Matt Hancock appeared before the Covid-19 inquiry yesterday to school us in one particular trick he is yet to perform in the jungle for money — the art of taking no responsibility by taking full responsibility.
Here’s how you do it. The narrower and more specific the question — “did you, Matt Hancock, personally fail to update the UK’s plan for a pandemic?”, for example — the broader and fuller your responsibilities must become. Of course you take full responsibility, you say, for any mistakes that other people have made. You are very, very sorry about those. You take responsibility for the fact that others still failed to inform you about these mistakes. And, finally, you take full responsibility for the structures of government that made it impossible for you to take responsibility. That is a source of profound regret. You hope the public can eventually forgive you.
