Tom Peck's Sketch: 'The Gray Thing' could teach the SAS a thing or two

For Chris Grayling to render himself entirely invisible while giving a twenty minute speech was admirable in its way

Tom Peck
Tuesday 19 January 2016 21:17 GMT
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Former Secretary of State for Justice, Chris Grayling
Former Secretary of State for Justice, Chris Grayling

For the failed public servant with an affable manner and a triptych of anecdotes, there is always the after dinner circuit.

Tony Blair once famously pocketed £50,000 for a speech to an audience of toilet roll manufacturers.

Chris Grayling, it is unanimously agreed, is no Blair, but as he made his way out of a lunch held in his honour, he had left behind left not a stain of evidence that you would even be inclined to pity him with 50p for three sheets of three-ply in a nightclub toilet.

As Andy McNab explains in Bravo Two Zero, captured SAS officers are well trained in becoming the gray man, to draw no attention to oneself while all the while gathering crucial information. It is a strategy “The Gray Thing”, as he was known in university days, has diligently deployed in reverse during his 14 years in public life, constantly drawing attention to himself while repelling all wisdom. But still, to render oneself entirely invisible and simultaneously give a 20-minute speech was admirable in its way, and not something even the SAS can teach.

Any political pollster will tell you, anecdotal evidence is unreliable but, on a personal note, for those whose job it is to find something funny going on in the world of politics every day, it is unusual, while listening to an after-dinner speech from a cabinet minister, to wish you had instead gone to the Pre-Election Polling Inquiry at the Royal Statistical Society.

Whether Grayling had some funny anecdotes and Michael Gove has cruelly cancelled them we can only guess but, to spare you the details, if it transpires Chris Grayling has anything to do with the eagerly awaited Friends reunion, it will run a little bit like this:

The One Where I Saw Ken Clarke and Damian Green having lunch and they saw me and went quiet but I walked off and we’re still friends.

The One in Which I Reveal I Know Alex Salmond’s travel alias but as it’s not subject to a Freedom of Information Request I am not going to say what it is.

The One Where I support Manchester United and someone else supports Liverpool.

And finally, The One Where I Went to a meeting in France but they didn’t know who I was so I had to go in a door at the back.

There was, in Mr Grayling’s defence (and he was moved on from the Justice Department just in time for everyone to still be entitled to a defence), one decent line.

“If Britain votes to leave the EU,” he said. “David Cameron will carry on as Prime Minister.”

So, toilet roll manufacturers of the world, don’t get your hopes up. The Gray Thing is the best you’re going to get. At least he’ll be cheap.

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