Let me begin this column – loosely themed Men of the Home Front – by observing that only Matt Hancock could have the misfortune to relaunch his political career at this precise moment. Yesterday the former health secretary made news landfall with an appearance on a podcast hosted by someone from Dragons’ Den, in which he discussed the prevailing issue of our time: Matt Hancock’s romantic life.
Donning the polo neck of contrition – last seen on Dapper Laughs for a Newsnight appearance in 2014 – Hancock explained he had had to break his own coronavirus guidance because he “fell in love”. Of the female aide in question, he explained: “We spent a lot of time together, ironically trying to get me to communicate in a more emotionally intelligent way.” Thank you, Alanis – although, it actually HAS ended up being quite ironic. All that incredible work on his emotional intelligence and Matt still ends up saying it out loud on a day otherwise dominated by grotesque pictures of war and human carnage from Ukraine.
Then again, perhaps Matt has quite accidentally performed a valuable public service. He has selflessly redeployed as a pressure valve, providing a useful outlet for all the adult Brits who have been just itching for a chance to stride on to this or that platform and utter the words: “FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T YOU KNOW THERE’S A WAR ON?”
The answer is that yes, of course he does. (We have to keep podcasting though – it’s what separates us from the barbarians.) Indeed, perhaps mindful that this prerecorded appearance might clash unflatteringly with Events, Matt was outside the Russian embassy in London last weekend – a visit recorded somewhat idiosyncratically by his Twitter account. I say “idiosyncratically”, because outside the Russian embassy these days, most people currently photograph what they find there: the graffiti, the crowds, the ever-growing number of signs and banners. Yet the image posted to Matt’s account – perhaps taken by his emotional intelligence coach – showed Matt himself, talking intently to protesters, much in the manner of the Queen Mother visiting the East End during the blitz. Which is hugely emotionally intelligent from a guy who is, after all, just another random member of the public like them. Still, what a difference six weeks makes. In January, Hancock’s decision to stage an early morning swim in the icy Serpentine resulted in people dismissively comparing him to Vladimir Putin. My sadly unrealisable dream is that all this ends in a way in which people dismissively compare Putin to Matt Hancock.
Hancock has yet to demand that Nato enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine “because we’ve all fallen in love with the country” – but on this form, who’d rule it out? In any case, there are plenty of other men of the home front who are demanding this act of war against Russia. Just as there are plenty who never stop shouting, yet somehow imagine themselves not listened to. Take George Galloway – please – who’d like you to know he was right again. As he puts it: “Me Farage Hitchens Carlson and Rod Liddle are a pretty broad front of people who think Nato expansion to the borders of #Russia was a pretty bad idea. Maybe pause and think about that?”
I know what he means. Me and the three Spider-Men I‘m pointing at are a pretty broad front too. We actually bonded when we divorced our MJs and they turned the Spideykids against us.
Meanwhile, Farage himself has performed a 180-degree pivot to demanding things like: “Why is Biden not in Europe taking the lead?”, which is a fairly selective form of rectitude for a man who spent years praising the way Putin operated. Poignantly, Nigel’s obsession with wars never quite runs to understanding which side he’d have been on in them. His ability to form alliances with far-right German parties at the same time as twatting on about Winston Churchill, for instance, indicates a truly remarkable flexibility.
I’m sure Nigel’s bitterest regret is that he’s not quite flexible and sprightly enough to rock up at the Ukrainian embassy and offer to fight, as some British guys are now doing. I know you have to say “I admire the bravery”. But reading about one man with no military experience who hadn’t even told his family he was off to Ukraine – he has children – we might instead point to the defence secretary’s caution against this kind of action.
Be it online or in real life, the alarm bells toll most heavily when you get the feeling that the person in question finds war – or rather their idea of it – somehow exhilarating. Perhaps it was always like this, and it’s just easier to see now half the world posts their inner monologue. But there seems to be such a fine line between virility and virality. Was the second world war saddled with politicians like Michael Fabricant, who yesterday announced that RAF Brize Norton, which is in Oxfordshire, “is indeed the frontline”?
Because really, it isn’t. That’s not the war. War is the bloodied woman in Mariupol holding a pink bobble hat, frozen in the camera’s gaze as a shrapnel-filled small girl dies in the ambulance behind her. War is some hatchet-faced Kremlin general informing military families that the government will pay them 11,000 roubles for their dead sons. That’s £80 quid now, less tomorrow. War is people who this time a week ago were out in Kyiv’s shops, now making molotov cocktails with their children. And yes, war can elevate the most ordinary people to do the most extraordinary things. We want heroes, we need heroes – and Volodymyr Zelenskiy and so many Ukrainians have given us them. What we have less need of is performances on the home front. Chaps, with the best will in the world, this one really isn’t about you.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
Guardian Newsroom: the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Join a panel of journalists, including Michael Safi, Luke Harding, Julian Borger, Juliette Garside and Patrick Wintour on a livestreamed event on the Russia-Ukraine crisis on Thursday 3 March, 8pm GMT | 9pm CET | 12pm PST | 3pm EST. Book tickets here.If you’d like to hear this piece narrated, listen on Saturday to The Guardian’s new podcast, Weekend. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
