Matt Hancock has returned from his stint on I’m a Celebrity for his greatest trial of all - to rescue his own reputation.
After skiving off Parliament for nearly five weeks, the disgraced former Health Secretary is back to promote Pandemic Diaries, giving his account of what happened at the top of Government during the pandemic.
From falling in love with his aide (and getting sacked for snogging in his office), to blaming care staff for the spread of the virus, Mr Hancock’s version of events have raised eyebrows.
Critics have questioned some of his more brazen claims, with ex-Tory Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell saying he didn’t find it credible.
He told the Guardian: “I can’t accept him saying something was happening when it quite clearly was not, and when the evidence was clear.”
So what exactly has he revealed - or claimed? We’ve combed through all 592 pages of Mr Hancock’s diaries - so you don’t have to.
Claiming he flagged the ‘loss of smell’ symptom early on
In mid-May 2020 the government added a loss of taste or smell to the official list of Covid isolation symptoms. Now Matt Hancock appears to suggest he knew months earlier.
On 18 March 2020 he writes: “Nadine [Dorries], as ever in the vanguard of the epidemic, says she’s lost her sense of smell and taste and everyone she’s infected has got the same thing.
“Strange: that’s not one of the official symptoms. I’ll ask the Prof to see if we need to add it to the list.”
Trying to claim he knew Eat Out scheme would go wrong
Matt Hancock claims to have been “torn” over Rishi Sunak ’s ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ - which gave diners a £10 discount, and was blamed for a spike in infections during July 2020.
“I did my best to sound supportive and refrained from expressing disapproval at his photo op,” Hancock wrote.
“…but in truth I’m worried that it might backfire and lead to a spike in cases.”
Yet the day it was announced, he tweeted: “Fantastic work from Rishi Sunak to support restaurants with the Eat Out To Help Out policy. Our plan for jobs will stimulate the economy and protect people’s livelihoods.”
Flip-flopping over face masks
On 24 April 2020 Matt Hancock told LBC radio masks should be reserved for settings like healthcare and “the evidence of the use of masks by the general public, especially outdoors, is extremely weak."
Err, except on 21 April 2020 he writes: “SAGE has completely changed its tune on masks and now recommends face coverings in enclosed spaces where social distancing is not possible.
“I think it’s the right decision, but explaining such a spectacular U-turn is going to take some serious verbal gymnastics.”
SAGE later changed its mind again, but it was clear the evidence was in dispute. As early as 3 February 2020 he says “there’s a debate brewing” and an advisor “told me there’s a furious global debate on this question.” On 16 April 2020 he adds "there's still a lot of ambivalence about the benefit of masks".
How his affair with Gina emerged
The first reference to Matt Hancock’s future lover Gina Coladangelo is on 8 January 2020 - when she moans his “patriotic” Union Jack socks are “a bit UKIP”.
But he is coy about exactly how their sexual relationship started. On 4 May 2021 he says, a bit nauseatingly, “my relationship with Gina is changing. Having spent so much time talking about how to communicate in an emotionally engaged way, we are getting much closer.”
You can say that again - the video of the married pair snogging was filmed two days later. He says the relationship began that May.
Boris Johnson vowed to back him - then tried to claim credit for him quitting
When the Sun learned of the affair on 24 June 2021, Matt Hancock asked Boris Johnson for advice - and the PM stuck by him.
He told the PM he had “recently fallen in love, and fallen in love very deeply” - after which Mr Johnson “assured me my private life should not affect my public position”.
Mr Johnson added: “Well, you haven’t broken the law. The guidelines aren’t binding - they’re recommendations. So I will stand by you.”
Yet after Mr Hancock quit, the PM said the snog undermined Covid guidance and “that’s why when I saw the story on Friday we had a new secretary of state for health in on Saturday.”
Boris Johnson filmed his resignation video
In a bizarre moment, Matt Hancock reveals the Prime Minister filmed his resignation video over the affair with Gina Coladangelo after he went to see him at Chequers.
“The great machinery of the state was nowhere,” he said. “It was just me and the PM fumbling around with an iPhone.
“He stood on the grass, holding the phone while I said my piece. It took a few goes to get right. He nodded sympathetic encouragement so much throughout the first take that the camera waved up and down.”
Telling his wife was the 'worst conversation of his life'
Cheating Matt Hanock recalls the "dread" he felt at his affair being publicly revealed - and how he broke the news to his devastated wife.
He felt "terrible black dread" at the prospect of his affair with Gina being revealed, and recalled the "devastating implications of our feelings for each other". He described the moment when he told his wife about the affair as the "very worst conversation of my life.”
Boris Johnson thought Covid would 'probably go away'
Matt Hancock claimed Boris Johnson wasn't keen to engage about the pandemic. When he first raised the outbreak in China in early January, the ex-PM said: "You keep an eye on it. It will probably go away."
He warned Mr Johnson that while it might still be possible to contain the virus, it was "more likely we're going down". Mr Johnson apparently replied: "Bash on."
He said No10 aide Dominic Cummings thought Covid was "a distraction from our official withdrawal from the EU next week” - before then belatedly being obsessed with data.
Dominic Cummings ‘was chatty rat' lockdown leaker
There was clearly no love lost between Matt Hancock and ex-No10 aide Dominic Cummings - the book is scattered with grumpy references to his decisions.
Mr Cummings used a Commons appearance in May 2021 to accuse the-then Health Secretary for a raft of Covid failings and said he should have been fired "15 to 20 times".
So Mr Hancock uses his diaries to get his own back, blaming his old enemy for leaking the news of the second lockdown in November 2020 before it was announced.
He recalled receiving a text on Oct 30 from ITV political editor Robert Peston asking if there would by a full lockdown while at a curry house with his family.
"My money is firmly on Dominic Cummings via his acolytes,” he said. “The agenda? To bounce the PM into announcing the lockdown sooner [rather] than later and stop him U-turning. If they got me sacked into the bargain, that would be a bonus."
PM tried to palm off big ‘lockdown’ announcement onto Hancock
The night before Boris Johnson told people to stop all social contact on 16 March 2020, he met Matt Hancock in the Cabinet Room.
“We are going to have to tell everyone to stop all unnecessary social contact”, Mr Hancock claims he said - to which the PM replied: “Well, you better go out and tell them, then.”
Mr Hancock wrote: “I’d be happy to of course, but really? Doesn’t this need to come from their Prime Minister?”
Covid worst-case scenario predicted 820,000 deaths
Mr Hancock describes an "oh s***" meeting in January 2020 where Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty delivered a bombshell prediction.
"In his characteristically understated way, sitting at the back peeling a tangerine, Chris Whitty quietly informed everyone that in the reasonable worst-case scenario, as many as 820,000 people in the UK may die," he writes
"The transmission is so high that almost everyone would catch it. The whole room froze. We are looking at a human catastrophe on a scale not seen here for a century."
SAGE started working on lockdown ideas 41 days before it happened
On 11 February 2020, he writes, “SAGE has started working on what lockdown options might have the biggest impact if they’re needed.
“They think there’s not much point stopping large public gatherings… people gather more closely and frequently in pubs and restaurants. Religious services and family gatherings are the biggest risk of all.”
He also questioned whether schools would have to shut. It took well over another month to lock down, a decision critics say led to tens of thousands of needless deaths.
... And ministers were role-playing 'burial pits in Hyde Park'
On 12 February 2020 there was a worst-case scenario planning meeting. “Where in Hyde Park would the burial pits be? Who would dig them? Have we got enough body bags?”
But the meeting happened a day before a reshuffle, so some of the ministers in the room were moved to different jobs hours later. Lockdown began on 23 March 2020.
PPE warehouse only had one door
On 17 March 2020 Mr Hancock claims there was a “huge stock” of PPE with a billion items but “we can’t get it out” - because the warehouse only has one door.
“Only one lorry can pull up at a time,” he writes.
“Shame nobody looked at Amazon’s warehouses for inspiration - they have dozens of lorry bays. What a classic government fail.”
Blaming care home staff for spread of virus
Matt Hancock defended the decision to release care home residents from hospital without testing - which was blamed for thousands of deaths.
He said the "vast majority of infections were brought in from the wider community, mainly by staff" and also suggested that the then chief executive of NHS England Simon Stevens had pushed for elderly hospital patients who did not need urgent treatment to be discharged.
By July, he said he received a "startling note" in his ministerial red box suggesting most cases in care homes were brought in by staff with the virus whose managers allowed them to continue working.
Saying he opposed 'bonkers' plan to release prisoners before lockdown
Mr Hancock said the Minister of Justice wanted to bring in a "bonkers" plans to release "thousands" of non-violent prisoners before the first lockdown “as they'd be easier to manage if they're not in prison.
He said "yes, really: they actually thought this might be a goer” and that he made his opposition clear to Boris Johnson.
But the Ministry of Justice highlighted that a scheme to release some low-risk offenders within weeks of their release dates was announced in April 2020.
A source close to then Justice Secretary Robert Buckland also told The Mirror it was "bollocks" that he wanted to release thousands of prisoners.
Claiming No10 asked RAF jet to fly one person to Newcastle for a Covid test
On 28 February 2020 he claims the Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, is being “bombarded with requests for the RAF to ferry around Covid passengers and is getting cross.
“This morning No10 asked him to fly a single individual from Northern Ireland to Newcastle for testing. He said no… the RAF is not some kind of private jet service.”
Tory peer Michelle Mone sent 'extraordinarily aggressive' emails about PPE contracts
The ex-Health Secretary claimed that Tory peer Michelle Mone used "extraordinarily aggressive" lobbying tactics on behalf of a company bidding for Covid contracts.
Mr Hancock said he was left "stunned" by Baroness Mone's emails about the red tape faced by an unnamed firm she was helping.
He wrote: "She claims the firm, which makes lateral flow test kits, ‘has had a dreadful time’ trying to cut through red tape and demanded my ‘urgent help’ before it all comes out in the media. ‘I am going to blow this all wide open,’ she threatened."
Mr Hancock said he wouldn't be "pushed around by aggressive peers representing commercial clients".
Partygate
Partygate only gets the vaguest of mentions in Hancock’s diaries. He admits he was at one event - the ‘cheese and wine’ drinks in the No10 garden on 15 May 2020 - with future lover Gina.
“After today’s Downing Street press conference, I went back to the Thatcher Room to pick up my stuff and ask the team how they thought it went, then along to the PM’s office to download as I usually do,” he wrote.
“He wasn’t there but the duty clerk said I’d find him in the garden, so we all went through. Gina came too, the first time she’d been in the Downing Street garden. Most of the No. 10 team were sitting around in small groups.”
Advisor knew people would think his TV weeping was fake
Matt Hancock famously broke down in tears live on TV - becoming a meme for life - after confirming the news that the first Covid jab had been administered on December 8 2020.
He said: "Gina and [my Special Advisor] Damon accompanied me to the broadcast studios. 'You need to relax' was Gina's advice, by which she meant: 'Stop being so buttoned up.' What she did not mean was that I should lose it altogether, which unfortunately is exactly what happened."
As the footage of the first vaccine rolled, he "completely lost it, blubbing away" live on TV.
Tellingly, he writes: “‘So long as they don’t think it was faked’, said Damon.” He insisted his emotion was real, and included “heaving sobs” before the camera returned to him.
"I was at the centre of events"
The diaries are not subtle about burnishing his own role.
“I was in the hot-seat”, the prologue boasts. “From the first warning signs in Wuhan through to the massive national response, I was at the centre of events.
“It was the most important thing I have done in my life and I gave it my all.”
But... the diary was not actually written as it happened
Matt Hancock freely admits that the diary wasn’t actually written at the time. That will lead to claims he has tried to present a favourable version of events to burnish his image.
“Of course, I didn’t have time to keep a detailed diary in the midst of the maelstrom, nor would it have been right to do so,” he adds.
The account has been “pieced together from my formal papers… contemporaneous notes and voice memos, my communications with ministerial colleagues, interviews with many of the participants” and so on. Make of that what you will.
