Matt hancock

MPs seem to have lost interest in defending our liberties. On 25 March Parliament went into recess a week early when our fundamental freedoms are under threat, our economy is being shredded, and our most independent-minded individuals, such as the self-employed and entrepreneurs, are being required to plead for state aid or bank loans. Above all, Parliament did not even scrutinise the most draconian measures enacted since the second world war. Both houses went into recess on 25 March. The coronavirus regulations were laid before Parliament at 2.30 pm on 26 March and came into force immediately. These regulations granted the police powers to impose fixed-penalty notices on people for

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has just announced that he has also tested positive for coronavirus. Matt Hancock has tweeted out a video in which he says he has been suffering from mild symptoms of the disease and is now self-isolating at home.  His announcement follows the revelation by Boris Johnson that he has also contracted the disease. And, like his boss, Hancock will continue working from home to coordinate the government’s response.  The question now, though, is how many people in government also have coronavirus. Michael Gove’s wife Sarah Vine has said that her husband has not yet been tested because he’ is not displaying any of

Is Boris Johnson’s route to No. 10 now unstoppable? The former foreign secretary has more MPs backing him than any other candidate and over the weekend bagged the support of two leadership dropouts – Esther McVey and Matt Hancock. Hancock’s support for Johnson is the most surprising – just a week or so ago the Health Secretary used an interview with the Financial Times to take a swipe at Johnson by declaring ‘f—- “f—- business”’ in response to his infamous ‘f—- business’ comment. It follows that many are reading Hancock’s endorsement as a sign that even Johnson’s critics have come around to the former mayor of London. However, not everyone

The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, dropped out of the leadership race last week and had been mulling whether to support Michael Gove (odds: 25/1) or Boris Johnson (1/5). In the end, he went for Boris. In an article in The Times, he says more. Here’s an edited extract. Central to my outlook is that we need to be optimistic about our country, take an optimistic view of human nature, and get this country moving forward with energy and vim. Because I care about people’s chances in life, I also care deeply about the best way to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister. Boris has run a disciplined campaign and is almost certainly going to

Matt Hancock has become the first leadership candidate to bow out of the race following the first secret ballot. In Thursday’s vote, Hancock came sixth – winning 20 votes. Announcing his decision, Hancock said he was ‘hugely grateful’ for the support he had received but had concluded now was not his time as the ‘party is understandably looking for a candidate for the unique circumstances we face right now’: ‘I have therefore decided to withdraw from this contest, and I will look for the best way to advance the values we fought for, of free enterprise, and an open, aspirational, free society, underpinned by an optimistic belief in the value

What does Matt Hancock offer the Conservative party? He’s a former Remainer who has stayed loyal in Theresa May’s Cabinet and so has a bit of a tricky pitch to make to a party furious about the outgoing Prime Minister’s failure to deliver Brexit. He also hasn’t got an eye-catching drugs story to get attention, for better or worse.  His solution this morning was to offer a slightly trippy leadership launch at which he went entirely overboard on the optimism, energy and bizarre motivational aphorisms. He told a slightly bewildered and haggard-looking press pack that “you are the future of Britain!”, gesticulated at the view behind him and declared “I

If it was in a playground in one of the rougher parts of town, which increasingly it resembles, this could easily escalate. One candidate remarks that he thinks the party should ‘f**k business’ so another one wades in to argue ‘f**k ‘f**k business’’. And perhaps by lunchtime some other candidate you have never really heard off will be tweeting that instead the party should ‘f**k, ‘f**k, f**k business’’. Before long, the Tory party leadership contest will start to look like the bits that were edited out of a Malcolm Tucker rant in The Thick of It for being too sweary. And yet the row spectacularly misses the point. Of course

So much of this Conservative conference has felt like a holding line from the party leadership, as though having the event in Birmingham has been inconvenient timing and something to survive, rather than enjoy. Mind you, this is the theme of Theresa May’s leadership generally: not only has the Prime Minister survived against the odds over the past year and a half, she has also given the impression that this survival is more important than, say, making decisions on Britain’s future trading relationship with the EU, or pushing ahead with domestic reform. If you want a domestic example of how cautious the Tories are being at this conference, you need

It’s good to see that for all their bickering over Brexit and war of words over austerity, the Tories and Labour are firmly united on one point of view: that the poor must be saved from themselves. That the wretched are incapable of making sensible choices and therefore their betters must step in and make choices on their behalf. Behold the great bipartisan belief of 21st-century British politics: paternalism. How else do we explain the cross-party effort to reduce the maximum bet one can place on a fixed-odds betting terminal — or FOBT — from £100 to £2? The government unveiled this state-mandated reduction in how much of our own

When Matt Hancock released the ‘Matt Hancock app’ this month, there was much mockery from his critics. While some found the idea of a personal app egocentric, others queried whether the Culture Secretary’s app was in breach of data protection laws. Now thanks to the latest register of interests it’s possible to know what the app is worth in real terms. It turns out that the app cost a whole £6,000 to make and maintain (per annum): Well, at least it hasn’t cost Hancock – or the taxpayer – a penny. The app services were a donation from Disciple Media.

Although Theresa May has found herself in a more vulnerable position since her disastrous conference speech – which featured a collapsing set, prankster and bad cough – the Prime Minister can take heart that her MPs are willing to put on a show of solidarity. At today’s Autumn Reception of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), Matt Hancock gave a speech on the important progress the group has made on what is one of the more pressing issues of our time. However, midway through his speech one of the backdrop banners fell – and had to be resurrected by an attendee. Not that it put Hancock

Although the Conservatives can celebrate an impressive victory in Copeland last night, over in Stoke things look less rosy for the party. Despite Theresa May’s visit to Stoke-on-Trent this week, the Tory candidate Jack Brereton finished third, 79 votes behind Paul Nuttall. To make matters worse for Brereton, he appears to have made little impression with Conservative MPs. During This Week‘s by-election coverage, Andrew Neil asked Matt Hancock to name the Stoke candidate to little avail: ‘Um… I didn’t meet him because I didn’t go… Phil Broughton?’ "What's the name of your candidate in Stoke?" asks @afneil "He's a…" @MattHancockMP "I did not meet him because I did not go"

As Labour MPs and members alike turn on one another at their annual conference, the Conservatives get on with their work. So, spare a thought for Matt Hancock who was attempting to do just this at today’s Radio Festival when he encountered and unusual — if eye-catching — obstacle. While giving a speech at the event, the culture minister faced a screen malfunction. Rather than have his speech appear on the autocue, two words appeared before him: ‘cock gobbler’ https://twitter.com/patrickfoster2/status/780366802316656640 While Hancock managed to get through the speech, he then cracked and revealed to the audience the view before him. Mr S suspects that one staffer at the event will be laughing very