When Sue Gray resigned as the prime minister’s chief of staff last week, she said it was because she “risked becoming a distraction to the government’s vital work of change”. They always say something like that. Don’t become the story – that’s supposedly the rule for pretty much anyone other than the prime minister.

The prime minister is allowed to be the story, good or bad, because, by definition, what the prime minister does isn’t a distraction, it’s the thing itself. But anyone else can plead the blameless fact that they’re accidentally distracting everyone from more important things. “Talk of my private life”, “widespread press reports of my cronyism and embezzlement”, “my cut-price hair transplant that went hilariously wrong”, “the relentless clip-clop of my amazing shoes” – such things can become a distraction thanks to the silly media and their inability to just sit still and listen to the barrage of sensibleness that the government is trying to present.

It flatters the ego too, inadvertently being a distraction. “Oh I’m so sorry, everyone’s looking at me again – how regrettable and inappropriate.” “Oh dear, you’re all staring at me while poor Sir Ian McKellen is in a nightie at the front pretending to be King Lear. Stop it everyone! Look at Sir Ian! Would it help if I stood still? Honestly, you should really be listening to Sir Ian – he’s got a lot to say! Oh I’ll just go. I’m being a terribly watchable distraction. OK, I’m heading off stage. Don’t watch me. Keep your........

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