Final indignity of the brave wife who stood by him for 15 years: Callous Hancock dumped university sweetheart on Thursday night after learning affair would be finally exposed
Matt Hancock (pictured right, on June 6), who announced his resignation this evening, raced to his home in London and told his wife of 15 years that he would be leaving her after being contacted by The Sun newspaper over video footage of him kissing an aide in his ministerial office. Martha Hancock (left, arriving at her home today) had no clue about the affair until her husband told her their marriage was over, reports The Sunday Times. The break-up came to light after Mr Hancock handed in a letter of resignation to Boris Johnson where he said the Government 'owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down'. The reports of the affair came just weeks after Hancock was seen enjoying lunch out with Martha - the granddaughter of Frederick Millar, 1st Baron Inchyra - in London (top inset). They were last seen together in public at the England vs Scotland Euro 2020 match at Wembley a week ago. Pictured bottom inset: Matt and Martha at London's O2 Brixton Academy in 2018.
SARAH VINE: The problem with the wife who's been with you for ever is that she knows you're not the Master of the Universe you purport to be
Ever since those pictures of Matt Hancock snogging his aide emerged, I've been thinking about the nature of political marriages and how rarely they thrive under the pressures of public life.
Inside the plot to expose Matt Hancock's affair: Friends talk of secret camera hidden by Chinese... or No10. In fact it was footage from his office CCTV and a whistleblower in his own department, reveals GLEN OWEN
Six weeks after the fateful images were captured - and a fortnight after they had been wiped from the department's CCTV system - the worker who had secured the footage contacted an anti-lockdown campaigner, who promised to try to place them in the media. The Mail on Sunday was not one of the outlets approached. It is not known if The Sun obtained the video from the whistleblower or from another source entirely. In a series of Instagram messages (bottom centre, inset) seen by this newspaper, the whistleblower says they need 'to be very careful with the information I am about to share'. They add: 'I have some very damning CCTV footage of someone that has been recently classed as completely f*****g hopeless.' The first message was sent on June 17, the day after former No 10 aide Dominic Cummings released a text exchange between him and the Prime Minister in which Boris Johnson expressed his frustration with Mr Hancock.
'This sums up why he's toast': Piers Morgan compares image of the Queen alone at Prince Philip's funeral next to Matt Hancock as shamed Health Secretary stands down from his job
Matt Hancock has been condemned on Twitter by Piers Morgan today after a leaked CCTV image showed him in a passionate clinch with his closest aide. Morgan shared an image of the Health Secretary, 42, embracing Gina Coladangelo next to a picture of the Queen sitting alone at Prince Philip's funeral. 'I thought you said the rules were for everyone', reads a heartbreaking speech bubble from the masked Queen. Posting the meme on Twitter, Morgan wrote: 'This perfectly sums up why Hancock is toast.' Mr Hancock was caught on camera with his hand rubbing the back and bottom of millionaire lobbyist Coladangelo, 43, who was brought in as a taxpayer-funded advisor in March last year.
SARAH OLIVER: Matt Hancock's rules meant my dad had to die alone. Now I find that we've all been taken for fools
SARAH OLIVER: I'm not sure how you are supposed to choose, when you are told your dad has a 50-50 chance of living but only one of his two children can go and see him, and then only for an hour. Who claims visiting rights? The older child? The younger? Toss a coin for it? Rock, paper, scissors? Best of three? A quick sibling wrestle in the hospital car park? In the end, the consultant gave the most generous and humane interpretation of Covid regulations he could - my brother and I were permitted 30 minutes each while the other one waited down the corridor. Later that night our father died alone. There was no one there to hold his hand or love him in his final minutes. Covid regulations trumped compassion, even though he had tested negative for the disease. And while I was missing my dad dying, Matt Hancock was conducting an affair, inside the Department of Health, with an aide whose job was the oversight and scrutiny of his work. How I wish the old man had been alive to enjoy the bum-grabbing, Benny Hill-style CCTV footage of their clinch (right). Pictured left: Sarah Oliver and her father, Angus.
Frustration over Mr Hancock's actions is having a nationwide impact, according to the Daily Express. "Britain's Covid resolve put to the test," is the paper's headline. The Express says experts are worried that the former health secretary's actions could open the "floodgates" to mass rule-breaking before 19 July - the date when the final lockdown restrictions in England could lift.
The Daily Mirror and the Sun report that Matt Hancock is facing questions about taking his aide, Gina Coladangelo, whom he was filmed kissing, to a G7 meeting in Oxford which involved an overnight stay in a luxury hotel paid for by the taxpayer.
The Guardian says Downing Street is struggling to contain the scandal and Boris Johnson has huge questions to answer.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is quoted as saying the resignation is far from the end of the matter.
The Times says the Conservatives fear that the prime minister's "loyalty to Mr Hancock will do damage".
One minister tells the paper it was not a good idea for Boris Johnson to suggest Mr Hancock could "return to front line politics".
The Politico site also thinks the prime minister's handling of the situation has highlighted his blind spots and revived questions about his judgement.
It says when it comes to matters of the heart, or trousers, Mr Johnson always seems to hedge his bets.
The Daily Express believes "Britain's Covid resolve has been put to the test" by Mr Hancock's behaviour.
And the Daily Telegraph says Mr Hancock finally resigned on Saturday night after being told that 80 Tory MPs - more than a quarter of the parliamentary party - had complained to the whips office about his failure to step down.
A Tory source tells the Daily Mail that no cabinet minister "was prepared to break sweat to help" Mr Hancock as "his credibility was shot", after breaking his own Covid restrictions.
Was Matt Hancock 'sh**ging on the taxpayer'? : Ex-Health Secretary took Gina Coladangelo to G7 health ministers' summit in Oxford four weeks after their office kiss
Tory sources said the Prime Minister (inset), who fought to keep the Health Secretary in his job, was warned by party whips that support had 'drained away' after he admitted breaking his own lockdown rules over his affair with a married aide. No Cabinet ministers voiced support for Mr Hancock on social media, even after the PM backed him to stay on Friday and said he 'considered the matter closed'. Pictured right: Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock's wife Martha, a 44-year-old osteopath, was pictured outside her North London home on Sunday.
BEL MOONEY: It was hard not to laugh at the social media gags about Matt Hancock... but no more jokes, this REMAINS a cruel betrayal
BEL MOONEY: It was hard not to laugh at all the jokes circulating on social media at Matt Hancock's expense. 'Hands - Face - Back to My Place' was just one, mocking the endless stream of orders that came from the Secretary of State for Health - telling us what to do in our private lives when he was snogging a glamorous 'aide' in the office. Like everyone I giggled at all the puns on the last four letters of his surname and enjoyed the comeuppance of a man I've always considered to be a second-rater promoted way above his ability. Just another politician caught with his pants down (I jeered to a friend) and how ridiculous. But then I saw the newspaper pictures of Hancock's wronged wife Martha - so pretty in her flowery dress and still wearing her wedding ring - and felt ashamed.
He should have resigned IMMEDIATELY': 'Hypocrite' Hancock is slammed by his Newmarket constituents over rule-breaking dalliance with office aide... with some admitting they 'never liked him in first place'
Newmarket locals said they were 'happy' that the MP for West Suffolk had resigned from the Cabinet as they accused him of 'hypocrisy and double standards' over coronavirus restrictions.
Matt Hancock's lover Gina Coladangelo posted 'The longer the wait the sweeter the kiss' on her Pinterest page
Matt Hancock's lover and former aide Gina Coladangelo left a string of relationship-related posts on her Pinterest social media page that could allude to her love life. The non-executive director was caught in a passionate embrace with the disgraced former Health Secretary in his ninth-floor Whitehall office. While the revelation shocked readers, rumours emerged that they may have been having a secret affair for more than a year. And in posts on her Pinterest account over the last two years, Mrs Coladangelo has shared messages relating to love and relationships.
Matt Hancock plans a COMEBACK: Friends say 'contrite' former minister is already looking to rebuild his career after quitting in disgrace as Health Secretary after his affair was exposed
Matt Hancock has not been seen in public since the weekend when he resigned following the leak of pictures showing him in a passionate embrace with married aide Gina Coladangelo (pictured). But friends of the former health secretary say he hopes to 're-emerge' in the coming months and begin the process of rebuilding his shattered political career. Allies say he is 'beyond contrite' for breaking rules on social distancing which he imposed on the entire country. Mr Hancock rang his wife Martha last Thursday night to tell her their 15-year marriage was over after he was caught on CCTV kissing Miss Coladangelo, a university friend who he appointed as a non-executive director at the Department of Health.
PMQs sketch: Keir Starmer pumped Boris Johnson full of bullets in a Godfather-like massacre
The Godfather is one of Boris Johnson’s favourite movies, so he is familiar with the restaurant scene where an astonished Sollozzo is killed. This afternoon the Prime Ministerwas Sollozzo. Lured into a trap and pumped full of bullets by Keir Starmer, the dude he had complacently written off as harmless.
Westminster’s update of the mobster classic began with pleasantries about England’s Euro 2020 victory. Starmer recalled being at Wembley for the 1996 defeat, a chippy reminder that he is a football devotee, not just a fan on England days.
The trap was laid. “Why didn’t the Prime Minister sack the former Health Secretary on Friday morning?” A perfect opener. If he had seen what was coming, Johnson would have conceded: “He’s right, Mr Speaker, I should have sacked Hancock immediately but I was distracted by meetings about the vaccination programme, which I am pleased to say is on track.”
But Johnson saw no danger. So instead he pretended he sort-of kinda did sack Hancock in the end. “I read the story on Friday and we had a new Health Secretary in place by Saturday,” breezed the PM, sitting down.
Starmer played with his prey for another couple of questions. Hadn’t the PM ruled the matter “closed” on Friday? Didn’t his office brief he was “quite happy” for Hancock to stay in post? “The Prime Minister must have been the only person in the country who looked at that photo on Friday morning and thought that the Health Secretary shouldn’t be sacked immediately.”
Johnson knew he was out on a limb, but seemed confident he could neutralise Starmer (as he has on many Wednesdays) with ridicule and some vaccine braggadocio. He had acted, he jeered, “at positively lightning speed in comparison to the gentleman opposite who spent three days trying and failing to sack his deputy leader - whom he then promoted”.
Starmer soaked it up and pulled the PM deeper into the killing ground of his beautifully crafted questions. “In a minute he will say he scored the winner last night,” he sneered. It was “blindingly obvious” that there was a conflict of interest when Hancock appointed his some-time lover as a Ned, or non-executive director at Health.
Johnson still exuded complacency. Gina Coladangelo had also left her post, he pointed out, throwing in that the UK had overtaken Israel’s vaccination rate.
At this point in the Godfather, a screeching sound effect of a train signals the moment for the trap to spring shut. Starmer, turning cold as ice, brought up the case of Ollie Bibby, a cherished son who died in hospital of leukaemia without his family because they were obeying the rules on visits set by the former Health Secretary.
“In hospital he begged to see his family,” said Starmer. The young man’s mother had obeyed the rules to the letter, yet Hancock had been flouting them at exactly the same time. Labour’s leader stared furiously down his nose at the PM: “How could you possibly think this matter was closed on Friday?”
It is rare to see Boris Johnson properly rattled. But the penny finally dropped that the picture of Hancock grabbing his aide’s bum was not at all funny or frivolous to people who lost loved ones.
The Tory leader turned pink and began blathering about sharing the grief and pain of Ollie’s family, as if that were possible. And then he made things worse by babbling: “Actually what we are doing as a Government, instead of focusing on stuff going on within the Westminster bubble, we are focusing on rolling out that vaccine.”
Quick as a flash, Starmer exploited the PM’s blunder. “This is not the Westminster bubble,” he growled, his face dark with disgust. Starmer then showed how diligently he had prepared for today’s encounter. He had spoken to Ollie’s mum and heard first-hand about “the awful circumstances she and her family have been through”.
While Johnson squirmed in his seat, Starmer said Ollie’s mother had told him she watched every one of Johnson’s press conferences “and she hung onto every word that Government ministers said so she would know what her family could and couldn’t do”.
The appalled faces of Tory MPs showed Starmer had lit up a nerve. Remorselessly, Starmer accused the PM of failing to quiz Hancock “either because he didn’t want to know the answers or he knows full well there’s more to come out”.
Johnson muttered “nonsense” from the bench opposite, but it was too late. He was a deflated figure by the end of the exchanges, caught out by his own complacence - first about the true importance of the Hancock scandal, then again when facing a former Director of Public Prosecutions who today revealed he is still master of a first-rate courtroom interrogation, with a lethal slug of political insight.
With a tricky by-election tomorrow, these are testing times for Sir Keir Starmer. This afternoon he showed he cannot be written off lightly.
Comments
Matt Hancock (pictured right, on June 6), who announced his resignation this evening, raced to his home in London and told his wife of 15 years that he would be leaving her after being contacted by The Sun newspaper over video footage of him kissing an aide in his ministerial office. Martha Hancock (left, arriving at her home today) had no clue about the affair until her husband told her their marriage was over, reports The Sunday Times. The break-up came to light after Mr Hancock handed in a letter of resignation to Boris Johnson where he said the Government 'owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down'. The reports of the affair came just weeks after Hancock was seen enjoying lunch out with Martha - the granddaughter of Frederick Millar, 1st Baron Inchyra - in London (top inset). They were last seen together in public at the England vs Scotland Euro 2020 match at Wembley a week ago. Pictured bottom inset: Matt and Martha at London's O2 Brixton Academy in 2018.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9728751/Callous-Matt-Hancock-dumped-wife-Thursday-learning-affair-finally-exposed.html
Ever since those pictures of Matt Hancock snogging his aide emerged, I've been thinking about the nature of political marriages and how rarely they thrive under the pressures of public life.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9728749/SARAH-VINE-problem-wife-knows-youre-not-Master-Universe.html
Six weeks after the fateful images were captured - and a fortnight after they had been wiped from the department's CCTV system - the worker who had secured the footage contacted an anti-lockdown campaigner, who promised to try to place them in the media. The Mail on Sunday was not one of the outlets approached. It is not known if The Sun obtained the video from the whistleblower or from another source entirely. In a series of Instagram messages (bottom centre, inset) seen by this newspaper, the whistleblower says they need 'to be very careful with the information I am about to share'. They add: 'I have some very damning CCTV footage of someone that has been recently classed as completely f*****g hopeless.' The first message was sent on June 17, the day after former No 10 aide Dominic Cummings released a text exchange between him and the Prime Minister in which Boris Johnson expressed his frustration with Mr Hancock.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9728843/Matt-Hancocks-affair-footage-office-CCTV-reveals-GLEN-OWEN.html
Matt Hancock has been condemned on Twitter by Piers Morgan today after a leaked CCTV image showed him in a passionate clinch with his closest aide. Morgan shared an image of the Health Secretary, 42, embracing Gina Coladangelo next to a picture of the Queen sitting alone at Prince Philip's funeral. 'I thought you said the rules were for everyone', reads a heartbreaking speech bubble from the masked Queen. Posting the meme on Twitter, Morgan wrote: 'This perfectly sums up why Hancock is toast.' Mr Hancock was caught on camera with his hand rubbing the back and bottom of millionaire lobbyist Coladangelo, 43, who was brought in as a taxpayer-funded advisor in March last year.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9728431/This-sums-hes-toast-Piers-Morgan-shares-Hancock-picture-Queen-funeral.html
SARAH OLIVER: I'm not sure how you are supposed to choose, when you are told your dad has a 50-50 chance of living but only one of his two children can go and see him, and then only for an hour. Who claims visiting rights? The older child? The younger? Toss a coin for it? Rock, paper, scissors? Best of three? A quick sibling wrestle in the hospital car park? In the end, the consultant gave the most generous and humane interpretation of Covid regulations he could - my brother and I were permitted 30 minutes each while the other one waited down the corridor. Later that night our father died alone. There was no one there to hold his hand or love him in his final minutes. Covid regulations trumped compassion, even though he had tested negative for the disease. And while I was missing my dad dying, Matt Hancock was conducting an affair, inside the Department of Health, with an aide whose job was the oversight and scrutiny of his work. How I wish the old man had been alive to enjoy the bum-grabbing, Benny Hill-style CCTV footage of their clinch (right). Pictured left: Sarah Oliver and her father, Angus.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9728809/Matt-Hancocks-rules-meant-dad-die-says-SARAH-OLIVER.html
Frustration over Mr Hancock's actions is having a nationwide impact, according to the Daily Express. "Britain's Covid resolve put to the test," is the paper's headline. The Express says experts are worried that the former health secretary's actions could open the "floodgates" to mass rule-breaking before 19 July - the date when the final lockdown restrictions in England could lift.
The Daily Mirror and the Sun report that Matt Hancock is facing questions about taking his aide, Gina Coladangelo, whom he was filmed kissing, to a G7 meeting in Oxford which involved an overnight stay in a luxury hotel paid for by the taxpayer.
The Guardian says Downing Street is struggling to contain the scandal and Boris Johnson has huge questions to answer.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is quoted as saying the resignation is far from the end of the matter.
The Times says the Conservatives fear that the prime minister's "loyalty to Mr Hancock will do damage".
One minister tells the paper it was not a good idea for Boris Johnson to suggest Mr Hancock could "return to front line politics".
The Politico site also thinks the prime minister's handling of the situation has highlighted his blind spots and revived questions about his judgement.
It says when it comes to matters of the heart, or trousers, Mr Johnson always seems to hedge his bets.
The Daily Express believes "Britain's Covid resolve has been put to the test" by Mr Hancock's behaviour.
And the Daily Telegraph says Mr Hancock finally resigned on Saturday night after being told that 80 Tory MPs - more than a quarter of the parliamentary party - had complained to the whips office about his failure to step down.
A Tory source tells the Daily Mail that no cabinet minister "was prepared to break sweat to help" Mr Hancock as "his credibility was shot", after breaking his own Covid restrictions.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-57633366
Tory sources said the Prime Minister (inset), who fought to keep the Health Secretary in his job, was warned by party whips that support had 'drained away' after he admitted breaking his own lockdown rules over his affair with a married aide. No Cabinet ministers voiced support for Mr Hancock on social media, even after the PM backed him to stay on Friday and said he 'considered the matter closed'. Pictured right: Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock's wife Martha, a 44-year-old osteopath, was pictured outside her North London home on Sunday.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9731053/Matt-Hancock-Tories-refused-break-sweat-defence-sheer-hypocrisy.html
BEL MOONEY: It was hard not to laugh at all the jokes circulating on social media at Matt Hancock's expense. 'Hands - Face - Back to My Place' was just one, mocking the endless stream of orders that came from the Secretary of State for Health - telling us what to do in our private lives when he was snogging a glamorous 'aide' in the office. Like everyone I giggled at all the puns on the last four letters of his surname and enjoyed the comeuppance of a man I've always considered to be a second-rater promoted way above his ability. Just another politician caught with his pants down (I jeered to a friend) and how ridiculous. But then I saw the newspaper pictures of Hancock's wronged wife Martha - so pretty in her flowery dress and still wearing her wedding ring - and felt ashamed.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9731155/BEL-MOONEY-hard-not-laugh-social-media-gags-Matt-Hancock.html
Newmarket locals said they were 'happy' that the MP for West Suffolk had resigned from the Cabinet as they accused him of 'hypocrisy and double standards' over coronavirus restrictions.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9730375/He-resigned-IMMEDIATELY-Hancock-slammed-Newmarket-constituents.html
Matt Hancock's lover and former aide Gina Coladangelo left a string of relationship-related posts on her Pinterest social media page that could allude to her love life. The non-executive director was caught in a passionate embrace with the disgraced former Health Secretary in his ninth-floor Whitehall office. While the revelation shocked readers, rumours emerged that they may have been having a secret affair for more than a year. And in posts on her Pinterest account over the last two years, Mrs Coladangelo has shared messages relating to love and relationships.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9735087/Matt-Hancocks-lover-Gina-Coladangelos-Pinterest-page-revealed.html
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/tv/the-9-best-pop-culture-memes-about-the-matt-hancock-scandal/ar-AALxeB9?ocid=msedgntp
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/matt-hancock-furious-councillor-demands-former-health-secretary-s-resignation-as-mp/ar-AALAZKF?ocid=msedgntp
Matt Hancock has not been seen in public since the weekend when he resigned following the leak of pictures showing him in a passionate embrace with married aide Gina Coladangelo (pictured). But friends of the former health secretary say he hopes to 're-emerge' in the coming months and begin the process of rebuilding his shattered political career. Allies say he is 'beyond contrite' for breaking rules on social distancing which he imposed on the entire country. Mr Hancock rang his wife Martha last Thursday night to tell her their 15-year marriage was over after he was caught on CCTV kissing Miss Coladangelo, a university friend who he appointed as a non-executive director at the Department of Health.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9738733/Matt-Hancock-planning-comeback-quitting-disgrace-Health-Secretary.html
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/matt-hancock-should-have-declared-gina-coladangelo-was-his-lover-says-jacob-rees-mogg/ar-AALzHAa?ocid=msedgntp
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/shamed-matt-hancock-could-face-being-deselected-as-a-tory-mp/ar-AALBO31?ocid=msedgntp
The Godfather is one of Boris Johnson’s favourite movies, so he is familiar with the restaurant scene where an astonished Sollozzo is killed. This afternoon the Prime Ministerwas Sollozzo. Lured into a trap and pumped full of bullets by Keir Starmer, the dude he had complacently written off as harmless.
Westminster’s update of the mobster classic began with pleasantries about England’s Euro 2020 victory. Starmer recalled being at Wembley for the 1996 defeat, a chippy reminder that he is a football devotee, not just a fan on England days.
The trap was laid. “Why didn’t the Prime Minister sack the former Health Secretary on Friday morning?” A perfect opener. If he had seen what was coming, Johnson would have conceded: “He’s right, Mr Speaker, I should have sacked Hancock immediately but I was distracted by meetings about the vaccination programme, which I am pleased to say is on track.”
But Johnson saw no danger. So instead he pretended he sort-of kinda did sack Hancock in the end. “I read the story on Friday and we had a new Health Secretary in place by Saturday,” breezed the PM, sitting down.
Starmer played with his prey for another couple of questions. Hadn’t the PM ruled the matter “closed” on Friday? Didn’t his office brief he was “quite happy” for Hancock to stay in post? “The Prime Minister must have been the only person in the country who looked at that photo on Friday morning and thought that the Health Secretary shouldn’t be sacked immediately.”
Johnson knew he was out on a limb, but seemed confident he could neutralise Starmer (as he has on many Wednesdays) with ridicule and some vaccine braggadocio. He had acted, he jeered, “at positively lightning speed in comparison to the gentleman opposite who spent three days trying and failing to sack his deputy leader - whom he then promoted”.
Starmer soaked it up and pulled the PM deeper into the killing ground of his beautifully crafted questions. “In a minute he will say he scored the winner last night,” he sneered. It was “blindingly obvious” that there was a conflict of interest when Hancock appointed his some-time lover as a Ned, or non-executive director at Health.
Johnson still exuded complacency. Gina Coladangelo had also left her post, he pointed out, throwing in that the UK had overtaken Israel’s vaccination rate.
At this point in the Godfather, a screeching sound effect of a train signals the moment for the trap to spring shut. Starmer, turning cold as ice, brought up the case of Ollie Bibby, a cherished son who died in hospital of leukaemia without his family because they were obeying the rules on visits set by the former Health Secretary.
“In hospital he begged to see his family,” said Starmer. The young man’s mother had obeyed the rules to the letter, yet Hancock had been flouting them at exactly the same time. Labour’s leader stared furiously down his nose at the PM: “How could you possibly think this matter was closed on Friday?”
It is rare to see Boris Johnson properly rattled. But the penny finally dropped that the picture of Hancock grabbing his aide’s bum was not at all funny or frivolous to people who lost loved ones.
The Tory leader turned pink and began blathering about sharing the grief and pain of Ollie’s family, as if that were possible. And then he made things worse by babbling: “Actually what we are doing as a Government, instead of focusing on stuff going on within the Westminster bubble, we are focusing on rolling out that vaccine.”
Quick as a flash, Starmer exploited the PM’s blunder. “This is not the Westminster bubble,” he growled, his face dark with disgust. Starmer then showed how diligently he had prepared for today’s encounter. He had spoken to Ollie’s mum and heard first-hand about “the awful circumstances she and her family have been through”.
While Johnson squirmed in his seat, Starmer said Ollie’s mother had told him she watched every one of Johnson’s press conferences “and she hung onto every word that Government ministers said so she would know what her family could and couldn’t do”.
The appalled faces of Tory MPs showed Starmer had lit up a nerve. Remorselessly, Starmer accused the PM of failing to quiz Hancock “either because he didn’t want to know the answers or he knows full well there’s more to come out”.
Johnson muttered “nonsense” from the bench opposite, but it was too late. He was a deflated figure by the end of the exchanges, caught out by his own complacence - first about the true importance of the Hancock scandal, then again when facing a former Director of Public Prosecutions who today revealed he is still master of a first-rate courtroom interrogation, with a lethal slug of political insight.
With a tricky by-election tomorrow, these are testing times for Sir Keir Starmer. This afternoon he showed he cannot be written off lightly.
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/pmqs-sketch-keir-starmer-pumped-161027530.html
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15442998/boris-johnson-england-germany/