Matt Hancock can not be redeemed by his jungle capers
We must fight the attempt to whitewash history.
(First appeared in edited form on www.conservativewoman.co.uk, 18th November 2022)
‘"There is Matt Hancock... And in camp there is our campmate, Matt, who is, God love him, doing every single trial, every day, and bringing back stars so we can eat.”’ So spoke ex Radio One DJ Chris Moyles about his fellow ‘I’m a Celebrity’ contestant. His is but one voice in an increasingly numerous and loud chorus hailing the redemption of erstwhile disgraced Health Secretary Matt Hancock. The media seems to have firmly decided that Matt’s Boy Scout attitude of enthusiastically mucking in, even when it comes to facing real snakes rather than the Westminster variety, is now what matters most about this man. There have also been allegations that he was initially being bullied by the other camp mates, which presented Matt as a hapless victim. Even Jacob Rees Mogg voiced his concern at the ‘unpleasant treatment’ he was having to endure. https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/20420588/im-a-celeb-fans-demand-bosses-stop-bullying-ofcom/ Celebrities have jumped on this chance to virtue signal their ‘anti bullying’ credentials and there have also been complaints to OfCom, which shows that at least some in the general public feel the same. https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/celebs-tv/im-celebs-matt-hancock-roasted-7811520 https://www.mylondon.news/news/tv/loose-women-linda-robson-matt-25492680
The virtue signallers seem more concerned about Boy George’s clear dislike for Hancock, presenting this former ‘Health’ Secretary as the victim and the man whom Hancock prevented from seeing his seriously ill mother in hospital as the bully. George didn’t know whether he would ever see his mum again, because Matt Hancock’s laws, (or was it guidelines?), forbade him from being at her side. Of course the 80s icon is himself a controversial figure, having served time for assault and false imprisonment. But that doesn’t make his lockdown induced heartbreak any more justifiable. His suffering is just a tiny piece of a mountain of misery caused by making the NHS the National Covid Service and a blinkered Covid lockdown policy. Matt Hancock cannot escape the huge responsibility he bears for the enforced isolation that led countless of the most vulnerable in society, the old and disabled, to suffer and to die without the contact of their loved ones. Many believed that they had been abandoned. The horrific consequences of lockdowns, the late diagnoses, worsened illness, missed education, delayed child development and impoverishment will be with us for years, perhaps decades.
So many of us have our own ‘lockdown story’, or I should say ‘lockdown tragedy’, to tell. I shall always wonder whether propaganda induced fear of getting medical help contributed to my Dad dying of a heart attack in April 2020. Lockdown certainly prevented me from seeing him in those crucial weeks before his death. Then there was a wonderful young lady I befriended during a harrowing 6 months as an inpatient in a psychiatric clinic. Ellie was warm-hearted to her core, loved quirky, vibrant vintage fashion, books, car boot sales and live music. The latter two kept her going after she was discharged, as did meeting up regularly with her friends. Once all that was taken away her anorexia filled the void and she gave up. She died aged 30 in the spring of 2021. There are many Ellies, many deaths and much suffering, all triggered by a flick of Hancock’s ministerial pen.
The ‘I’m a Celebrity’ camp mates are clearly now somewhat separating Matt Hancock the Health Secretary from ‘Jungle Matt’, their amiable, enthusiastic fellow and winner of many Bushtucker trial stars for their food. It’s like there are two Hancocks. This may shock some but my mind has been drawn to my studies of high ranking Nazi officers as an Oxford undergraduate. I read accounts written by their families, who only knew them outside of their evil daily work. These described loving husbands and fathers. They cherished their wives and cuddled their children as they read them nightly bedtime stories. There are reports that Matt Hancock is fundamentally rather unpleasant. A lady who dealt with him over her campaign to legalise medicinal cannabis for epileptic children recalls his uncaring and arrogant nature.
Certainly his affair that he only admitted to due to being caught in the world’s most toe curling video, doesn’t suggest much of a moral backbone. But whether or not Matt Hancock is putting on an act in the jungle is irrelevant. History can not be whitewashed, nor redemption for mass suffering and deaths gained, by eating a kangaroo’s penis.
Chris Moyles’s words on Hancock are insightful and depressing. ‘“I may have voiced my opinion about Matt Hancock before, but in here, the star-winning Matt, he's doing all right."’ Until opinions are formed on the basis of striving for truth, justice and decency and not self interest society is lost. We really are doomed to repeat the evils of history because we fail to learn any lessons. There is no better insight into how ordinary, morally upright Germans allowed their nation to slide into the worst fascist tyranny than a book by Sebastian Haffner called ‘Geschichte eines Deustchen,’ (The story of a German). The English version has the title ‘Defying Hitler’ but that misses the tragic beauty of the original. Haffner story is that of an ‘Everyman’, a story that echoes the experiences of millions of Germans. In this story he observes that a tendency amongst Germans to bury themselves in ‘das Alltägliche‘, ‘mundane everyday life’, was both ingrained and dangerous. As long as their family, friends and their day to day business remained unaffected they could ignore the looming dark political clouds. This impulse to turn selfishly inward is not uniquely German but fundamentally human. We have seen it spectacularly clearly during lockdown. ‘Oh I had a great lockdown, with my extra time to do baking with my kids, learn new languages and enjoy my lovely home and garden’, reflects the attitude of so many. One of my earliest memories of Sunday school is the lesson that Sin has ‘I’ in the middle. Our failure to look beyond what benefits us and our loved ones may also in turn reverberate negatively back on us. In a heartbeat they could lockdown down again, close off the NHS to the majority of ailments, close schools, drive the mentally vulnerable into deeper illness, isolate the old and terrify everyone . . . Unless we stop gaslighting the victims of Covid lockdowns and vaccines by embracing Matt Hancock as a ‘likeable’ celebrity rather than holding him to account for the evil he oversaw and promoted it could all happen again. I for one will fight until my last breath not to let that happen.
Was just discussing this today in the hairdressers (where all the best discussions take place). He's getting on people's nerves now. Not washing his hands! But he stood at that lectern.....yes, I said, and locked all the elderly in their care homes to die alone. Absolutely! Was the chorus. The media may love this new incarnation but normal people can see straight through it.