When good men go bad

It was when Matt Hancock went over to Boris Johnson that something snapped. ‘Every time a child says “I don’t believe in fairies,”’ said Peter Pan, ‘there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.’ When Matt Hancock said this week that he did believe in Boris Johnson, something in me died.

I remember Matt practising with a few of us for his speech to Conservative candidate selection meetings. He needed more work on the fluency — he still does — but was outstandingly bright, quick, endearingly ambitious, full of bounce and, most important, he seemed to me a good person. Of course all of us are a mixture of good and bad, but I do believe some people get pulled into bad orbits while others resist, and I thought Matt would be the kind to resist. I’ve never discussed Mr Johnson with him but would hardly have thought that necessary, knowing (as I thought) Matt’s beliefs.