A different kind of C word

“There are so few ways in which politicians can show that we are human beings,” said former health secretary Matt Hancock, upon joining the ITV light entertainment programme I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, as if that, other than trousering £400,000, that was his real reason for being there. I’m A Celebrity? I have in mind a very different ‘C’ word for Hancock.

As I reported earlier, I have never seen a full episode of the show and have no real idea how it works or how someone wins it and I have no desire to do so. But I do know that contestants end up being covered in shit and insects and being told to consume animals’ testicles and anuses. Fair play if that’s your idea of escapist fun. It isn’t mine. But no amount of spin by and on behalf of Hancock could ever persuade me that he’s not an absolute wrong ‘un.

I cannot separate his attempt to shake off the recent past, during which as a senior government minister, he presided over 200,000 deaths from Covid-19, and directly sent many thousands of people to their deaths when discharging them from hospitals to unprepared care homes. We all make mistakes and all that, but most mistakes result in the premature deaths of someone’s dad, someone’s mum. And let us not forget that after Hancock told people they could not visit dying relatives in hospital as part of the government rules during lockdown, he promptly had a rules-busting fling with one of his advisors. That’s why I regard him as a right c….celebrity.

His lucrative appearance on TV is but the first part of Hancock’s grifting activities because shortly before Christmas he publishes his book about the pandemic, co-written by far right hack Isabel Oakeshott. It might not be so bad if he had apologised publicly for fucking up so badly during the pandemic, but that’s not the way he works. As people continue to grieve loved ones who died before their time, he’s taking the piss.

My unwanted advice to my loyal reader is just don’t watch the show. It’s not a new thing for faded celebrities or grubby politicians to try to resurrect their image with the public in order to make money, but it’s quite another when the actual government minister who did such a terrible job when Covid arrived should laugh in our faces as he pretends to show what a real human being he is. He’s a human being all right but an absolutely disgusting one.