Think of Simon Case. He diligently worked his way up the ladder to become the youngest head of the civil service and cabinet secretary, only to be appointed with Boris Johnson as prime minister. Of all the gin johnni in all the cities around the world. The convict who does not intend to destroy the reputation of anyone and everything he comes in contact with. People chew and spit in a meaningless pulse. The case is no exception. Its existence is uncertain. Every day he has to curse his luck that he didn’t get the highest job five years later.
Case testified before the Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs for the first time since the resignation of Partygate and Christopher Hyde, and he seemed cautious from the start. He was playing with the pen and tapping his foot nervously on the floor. The chairman of the commission, William Ragg – also known as the killer with a baby face, started things. What percentage of the time does the Cabinet Secretary spend on fairness and ethics? Case thought for a while before deciding on up to 30%.
Imagine. Nearly a third of your work is spent on you and the people around you behaving vaguely and obeying the law. Most of us don’t really have to think twice about it. We automatically do what is right. Or close enough. Then we don’t work for the Rwanda panda. The person who does not apply all the rules that prevent him.
Case just shrugged. It was a nasty job, but someone had to do it. So he had volunteered to be the man in charge of the government’s dirty work. He is trying to bring in refugees by plane to Rwanda. Violation of international law with the Northern Ireland Protocol. Apologies for the behavior of the ministers. And he is trying to stop his own employees from behaving badly like ministers.
Do you think it is a coincidence that two ethics advisers to the prime minister have resigned, Vrag asked. Case looked nervous. That was well above his salary. It was not clear whose pay grade he thought it was. Probably no one’s. So he just got away. Alex Allen and Lord Hyde were perfectly decent people, and he had no idea why they had resigned. He was not a mind reader. And he had made sense never to ask them. Just in case to tell him.
Hurricane pressed. What was Case doing to replace Hyde? Absolutely nothing. This was the convict’s job. But he had decided to do a thorough review of what to expect from a future ethics adviser. Assuming there is one, of course. It did not seem to occur to him that he had only recently made a thorough review of what the ethics adviser could do only a few months ago. Although this did not turn out very well.
We then moved on to the difficulties of a government official investigating Johnson. That’s right, Case nodded. It would be a nightmare for him because he knew where all the bodies were buried. And he could even be expected to report that the prime minister encouraged the violation of law at number 10. It was Party Central. Hell, the Rwanda panda didn’t believe the evening had started right until he drank his second bottle of wine. After pouring half of the first.
And there would be the same problem if Hyde had investigated the parties. It was obviously much wiser for the ethics adviser to report on Partygate. Only he, too, would definitely find Johnson guilty of the charges. For now, she’d better get into Sue Gray, who couldn’t really do more than report the nonsense she’d been told. We needed a man who did not know the party atmosphere in number 10. Therefore, he retired. Ideal. The job is done.
For a while, it seemed that Case could get away with it more or less as the committee focused on the details of Greensill’s investigation. Then Labor John McDonnell pounced. What did the prime minister do to the prime minister who was trying to find Carrie Symonds, as she was then, a job in the foreign ministry? Hyde had only said today that this was something that needed to be investigated.
Now Case is in near collapse. Defensive. dirty. The man who knew nothing about anything. No, he was sure Hyde would never say something like that.
“Yes, he did,” McDonnell said. It’s here with inverted commas.
“No it is not.”
“Yes it is.”
Uh-huh, yes, but yes, and in any case, he could not comment on any conversations he had with the convict. But everything was perfectly normal and who would not try to quit a job for a lover. Just please don’t ask about the job he tried to find for Carrie. And yes, but yes, but the Prime Minister had to investigate himself …
“I guess he wasn’t on fire,” the baby-faced killer said. Never miss an opportunity to make a bad situation worse.
He wasn’t.
Then things fell apart when Beth Winter, Karin Smith and McDonnell – again – decided to have fun. What about the parties? Well, you, Case said. He was determined not to say anything. He never went to any of them and did not receive a firm notice of punishment. So he was innocent. He knew nuffink. Downing Street was a great place…
“No, it’s not,” Smith said. In fact, he was quite small. So why didn’t he have any idea he had any parties? Surely he was the only person in № 10 who didn’t know what was going on?
Case began to mutter. He took his duties really seriously. Serious enough to talk to some other government officials who told him he didn’t need to resign because he didn’t see anything. It could happen to anyone. And it was just a mystery that he had decided to retire, because a party he knew nothing about had taken place in his own office. I… I… I…
Wragg joined. Did Case also find it hysterically ridiculous that Martin Reynolds – also known as the Party Marty – was lined up to become ambassador to Saudi Arabia? The only place he couldn’t get angry? Case looked almost crying. Chronicle of predicted death.
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