It looks like Sue Gray is a sensible person to take over the enquiry into the increasingly numerous reports of Christmas parties in Downing Street last Christmas: highly experienced, very independent-minded, with a lot of experience of conducting these sorts of enquiries, including Andrew Mitchell’s behaviour, when he called the officers on duty ‘plebs’ and the police on duty once again disgraced themselves by embroidering the evidence.

I think she should look most of all at the reason for the police refusing to investigate, implying that there is no evidence, when it would seem pretty obvious that there is no end of evidence, including emails, party invitations, photographs, and plenty of people willing to shop their colleagues to the press. But investigation should have been the responsibility of the police at the time, not of the press long after the event and their abrogation of any responsibility is one of the worst aspects of it all.