How do you bounce back from Liz Truss-level public failure? Don’t be shameless; do show remorse | Gaby Hinsliff

From surgeons to senior civil servants, even the most decent people can make disastrous mistakes. But these gaffes require honesty

Gabriel Weston made a mistake at work this summer. It doesn’t define her – she was and is a well-regarded NHS surgeon and author – but it was serious enough, as she explained in an extraordinarily candid series of Instagram and Substack posts this month, to prompt an investigation that left her feeling “ashamed and alone and really quite nervous”. Whatever went wrong in the operating theatre was bad enough to be classed a “never event” (something that should never be able to happen if the process is working properly) and triggered a nagging anxiety that she might somehow do it again, unless she figured out where she had unexpectedly…