The last few years of drama at Westminster have set the bar pretty high for shock and surprise, but the sudden departure from government of Sue Gray, second permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office, and her proposed appointment as chief of staff to the leader of the Labour Party really was quite the plot twist.
It would have been a striking piece of news at any time for such a senior civil servant to swap sides and accept a job with the opposition. But this was not just any senior civil servant. Sue Gray became something close to a household name last year for her investigation into the partygate scandal, and must therefore rank as the most high-profile Whitehall official of recent times.
If that were not enough, the news broke just hours before the House of Commons privileges committee published its interim report into allegations that former prime minister Boris Johnson misled parliament (which he denies) over that very same scandal.
