Yesterday saw the quiet departure of civil service spin doctor Ray Tang, previously director of communications at Gove’s DHLUC and before that a key player in the sprawling Cabinet Office press office. Tang rose above the usual hack-shy techniques of civil service spinners by engaging (rather extensively) with journalists – a skillset that caught the eye of none other than former Whitehall enforcer – and now Starmer head honcho – Sue Gray. As PR Week previously noted: ‘Tang will move to DLUHC after working on the comms operation around Sue Gray’s investigation into lockdown parties in Downing Street in 2020 in 2021.” In other words, he was Sue Gray’s personal flak-catcher during her controversial work investigating then Prime Minister…

His strong work for Michael Gove also made an impact in the supposedly politically shy work of Whitehall press offices. So perhaps it was no surprise that a gaggle of Guardianistas, FT hacks and other centrist insiders attended Tang’s leaving drinks at the Barley Mow pub last night. Such events tend to reveal the sources of lobby journalists, who rarely speak to civil servants but report with relish every official leak or briefing they can obtain when they can find one. It takes two to Tang-o…