Strayside Sunday is our monthly political opinion column. It is written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party.
Oh dear. Since last we communed in these pages the Prime Minister has had to accept the resignation of his Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock and, as a result it seems, failed to win an important by-election this week down the road in Batley and Spen, when set fair to do so. Has the electoral worm turned?
When Mr. Hancock was caught on CCTV in the corridor outside his office at the Department for Health and Social Care the grainy images showed him engaged in enthusiastic tongue wrestling with his advisor Gina Colangelo, his hand clearly grabbing her bottom. Not a dignified look. Both parties concerned are married (but sadly not to each other) with six children between them. When confronted with the story, Mr. Hancock’s hand was forced and he told his wife and family he was in love with another and would be setting up shop with Gina.
While marriage break up is often a cause for sadness, especially when children are involved, Mr. Hancock has let it be known through friends that he has found a “love match.” Good for him. Initially the PM let it be known that everyone was entitled to a private life and that he considered the matter closed. Boris being Boris he could hardly have done anything else. If he had sacked the man, he would have brought the chequered history of his own private life into sharp relief, which the media would have gleefully welcomed.
The issue of course is that Ms. Colangelo had been advising Mr. Hancock in government. Further, following a period during which she acted in an unpaid capacity, she was then appointed to the board of the DHSC as a Non-Executive Director paid £15,000 annually from the public purse. In other words, she became a public servant tasked with marking her lover’s homework. In the United States this would be called “inside the beltway” and just won’t do.
Mr. Hancock tried to hang on to see which way the political wind was blowing; his fate sealed when his own party, in the form of cabinet ministers and MP’s, named and unnamed, turned against him and briefed the media that his behaviour was not on. He resigned and posted a doleful video mea culpa to his Twitter account. And with that he was gone. No more lectures on rules of six and social distancing from our bouncy school prefect.
No one emerges from this sorry matter with much credit; the Health Secretary, his advisor, nor the PM. But what grinds my gears most is that the British national media was shown again at its sanctimonious and hypocritical worst. I want to know where, when and how did The Sun receive security footage from inside a government department? And, while I agree that Ms. Colangelo’s paid position at the DHSC of course represented a conflict of interest for both parties, one must think that the hacks at the current bun were most excited by the prurient way it all came to light. There is nothing the tabloids like more than a bit of how’s your father in public life. And don’t we all?
A good friend of mine, an erstwhile bigwig in local government, is a member of the 2019 parliamentary intake. A formidable campaigner, the aforesaid honourable member had been spending a significant amount of time recently telephone canvassing, knocking doors and delivering leaflets in the Conservative interest in the Batley and Spen constituency. We saw each other three weeks ago for a catch up and drink was taken. Heavy in our botanicals he convinced me that the seat would be won, such was the blue-tinged sentiment on the doorstep. Just a short cameo this week for our own Andrew Jones MP; Harrogate’s finest was spotted helping the cause in Batley and Spen, sharing fish and chips with the candidate. No word on whether mushy peas or curry sauce provided the accompaniment.
Just three weeks ago the party was convinced it was on for another astonishing Red Wall win. As it transpired the Labour Party held the seat by just 323 votes, Kim Leadbeater holding off the Conservative Ryan Stephenson. Amanda Milling MP, the Conservative Party Co-Chair admitted that the Hancock affair had been a contributory factor in the final days leading up to the vote. Of course it was; we don’t like being told what to do at the best of times but this government is clearly of the “do as I say” not “do as I do” school.
No one has been happier in all of this than the dreadful Dominic (Barnard Castle) Cummings. Having attempted to bring Matt Hancock down during his appearance before a joint parliamentary committee hearing into the coronavirus – “he should have been sacked 17 times etc.” – Mr. Cummings has been playing out his own personal psychodrama through endless blogs and Twitter chains. The man’s ego, as well as his prose, knows few bounds. I guess that’s what happens when you are played by Benedict Cumberbatch on the telly.
In the end one is left with a vague and uneasy feeling that the ship of state isn’t being run by men and women of principle or decency. People fall in love all the time. They have affairs and leave marriages. But Matt Hancock was the first to tell us he had been working tirelessly to beat coronavirus, yet, in addition to his work battling a national crisis and being a husband and father to three children he found the time to have a passionate affair. Boris was willing to let this go unpunished because his own copy book is far from clean in this regard. All of this contributes to a feeling of one rule for them, one for the rest of us. Unless the government gets a grip, that way electoral defeat looms.
That’s my Strayside Sunday.
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