Well, I am surprised. I thought for a while that Matt Hancock, seen above with a new hairstyle and Gina Coladangelo, would try to stay in office. After all, Boris had forgiven him (no surprise there) and besides, what else could he do? Perhaps we should all be glad that he was forced to resign by media pressure, "concerned" Tory MPs and the justified condemnation of his proclivities by a cross-section of the public. It is a rebuttal of the Boris doctrine that you can brass it out, whatever your misdemeanour.
The hypocrisy of this man is indeed breathtaking, but we know this already. As The Sun, who published the photo and the video of Matt and Gina kissing, says:
"On 6 May, when the incident took place, Covid restrictions remained in place across the UK.In England, indoor gatherings for work purposes were permitted but only if "reasonably necessary".
As has been noted, this points out the truth of the adage that there is one rule for Tory politicians and another for the rest of us. Even Piers Morgan has vilified Hancock for his hypocrisy. But this adage applies in other situations, not just pandemic strictures on association. Had these two been teachers, they would have faced disciplinary action for inappropriate behaviour - whether in the privacy of an empty classroom or not. In a church school, the fact that they were both married, and thus engaged in an adulterous relationship, would have led to parental and church pressure for their immediate resignations. In fact, one head of a school in Preston, who had a number of adulterous affairs, one David Ratcliff, was forced out back in 2001. The Guardian commented at the time:
"David Ratcliff, resigned from Broughton-in-Amounderness Church of England primary school last week after confessing to the infidelities in a letter to staff, parents and the board of governors".As for Matt and Gina, my sympathies are for their families. Both of them have three children, and I can only hope these children, together with Hancock's wife and Coladangelo's husband, are left in peace. I also feel sorry for the whistleblower who leaked the photo and the story to The Sun. It's a safe bet that the establishment will pursue him or her with ruthless tenacity. As for Hancock, he appears to be talking about a future return to the ministerial arena. Personally, when the next general election comes, his rival candidates for election as MP should have a high old time campaigning against him, and I'd love to take part.
Now, as we know, sex scandals involving politicians - straight and gay - are nothing new. In fact, some people trace it back as far as Henry 8th and Ann Boleyn. Sticking to modern times, I can still remember the Profumo Affair, John Major's ludicrous "Back to Basics" campaign, which was not only ignored by his MPs, such as Tim Yeo and Steven Milligan, but by Major himself, having an affair with Edwina Currie. On the Labour side, John Prescott had a 2-year affair in the noughties with his diary secretary, Tracey Temple, who, according to The Sun (again):
" Temple claimed they would have sex in his Whitehall office, at a hotel while his wife was downstairs, and at his grace and favour flat in Admiralty Arch paid for by the taxpayer."Then there was David Mellor's dalliance with Antonia de Sanchez. The list goes on, but History has some astounding examples of how the so-called "great and good" have flouted conventional morality, some of which put Hancock's little affair firmly into the shade. Here are just four:
Lord Palmerston, (1754 - 1865), twice prime minister, was accused of attempted rape of one of Queen Victoria's ladies-in-waiting when staying at Windsor Castle in 1839. He claimed that he had walked into the girl's room by accident - a claim that did not bear scrutiny, as he tried to barricade the door. The young lady was saved only by lusty screaming. In fact, Prince Albert said:
" "He would have consummated his fiendish scheme by violence had not the miraculous efforts of his victim, and such assistance as was attracted by her screams, saved her".
This did not seem to inhibit Palmerston's career, either in politics or the bedroom. Palmerston was cited in an adultery case at the age of 78. He is said to have died at the age of 80, having sex with a maid on a billiard table.
Herbert Henry Asquith (1852 - 1928) was PM from 1908 to 1916. The Daily Mail describes him as a "world-class" groper. He certainly worked for that title:
"Winston Churchill’s wife Clemmie complained that Asquith was always trying to look down her dress, while the socialite Lady Ottoline Morrell reported that he would ‘take a lady’s hand as she sat beside him on the sofa and make her feel his erected instrument under his trousers’."It's a shame that there were no whistleblowers around at the time to boot this creep out of office. But times were different then. Asquith was regarded as an ineffectual war leader. His replacement was an even greater womaniser...
...David Lloyd George (1863 - 1945) the last Liberal prime minister. The Mail comments:
"Even at the time, David Lloyd George’s penchant for the ladies was very well known, earning him the nickname ‘the Goat’. As one of his own aides put it, the brilliant Welsh orator was ‘mental on matters of sex. In his view, a man and a woman could not possibly be friends without sexual intercourse"."He carried on for decades with his secretary, Frances Stevenson, whom he forced to have at least two abortions. And there were many more women — so many that nobody has ever produced a definitive count. He even slept with his son Dick’s troubled wife, Roberta, and this when he was well into his 60s.
And lastly, from an LGBT perspective...
Robert, Baron Boothby (1900 - 86), aka Lord Boothby, is our only LGBT candidate here - though there are many more. The broadcaster, Ludovic Kennedy, was a relative and said that Boothby's bi-sexuality was well known to his family. It was covered up effectively in his lifetime. He had an indiscreet relationship with Harold Macmillan's wife which never got into the papers; he said that she reminded him of a caddy he'd seduced on a golf course. It seems that he was the true father of Sarah Macmillan, who took her own life in 1970. He had an intimate homosexual connection to the London underworld , where, says the Mail:
"...Boothby had affairs with male East End gangsters, including the cat burglar Leslie Holt. This brought him into the orbit of the Krays, who used to arrange orgies for him and allegedly supplied him with compliant young men."Nick Hancock hardly fits in to this pantheon - although Boris might. In spite of this, we should all guard against Hancock's possible return to public life. Haven't we suffered enough?
I was listening to the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 yesterday and, while there were callers demanding that Hancock should resign, others were saying that it is a private matter so leave him alone. They were completely missing the point. If Hancock had been having an affair with someone who had no connection whatsoever with his department, then the worst he would have done is ignore his own distancing guidelines.
ReplyDeleteBut even that is not a simple matter: apart from breaking the rules he helped draw up and which he exhorted us to obey, which is hypocritical enough, last year he said he was “left speechless” after the government adviser Professor Neil Ferguson allowed his lover to visit his home, in breach of social distancing rules at the time, declaring that Ferguson consequently had no option but to resign. The fact that he thought an apology for doing the same thing would be enough to save his ministerial career compounds the hypocrisy of both him and this government with their blatant “one rule for you and none for us” attitudes. It's another Barnard Castle, and Johnson – an utter weakling with no leadership skills – was yet again letting a mate get away with actions for which ordinary people have been punished.
But it goes further than that. Ms Coladangelo was on the DHSC (Department for Health & Social Care) Board, whose job is to oversee the running of the department right to the very top. How intensely would she scrutinise his actions while she was his lover? How far has her input into the board compromised their work? How far has she influenced their deliberations because of her relationship with the boss? The other question remaining is how she, an old friend of Hancock from university, got her DHSC job in the first place? Claims that her recruitment was all above board are looking increasingly threadbare.
As a former trade unionist in the civil service, I know that if people had conducted an affair actually in the workplace, they would probably be spoken to very firmly and if they persisted, would almost certainly face disciplinary action, possibly leading to dismissal. That's not to say you couldn't have relationships with colleagues, but you had to keep your activities off the premises and in your own time – which is perfectly reasonable.
If DHSC employees had behaved in the same way as their boss, they wouldn't have got off so lightly. Yes, he has resigned as a minister, but he is still an MP on £81,932 a year, with an “all you can claim” expenses regime and a pension scheme generous beyond the wildest dreams of most of us. Despite his resignation, he won't be queueing at the Jobcentre.
I'm hoping that this resignation, which Johnson thought he had prevented by firmly announcing that the matter was closed, is the first sign that the British people are getting sick the corruption, cronyism and double standards that are the hallmarks of this thoroughly incompetent and self-serving government.