Sun 27 June 2021:
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock bowed to public pressure to resign after being caught kissing a friend and paid adviser.
The frontman for Britain’s response to the pandemic, particularly the nationwide vaccine roll-out, quit in a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“We owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down as I have done by breaching the guidance,” Hancock wrote.
“The last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis.”
Johnson said he was sorry to receive Hancock’s resignation, and that he should be “immensely proud” of his service.
Hancock broke government coronavirus restrictions during an affair with a close aide, with former finance minister Sajid Javid taking up the role.
Hancock conceded he had let the public down after ‘The Sun’ newspaper published a security camera still obtained apparently from a whistleblower showing him kissing the aide in his office on 6 May.
Johnson said he was sorry to receive Hancock’s resignation, and that he should be “immensely proud” of his service.
His Downing Street office later said that Queen Elizabeth II had approved the appointment of Sajid Javid MP as his replacement.
One of five sons of Pakistani immigrant parents, Sajid Javid is a former managing director at Deutsche Bank and previously worked as an aide to former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Newly appointed health secretary Sajid Javid has said his immediate priority is ending the coronavirus pandemic, as doctors warned he faces a “baptism of fire”.
Hancock conceded he had let the public down after ‘The Sun’ newspaper published a security camera still obtained apparently from a whistleblower showing him kissing the aide in his office on 6 May.
The main opposition Labour party said the government needed to answer questions about the undisclosed appointment of the aide, former lobbyist Gina Coladangelo, to Hancock’s top advisory team.
The Sun says the images came from “a concerned Whitehall whistleblower”.
The paper’s political editor Harry Cole told Radio 4’s PM programme the alleged whistleblower thought they “deserved a wider audience”.
The paper says the photos and video of Mr Hancock and Gina Coladangelo, who are both married with three children each, were taken inside the Department of Health and Social Care on 6 May.
Investigation
Speaking to the BBC, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said: “We have to understand how that happened and how we deal with that.”
“The Department of Health will be investigating quite rightly to understand how this was able to happen.”
“We have got to be concerned about the fact that someone was able to secure a recording from inside a government building,” he added.
Replying to a question about the possibility of a general review into security cameras across government buildings, Lewis said he was “sure that is something the team will be looking at”.
“I take the view that everything you are saying or putting in writing will be reported somewhere.”
Labour has referred the matter to the Metropolitan police and sought to paint the prime minister, Boris Johnson, as weak and presiding over a culture of sleaze for refusing to sack Hancock.
Last week, Hancock rejected criticism of his handling of the COVID pandemic after private WhatsApp exchanges emerged in which Johnson appeared to describe him as “hopeless”.
He has also previously faced allegations that he lied to Johnson and awarded a contract to an unqualified friend.
And he has faced further questions about his ownership of shares in a family company that won a Covid-related contract from his ministry last year.
