A Nottinghamshire MP says he doesn't think Matt Hancock's upcoming role in I'm A Celebrity is "clever" after he appeared to label the former Health Secretary a "d**khead" in a TikTok video. Mr Hancock resigned as Health Secretary last June after CCTV caught him kissing his adviser Gina Coladangelo.
He then lost the Conservative Party whip on Tuesday (November 1) after announcing that he would be appearing as one of the campmates in this year's series of ITV's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here. Many criticised the move given that Mr Hancock is still the West Suffolk MP and will be in Australia whilst Parliament is sitting.
The Mansfield MP and Nottinghamshire County Council leader, Ben Bradley, was asked on social media what he made of Matt Hancock's decision. He shared his response by uploading a video to TikTok, in which he didn't speak, but instead posted a caption of "What can I say..." whilst playing a section of the song "D**khead" by Kate Nash.
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The lyrics to the song which feature in Mr Bradley's video are: "Stop and think. Why're you being such a d**khead for? Stop being a d**khead."
Ben Bradley confirmed to Nottinghamshire Live that he was not impressed by Matt Hancock's decision to appear in the reality TV show, which this year will also feature celebrities including Boy George and Mike Tindall. Mr Bradley said: "From Matt's point of view I understand entirely why he's done it, it's a quarter of a million quid or whatever. I don't think it's clever.
"It's one thing being an unknown backbench MP, it's another thing being the former secretary of state through covid whilst the covid inquiry is kicking off. I don't think he's likely to get much support and I would imagine he's going to get picked for all the trials in the first week.
"On a perfectly human level, if what he's saying is that he's done with politics, he wants to go and do something else and in the next election he's not going to stand again, then I understand why he's done it. I just assume he realises it's always going to go down really badly."
Matt Hancock defended his decision to appear in I'm A Celebrity by writing in The Sun: "It's our job as politicians to go to where the people are — not to sit in ivory towers in Westminster." Reports suggest Mr Hancock has received a fee of around £400,000 for appearing on the ITV show, which starts on Sunday (November 6).
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