Downing Street is trying to put a lid on the row about Matt Hancock’s affair with someone he appointed as an unpaid adviser and then non-executive director at the Department of Health following the Health Secretary’s own apology. At today’s lobby briefing, a spokesman for the Prime Minister repeatedly said the ‘Prime Minister has accepted the Health Secretary’s apology and considers the matter closed’. He insisted that ‘all the correct procedures were followed’ on Gina Coladangelo’s appointments.
Johnson and Hancock were at this morning’s daily coronavirus meeting. But the spokesman would not give any details of conversations between the two men, or whether Johnson had asked for further assurances from the Health Secretary. He said he was ‘not going to get into details of private conversations’ and repeated that ‘the Prime Minister considers the matter closed and has accepted the apology’.
Where it becomes other people’s business is when the affair is interlinked with government business and taxpayer’s money
Funnily enough, this doesn’t close the issue.
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