Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Saturday

Steerpike

Watch: Matt Hancock’s resignation video

Whereas once ministers were content to resign with merely an exchange of letters, the tech-savvy Matt Hancock always preferred to be a pioneer.  The Health Secretary quit tonight after two days of mounting outrage at the revelations he had a fling with a taxpayer-funded aide he brought into government and did so in classic Hancock style, releasing the first ministerial resignation video, as befits a former culture minister who once released his own app.  The jargon-filled clip is replete with phrases like 'build back better' but was suspiciously short of an apology. He said: I have been to see the Prime Minister to resign as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

Steerpike

Revealed: Hancock’s £17k resignation payday

So much for No. 10 considering the 'case closed.' Matt Hancock has resigned tonight after 48 hours of fury at his fling with his taxpayer funded aide and Oxford contemporary Gina Coladangelo. The Health Secretary decided just hours before the Sunday papers dropped to go, with Mr S understanding further revelations were on the way. Earlier today Mr S himself went to the Department of Health to ask about whether Coladangelo had accompanied her former Exeter College mate back to their alma mater earlier this month to attend the pre G7 health ministers' discussion held, coincidentally enough, on 3-4 July at Exeter College, Oxford. No reply was hence forthcoming.

Isabel Hardman

Hancock resigns as health secretary

In the past few minutes Matt Hancock has announced his resignation as health secretary after a torrid few days in which he was revealed to have broken Covid restrictions. Resigning now means that Hancock can come back to government in future Hancock writes in his resignation letter to Johnson that he does not want his private life to distract from the handling of the pandemic, while Johnson says he is ‘very sorry’ to receive the letter.  This is an unsurprising change from Friday, when Downing Street said Johnson had accepted Hancock’s apology and ‘considers the matter closed’. It was very clear at the time that the matter wasn’t closed at all: neither No.

Matthew Hancock

Matt Hancock: Why I resigned

Dear Prime Minister, I am writing to resign as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. We have worked so hard as a country to fight the pandemic. The last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis. I want to reiterate my apology for breaking the guidance, and apologise to my family and loved ones for putting them through this. I also need to be with my children at this time.  We owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down as I have done by breaching the guidance.

Steven Barrett

The EU’s lowering of food safety standards must end talk of alignment

During the referendum, it was fashionable to pretend that being an EU member did not impact sovereignty. That is wrong as a matter of law. EU member states do surrender, or pool, sovereignty. The political argument is whether or not you think it is worth giving up some sovereignty for EU membership – that is your choice. But these arguments have been dealt a huge blow by the EU. The EU has decided to lower food safety standards and allow farm animals (who normally eat grass) to eat bits of each other. In April the EU decided that once again chickens may be fed pig, pigs may be fed chickens and sheep and cows may be fed to other farm animals. Some MEPs objected, but they have now lost. The EU is going to be rolling back the animal welfare standards put in place to stop BSE.

Steerpike

SNP MSP in racist bus row apologises (again)

Regular readers may recall the tale of James Dornan, SNP MSP and amateur Hate-Finder General. Earlier this month, he gave a speech in the Scottish Parliament taking aim at Lothian Buses, one of Edinburgh’s main commuter services and a target of long-running antisocial behaviour. The company’s drivers recorded more than 500 such incidents in the first four months of 2021 and on March 17 and a number of other dates it was forced to cancel evening services. March 17, however, is St Patrick’s Day and Dornan theorised to Holyrood: I can only assume that Lothian Buses concluded one of two things: that I would be out celebrating my birthday or that Irish Catholics were to blame for the rise in antisocial behaviour.

Paulina Neuding

Sweden’s gun crime epidemic is spiralling out of control

The shots were fired at 1pm on a Sunday, in spite of a heavy police presence at the scene. A 44-year-old shop owner was killed by a bullet to the head. The murder victim was a hard-working man who was trying to make a better life for his family. Now he is dead: another victim of Sweden’s gun-violence epidemic. On 28 May, two days before the shooting, riots had broken out in the same neighbourhood, the immigrant area of Hjällbo (pronounced ‘Yel-boo’) in Gothenburg, as a local criminal gang clashed with shop owners and their relatives. On the surface, the events were sparked when a 14-year-old boy was pushed off his moped. But according to police, the riots and murder took place against a backdrop of hostilities between clans and a criminal gang.

Gavin Mortimer

Boris is in danger of becoming Britain’s François Hollande

Last week's by-election result in Chesham and Amersham was a slap in the face for Boris Johnson. Fortunately it was a figurative one, unlike the punishment dished out to Emmanuel Macron by a disgruntled voter the previous week during a presidential walkabout. But it's the fate of Macron's predecessor in the Elysee that should focus Conservative minds in the wake of their chastisement in Chesham. A decade ago, François Hollande was in the early stage of campaigning for the 2012 presidential election. He styled himself as 'Monsieur Normal', a welcome contrast to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, long tipped as the man who would lead the Socialists to victory in the election. That was before he disgraced himself in a New York hotel room in May 2011.

Friday

Steerpike

Labour director of communications: runners and riders

These days it’s easier to work out who is leaving Keir Starmer’s team than who is still in it. Ahead of the Batley and Spen by-election next Thursday, there have been a series of moves and departures – from one-time political secretary Jenny Chapman’s demotion to a raft of departures in the comms team. After Labour’s top spinner Ben Nunn stepped down, the hunt is on for a new Director of Communications to turn round Starmer’s lacklustre approval ratings. Already the team is on its second interim replacement, with Steph Driver replaced on Wednesday by Blair-era fixture Matthew Doyle. Asked for their thoughts on who'd get the job, one top Labour aide told Mr S 'God knows.

Steerpike

Nine times Matt Hancock told us to obey the rules

Boris Johnson may consider the 'case closed' but what does the public think of Matt Hancock's fling? For 15 months the embattled Health Secretary has been the face of the government's Covid policies, appearing at dozens of press briefings and being one of the most ardent lockdown proponents in Whitehall. Given his countless interviews, statements, conferences and appearances in which he urged the public not to break the restrictions drawn up by his department, Steerpike thought it would be instructive to gather a list of some of Hancock's most authoritarian quotes.

Kate Andrews

Hancock has made a mockery of his own rules

How much trouble is Matt Hancock in? The Sun splashes this morning on the Health Secretary’s affair with aide Gina Coladangelo. The paper has obtained screen grabs from leaked Whitehall CCTV footage showing very little the way of social distancing. The images are from the start of May, when laws were still in place to enforce social distancing. Hancock has issued a brief statement this morning, apologising for breaking the rules: ‘I accept that I breached the social distancing guidance. I have let people down and am very sorry. I remain focused on working to get the country out of this pandemic and would be grateful for privacy for my family on this personal matter.

Isabel Hardman

Three questions Boris must answer over the Matt Hancock affair

Downing Street is trying to put a lid on the row about Matt Hancock's affair with someone he appointed as an unpaid adviser and then non-executive director at the Department of Health following the Health Secretary's own apology. At today's lobby briefing, a spokesman for the Prime Minister repeatedly said the 'Prime Minister has accepted the Health Secretary's apology and considers the matter closed'. He insisted that 'all the correct procedures were followed' on Gina Coladangelo's appointments. Johnson and Hancock were at this morning's daily coronavirus meeting. But the spokesman would not give any details of conversations between the two men, or whether Johnson had asked for further assurances from the Health Secretary.

Cindy Yu

Is Hancock’s position under threat?

14 min listen

The Sun broke the news this morning that Health Secretary Matt Hancock has seemingly been up to some extra-marital exploits with his aide Gina Coladangelo, possibly breaking many of the Covid restrictions that he himself put in place. What will be the consequences of his hypocrisy? 'This simply demonstrates that we've been through a period where they decided to politicise things that should have never been in the political realm in the first place and that's why I think Matt Hancock is in more trouble than he would otherwise have been.' - Fraser Nelson Cindy Yu is joined by James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and another special appearance from Fraser Nelson.

Ross Clark

Will Hancock resign?

'Speechless,' was Matt Hancock’s reaction when told about Professor Neil Ferguson’s lockdown breaching liaisons on 6 May last year. The Health Secretary added that he thought Ferguson was right to resign from Sage — and that it was a matter for the police whether or not to prosecute the professor.  Will Hancock now be following Ferguson’s example and resigning? It is perhaps just as well that Hancock didn’t come up with any more quotable remarks as they would now certainly be quoted back at him following the publication of photographs of him embracing aide Gina Coladangelo — apparently on 6 May this year.

James Johnson

A plea from a pollster: stop listening to the public

When Dominic Cummings released his WhatsApp messages with Boris Johnson earlier this month, perhaps the most alarming was the one where both men fretted about 'trends in polls and lots of focus groups over the past 2 weeks'. The texts, dated 27 April 2020, also saw the Prime Minister asking about 'tonight[‘s] focus group and polls'. At the heart of government, at the height of the pandemic, public health decisions and the Prime Minister’s thought process were clearly being steered heavily by a perceived negative public reaction. I am a pollster. There are many advantages in knowing what the public think. It ensures politicians do not let otherwise hidden resentments go unaddressed.

Melanie McDonagh

The hypocrisy of Matt Hancock

Matt Hancock has not, we can agree, made it his business to lighten the public mood during the pandemic. That lugubrious face was designed by nature for a downbeat message. Who can forget his injunction to 'hug carefully' and responsibly as lockdown eased? (Before that, his regulations meant no one got within hugging distance of anyone.) He would, he said, be hugging his parents outside: 'I’m really looking forward to hugging you, dad, but we’ll probably do it outside and keep the ventilation going: hands, face and space'. Well!

Steerpike

Hands, face: the Matt Hancock guide to social distancing

There's only one story doing the rounds on SW1 WhatsApp chats this morning: the photographs in today's Sun of the married health secretary in a clinch with a senior taxpayer-funded aide.  Matt Hancock caused headlines last November after bringing lobbyist Gina Coladangelo – his friend from Oxford university – into government as a non-executive director for the department of health, despite there being no public record of the appointment. Now it seems his relationship with Coladangelo has again got him into trouble. https://twitter.com/TheSun/status/1408339966208401414?

Gavin Mortimer

French democracy is in trouble – and the EU is to blame

France's airwaves have been crackling with indignation this week, as politicians wring their hands at the record abstention in the first round of voting in the regional elections. Sixty six per cent of French voters found something else to do last Sunday other than vote, prompting Gabriel Attal, a government spokesman, to proclaim that the 'abysmal' turnout 'imperilled democracy'. 'French democracy is sick,' said Emmanuel Rivière of polling institute Kantar Public. It was perhaps unfortunate timing for Monsieur Attal that his remarks were made on Wednesday June 23, five years to the day since the British people voted to leave the European Union.