Borisjohnson has said mr hancock should leave office very proud of what he d achieved. our political correspondent, ben wright has the story. one of the most familiar faces of the pandemic, the health secretary at the heart of decision making as the country battled covid, and often seen at his side was this woman, gina coladangelo, a former lobbyist, adviser to the health secretary and long term friend. but yesterday came this image of them kissing in matt hancock s office, breaking, as he admitted, the government s own covert guidelines and plunging his career into crisis. this evening, he quit. i the enormous sacrifices that everybody in this country has made, that you have made, and those of us who make these rules have got to stick by them, and that s why i ve got to resign. but hancock hope to ride out the storm, a cabinet minister with big ambition who had the backing of the prime minister. number ten considered this matter closed and it was mr hancock who decided
Who has also been releasing messages he has got from the prime minister describing matt hancock with an expletive in the middle, before it as hopeless. absolutely, there has been this criticism, if you like, of his personal behaviour, but also of his professional handling of the pandemic. that said, of course, you will find people to come to matt hancock s defence and say, you know, he had one hell tricky spot being that britain s health secretary in the middle of a pandemic. there has also been criticism, of course, of his boss, of borisjohnson, for hanging on to him but loyalty did seem to matter to mrjohnson. yes. i mean, one of the things that is most striking about this, philippa, and people watching around the world will know this, is people were wondering what on earth do you have to do to either get sacked or resign
That they shouldn t have any sort of social contact with people out side of the little bubble, the whole household, then these pictures and videos, they just look terrible when you think about what everybody has been through so national laughing stock. you know, philippa, even my kids this morning said, have you seen all the memes about matt hancock, dad? so, that tells you, when teenagers are taking an interest, you are in big trouble. perhaps, rob, if he had been seen to be felt less seen to be fault less as a health secretary, he might have hung on, but he has faced a lot of pressure. i mean, it is an ugly combination. you have the latest problem that the charge of hypocrisy, the humiliation and laughing stock. but his time as health secretary has not been unblemished. 0ne thinks perhaps of the critique that has come from the prime minister s former senior adviser, the incredibly public scathing critique from dominic cummings,
The chief whip got move on. what change? i think the chief whip got contacted i move on. what change? i think| the chief whip got contacted by a lot of conservative backbench mps because this was not the case closed and this was not just a westminster village gossipy sort of tittle tattle. this was starting to really get under the skin of constituents, starting to break through, there is a very big by election happening in the country, i heard from mps that this was starting to come up on the doorstep. i think it reminded a lot of people of the very controversial affair last year involving dominic cummings and his trip to the barnard castle and i think the public will tolerate a lot but with covid, they will not tolerate hypocrisy from the people making the rules, lecturing other people about the rules but then breaking the rules themselves. but then breaking the rules themselves. ., ., themselves. matt hancock made that point. themselves. matt hancock made that point. did thems
From borisjohnson s government? because it is very much his style, neverapologise, never explain, and incredibly sort of aggressive attitude towards any criticism, so he stood behind other ministers who have done extraordinary things, ministers who have been accused of bullying, ministers who have been accused of messing up people s education results. but i guess in the case of matt hancock, this is just so out there and you just have so many people just laughing at him, poking fun of him, and given that they are all these tricky decisions still ahead on health matters, you could see that his position was untenable. but i think, if he were to ask, philippa, does one think that borisjohnson is going to change his style and that ministers are going to have to behave to a higher standard? i mean, i think that seems rather unlikely that mrjohnson will change his pugnacious approach to standards in public life. one more brief thought, rob, you refer to tricky decisions ahead, and given the