Accountability for naught

Coming to bury Caesar

It would be easy to mock Matt Hancock but there is much more for which he should be justifiably excoriated. His resignation yesterday came as a surprise to many of us and like I had indicated before, that would not suddenly mean integrity has found some exposure in Boris Johnson’s government, Matt Hancock’s position just became increasingly untenable, there was no other option than for him to resign.

In my view, Matt Hancock’s tenure as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care was marked by abject failure damningly exposed by the pandemic from the poor PPE provision, the lack of adequate testing, the seeding of care homes with infected discharged persons from the hospitals, the failed and exorbitant track and trace system, the multiple waves of infections all resulting in the highest deaths from the COVID-19 in Europe.

Torched by a fling

If there is any commendation to be given, it is that the NHS was allowed to run the vaccination programme rather than farm it out to friends of the Tories. Yet, none of those failings in office were enough to hold Matt Hancock to account until he was caught in a clinch. Something is wrong with our systems of accountability in public office if peccadillos matter more than performance.

Matt Hancock’s situation is maybe a personal human tragedy of the absence of self-control with far-reaching ramifications that cannot in any way begin to compensate for his professional failings and political misjudgement, his wife apparently is not available to stand by her man and play the doting Tory wife.

And so he got away

He is ensconced in their constituency home in what suggests the end of their marriage. The other lady who got squeezed and snuggled, has resigned from the posting that gave them proximity in his office and one can only wonder what story would result from this sordid saga.

There is no more to add to this tale than to feel Matt Hancock has escaped essential scrutiny for monumental catastrophe on his watch, he according to his boss, Boris Johnson “fucking hopeless” and Boris might have said that whilst he was shaving too.