On Friday afternoon Sky News broke the detail-light news that Boris and Sue Gray held a meeting about a month ago. Whilst co-conspirators might shrug, the media went mad; launching a weekend-long frenzy over who organised the meeting, its purpose, and suggesting there are now questions about whether Gray has been subjected to political interference. Once the Metropolitan Police didn’t issue any more fines to Boris, and the media realised Sue Gray wasn’t likely to dislodge Boris either, the anti-Boris media immediately switched tack and began casting doubt on her inquiry…

The media failed to get quite so het up a month ago when it emerged Sue Gray was being advised by a Brexit and Boris hating QC, Daniel Stilitz – the only external lawyer consulted by Gray, and name-checked at the start of the report. A card-carrying Labour Party member, Stilitz only deleted his social media accounts when Conservative Post noticed his tweets backing a second referendum, slamming the government, and encouraging people to sign up for Labour Party membership. Guido was tipped off that it might be interesting to look into who sanctioned Stiliz’s involvement – questions the Cabinet Office haven’t answered…

Sue Gray is hardly from a neutral political home either. Her son, Liam Conlon, is chair of the Labour Party’s Irish branch – a group that hosted Sir Keir for a talk and Q&A just two months ago. Conlon himself has been pictured alongside Starmer and even brought his mum along to meet Labour politicians in Parliament.

If the media’s seriously worried about Gray’s report not being politically neutral, they may want to factor all of this into their analysis…