Andy Warhol claimed in 1968 that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes.
Ten years later a man was born who clearly decided to improve that theory by being famous for 15 minutes as a politician, then a further 15 minutes as a clown. Let’s call it Hancock’s Half-Hour.
Rarely has a minister who made life and death decisions during a critical time for their country gone on to make such an (as we now know he calls teachers) “absolute arse” of themselves, as Matt Hancock. Actually, when you have deranged siren Christine Hamilton tweeting “What a shyster #MattHancock” you’ve obviously gone way past resembling a mere anus.
If breaking his own Covid rules by groping his mistress, and earning £320k on I’m A Celebrity while parliament was sitting, weren’t bad enough, he chose to release a money-spinning book plugging the work he did during the pandemic while the wounds of the bereaved were still raw.
Bizarrely, he handed over 100,000 Whats App messages to Isabel Oakeshott, who is not only an anti-lockdown fanatic who claims to “fundamentally disagree” with Hancock’s handling of Covid, but a journalist who believes, when it’s warranted, sources are something you cook until you have burnt them.
Well, she has just burnt Hancock to a crisp by passing on all of those WhatsApp messages to an anti-lockdown paper, exposing him for the naive, vain and incompetent joke figure he is.
The man with the face of an overpromoted Scout leader now looks more dense than that other intellectual titan of the Covid cabinet, Gavin Williamson. In fact Williamson’s Frank Spencer beret has been passed on to Hancock. After Oakeshott did a huge whoopsie in it.
Minister Robert Jenrick told an audience on Wednesday night: “The problem with political jokes is that some of them get elected. And some even become Health Secretary.”
But a close inspection of these WhatsApps shows why the Tories want the Covid inquiry dragged on for years. Because they know the verdict on Johnson’s handling of it will be brutal. They show how, during that dark period when Britain lost 219,000 citizens to Covid, giving it one of the highest mortality rates in the world, the Government was a shambles.
From the very top it was obsessed with spin and ruled by fear. Key decisions were taken on the hoof through WhatsApp exchanges, with key scientific evidence ignored due to ignorance, rivalry and egotism.
It was all about image and nepotism, self-congratulation when there was nothing to be congratulated for, and bluster, which the leading figures could get away with, thanks to the majority of the UK’s media being in its pocket.
It was about treating the wider public with contempt while looking after their own, exemplified by a message that revealed when Covid tests were in short supply, one was couriered to Jacob Rees-Mogg for his son’s benefit.
Clearly it wasn’t just Tory dame Michelle Mone and Hancock’s pub landlord who were apparently being looked after while Covid tore through our care homes.
We learned something else about Hancock this week. He has set up his own TV company in an attempt to seek “new ways to communicate” with the public.
Can I assure him that most of us only want to see him communicate with us through HM Prison’s mail service.
