HMRC’s Paul Gray never resigned, Cruickshank did

After news of the data loss scandal broke, there was a joke was doing the rounds at HMRC about Paul Gray.

“Paul Gray didn’t resign,” it went. “He was pensioned off due to ill-health. He had two slipped discs.”

Boom boom, as Basil Brush would add. But the joke came far closer to the truth than any journalist did. Paul Gray, for those of you with short or just very selective memories, was chief executive of HMRC, who resigned when the missing CDs were formally announced.