during lockdown – friends say she was bruised by the experience. She was effectively investigating the prime minister, her line manager Case, special advisers and the press team at No 10.
She had little way of fighting back against hostile briefings from special advisers as she conducted her inquiry with a small team from a dusty office at 70 Whitehall. Her reputation for impartiality became a shield for others, including Johnson. Politicians whom she criticised in her report maintained cordial relations with her, associates say, but her relationship with others across Whitehall, including Case, remains frosty.
Gray has told friends that no other civil servant should ever be asked to conduct such a high-profile and wide-ranging inquiry again.
She is now happy to be away from the limelight and has returned to tasks that she enjoys – conducting low-key visits as second permanent secretary to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities with responsibility for the union.
In November, Gray inspected a launch site for spacecraft in Shetland. “An amazing place. Feeling very home here,” she tweeted; she has been in Orkney looking at tidal and hydrogen power schemes and attending the first ever Islands Forum; examining freeport proposals in north-east England; and visiting Northern Ireland, as she ensures that the civil service is working for the union.
Gray, who is said to be the child of Irish immigrants, has a particular fondness for Northern Ireland. After joining the civil service straight from school, she took a career break in the 80s to run a pub in the border town of Newry during the Troubles. She still visits the region with her husband, Bill Conlon, a country music singer from County Down.
Those who know her say Gray, who is in her 60s, could be lured back into another big job in Whitehall such as a permanent secretary running a big department. She still believes that she has much to offer – although she may have to wait for a Labour administration before that happens.
