Hutchison are pretty canny operators – as anyone who has had any business dealings with them will testify.
What this appointment probably indicates is that there’s a gap between the strategy set by ministers and the way that policy is then implemented by civil servants.
I think Michael Gove referred to the same earlier this summer when he said that one of the challenges with Covid is that ministers have a set of levers to implement policies but those levers are connected to a huge pile of jelly.
Having worked with Civil Servants across a number of departments it’s true that there are some ferociously capable people – but in the whole, many of the departments are slow moving, unwieldy, resistant to change and in some cases will cheerfully embarrass ministers if the opportunity arises. This proved to be the case with Amber Rudd. In her case it transpired that the information she’d been given before her resignation was incorrect – she carried the can but the civil servants didn’t.
So in conclusion – it’s a **possibility** that Grayling is more competent than other politicians and the media would have us believe. I’ve got no knowledge either way so I’m not saying he definitely is competent – just that the performance of ministers to a significant degree rests with the competency and culture of the teams underneath them.