There’s been an awful lot of coverage about how awful Matt Hancock is, and how awful it is that this unworthy cur is going to make an awful lot of money (£350,000 they say) out of his appearance on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! Personally, I’m looking forward to our downgraded former health secretary sweating like a pensioner in a care home during the earlier stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. The difference is that Hancock will know deep down that, unlike the unvaccinated, unprotected Covid victims, he won’t die a needless death.
Sadly, he wasn’t on hand for the inaugural episode of this gruelling three-week ordeal – for viewers and contestants alike. When he does arrive, ITV bosses will probably be thrilled with the number of premium rate phone calls coming in to nominate him for some suitably harsh punishment, including from bereaved folks who feel betrayed by the government’s complacency and failures in controlling the coronavirus. Hancock, let us recall, broke his own lockdown rules and left a lingering legacy of mistrust in public health advice as a result. This broken politician and ITV are thus literally profiting from national misery and death, a necessarily sobering thought as we watch Ant and Dec, as jaded in their own way as any time-served Tory backbencher, try to be all jovial about the fool. Hancock is not the same as lioness Jill Scott, Love Island lovely Olivia Attwood or the equally lovely Boy George, who, with his sculpted facial hair, extravagant headwear and sumptuous costume, these days resembles a medieval doge of Venice.
