The decline and fall of Matt Hancock

When Covid first hit the headlines in early 2020, I remember asking myself a question: who’s the health secretary again? And then I remembered: Oh God.

Matt Hancock is, you may have noticed, back in the news. The disgraced ex-health secretary doesn’t ever seem to be out of it for very long. But even prior to the pandemic – before we came to know and love Hancock, in those innocent days before his weeping, before his red-hot doorway loving, before his gulping of blended sheep vagina – he did not inspire confidence.

Hancock had that Alan Partridge joke of a branded app for a start. Then there was his unprepossessing demeanour; he looked cocky and guilty at the same time. We might politely say he was lacking in gravitas, or less politely that he had the air of someone in Year 7 who’d had their lunch money nicked. When they complained, their bag was thrown between two bullies, and the teacher on playground duty just shook her head sadly, took another drag on her fag, and called, ‘Matthew, you must learn to ignore them’.