One of Britain’s most senior civil servants during the pandemic has revealed a cringe-inducing exchange with Matt Hancock in which he pretended to be a cricketer after she offered to help him with his role.
At the official Covid inquiry, counsel Andrew O’Connor KC asked about Helen MacNamara’s attempts to support Mr Hancock’s return to work after suffering from Covid.
Ms MacNamara, the deputy cabinet secretary at the time, said she wanted to know if there was any more support or help Mr Hancock needed.
She was concerned how “hard” it must have been grappling with the “enormity” of being health secretary during the pandemic.
Mr Hancock responded with a bizarre display in which he pretended to be a cricketer batting off challenges.
Ms MacNamara told the inquiry: “He reassured me that he was ‘loving’ the responsibility.
“And to demonstrate this he took up a batsman’s stance outside the Cabinet Room and said: ‘They bowl them at me, I knock them away’.”
Mr O’Connor said the exchange was “intriguing”.
It is the latest damning piece of evidence about Mr Hancock’s stewardship of the Department for Health during the pandemic given to the official Covid probe.
He has been described by Downing Street’s former chief of staff Dominic Cummings as a “proven liar”, a “problem leaker” and a “c***”.
On Tuesday Ms MacNamara revealed that Mr Hancock was “regularly” telling people things that they later discovered were not true and that No10 had a “lack of confidence” that what he said were happening “was actually happening”.
Ms MacNamara said one example of Mr Hancock’s dishonesty was him reassuring officials “time and time again” that plans for dealing with Covid were in place.
The top civil servant said she was later “surprised” to learn that they were not.
This was part of a pattern of behaviour from Mr Hancock, she told the Covid inquiry.
She said: “What we experienced that was said in a meeting as being under control or going to be delivered or something that was fine, subsequently a matter of days at times or weeks later we would discover that was not in fact the case.
“You don’t usually get everything’s okay and then two weeks later not only is it not okay it was not even there.
“That is very unusual”.
A spokesperson for the former health secretary said: “Mr Hancock has supported the inquiry throughout and will respond to all questions when he gives his evidence.”
