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Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud.

Each week, we choose three pieces from the magazine and ask their writers to read them aloud.

I'm Oscar Edminson and on the podcast this week.

James Heel asked whether the cabinet secretary Simon Case can carry on.

Cosmo Landisman reads his piece in the art section of the magazine on selling a destroyed piano to the Tate.

And Miranda Morrison reads her piece in the school supplement on the damaging

obsession with STEM in secondary schools. Up first, James Heel. When Simon Case was named as

Cabinet Secretary in September 2020, he became at the age of 41, the youngest appointee in more

than 100 years. He will probably earn another distinction soon, the youngest ex-cabinet

secretary in history. In Westminster, some say his departure is a question of when, not if.

Should you go this year to allow a successor time to bed in, or wait until after the next election?

Case arrived at number 10 in the middle of a pandemic, having never run a government department,

but boasting a PhD on Whitehall machinery, written under the supervision of Peter Hennessy,

Britain's foremost living political historian, an exponent of the Good Chap theory of government.

This holds that the lesser of the rules is less important than the system being run by players who understand their spirit.

But what happens when good chaps serve a master who doesn't play by the rules?

Case's original sin, according to his defenders, was being young and talented and promoted to

that job before he was grey. More accurately, his sin was being young, talented and promoted by Boris Johnson.

Within months of his arrival, Case was embroiled in unorthodox schemes, such as a plan to have

a private donor paid for Downing Street's refurbishments. His involvement of Richard Sharpe's

nomination for chairman of the BBC remains a source of ongoing controversy, as does his knowledge

...