Apologies to Delaroche www.johnsadlerillustration.com

• WE can all remember a frantic time a couple of years back when – from out of nowhere – suddenly everybody was talking about Sue Gray.

“Sue who?” She was then an obscure but senior civil servant whose very name became a password for Tory politicians facing awkward questions about Partygate.

She was possessed of unimpeachable probity and thus put in charge of the investigation into the goings-on in Downing Street, and the mere mention of her name was enough to block difficult questions.

“I can’t possibly comment on that until Sue Gray completes her inquiry,” huffed relieved Tory ministers.

Then briefly she was forgotten until Sir Keir Starmer poached her for Labour’s run-up to the election. Then those same Tories who’d used her as an escape hatch began to suggest she wasn’t quite the thing.

Her name began to be used as shorthand for Labour being dodgy in some vague way. Oh and she was paid too much as well.

Then on Sunday, again suddenly, she’s gone (to some civil equivalent of the Chiltern Hundreds).

To me she seems a perfectly decent and able woman who has been caught up in a series of crazy political whirlwinds. Much like her (almost) namesake of Tudor times, Lady Jane Grey “The Nine Days Queen”.

Let’s hope in these more enlightened times, Gray manages to keep her head!

FW ANDERSON, NW3