Flashback: Hancock said epidemiologist ‘right to resign’ over lockdown affair

Matt Hancock has been accused of “Tory Hypocrisy” for criticising Sage government adviser Professor Neil Ferguson over breaching lockdown last year to have an affair.

It comes after The Sun has revealed an alleged affair the health secretary has been having with his aide, Gina Coladangelo.

Photos of the health secretary and his department adviser in a “steamy clinch” were published today. They were taken on 6 May at the Department for Health and Social Care.

But Matt Hancock’s words from May 2020 have resurfaced, when he claimed Prof Ferguson had an “extraordinary” behaviour which left him “speechless”.

He told Sky News: “I think that he took the right decision to resign.”

And he added he could not bring himself to keep Ferguson in his job: “That’s just not possible in these circumstances.”

Hancock insisted last year that “social distancing rules are there for everyone, they are incredibly important and they are deadly serious.”

He told Sky News: “The reason is that they are the means by which we manage to get a control of this virus.”

And asked if he thought Ferguson should be prosecuted, he told the channel “you can imagine what my views are”.

Now the public seems to not want to keep Hancock in his government job either.

Reactions

One user said: “Let’s hope this shit stain follows his own advice because I won’t be following it anymore. #imdone #resign #ToryHypocrisy”

Shelley Roman said: “Youoff then son? Probs not, you lot do whatever you want these days like testing ya eyesight and what not and don’t even get a slap on the wrist. Entitled, pompous little b*****ds.”

“But for Tories, good for the goose is definitely not good for the gander. Rules for the rest of us do not apply to them,” Terry Weldon, Lib Dem Councillor in Surrey, said.

Paul McCormick said: “Hey Matt Hancock. Got anything to say about this? You’re the health secretary. These are your rules. You broke them.”

David Preece preached: “Live by the pork sword, die by the pork sword – Matthew 26, 26:52”

And Ed Hall told Hancock to resign because “nobody is going to comply with anything you say from now on”.

Tory transport minister Grant Shapps “quite sure” rules were followed

Meanwhile, transport minister Grant Shapps told LBC: “I’m quite sure that whatever the rules were at the time were followed. You recall that there was a point at which social distancing rules were changed.

“I don’t want to comment on somebody else’s private life, that is for them. I’m more interested in the job that everybody does in their own portfolios, me as Transport, and him as Health Secretary.”

But today’s revelations in The Sun suggest Hancock had been kissing his adviser during office hours last month, as the mutant Covid strain began spreading.

Andra Maciuca

Andra is a multilingual, award-winning NQJ senior journalist and the UK’s first Romanian representing co-nationals in Britain and reporting on EU citizens for national news. She is interested in UK, EU and Eastern European affairs, EU citizens in the UK, British citizens in the EU, environmental reporting, ethical consumerism and corporate social responsibility. She has contributed articles to VICE, Ethical Consumer and The New European and likes writing poetry, singing, songwriting and playing instruments. She studied Journalism at the University of Sheffield and has a Masters in International Business and Management from the University of Manchester. Follow her on: