Back in July, less than two weeks after Labour took office, Gray was accused of “subverting Cabinet” by trying to take personal control of the decision of whether or not to award tens of millions in taxpayers’ money to Casement Park, the main GAA stadium in Belfast.

In 2020 she failed to be appointed head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, which for historic reasons is separate to the rest of the Home Civil Service. While no formal reason was given, Gray was reportedly a polarising figure, and was “particularly disliked by the DUP” due to her links to Irish nationalism.

These suspicions go back a long way. A key part of Gray’s story is the period during which she took a career break to run a pub in County Down. The rumour is that she was working for British intelligence, but the most famous anecdote — she was let through an IRA roadblock after they recognised her, and she received a welfare check-up afterwards — puts one more in mind of Shecky Greene’s famous joke about Frank Sinatra’s alleged links to the mob: “Frank Sinatra saved my life. Five guys were beating me up and Frank said, ‘Okay, he’s had enough.’”

Not that Gray’s interests are confined solely to Northern Ireland, however. Sources told me at the time that she was very active behind the scenes in trying to thwart Alister Jack’s decision to veto Nicola Sturgeon’s controversial Gender Recognition Reform Bill, a landmark victory for Westminster’s authority after two decades of letting the devocrats do whatever they wanted. This version of events was yesterday backed up by Shadow Cabinet member Kemi Badenoch.

This, then, is the context in which Gray has been appointed “envoy to the nations and regions”. While Labour doesn’t seem minded to bring forward most of Gordon Brown’s absurd plans for completely remaking the Union, it doesn’t look as if Starmer has any interest in defending the authority of the British state or holding the devocrats to account.

Perhaps he’s just trying to spare his party’s blushes. After all, Labour has been in power in Cardiff since the advent of devolution, and the consequences for critical public services such as education and health have been disastrous. It also seems very likely to take power back from the SNP in Edinburgh in 2026, again without any big ideas for shaking up Holyrood’s failing consensus.

But this isn’t just a Labour story. The real eye-opener is how often Gray was put forward to sensitive positions during the 14 years of Conservative rule, even when her instincts ran completely against the Tories’ intermittent efforts at “muscular unionism”.

Perhaps it was that which led her to believe she could transition easily into a political role, despite evincing not the smallest shred of political instinct.

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Henry Hill is Deputy Editor of ConservativeHome.

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