Matt Hancock was put on blast over his handling of the pandemic on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.
Chief instructor Mark ‘Billy’ Billingham said his Channel 4 co-stars felt they needed to interrogate his political decision making during that time and affair with his aide Gina Coladangelo “for the nation”.
The series sees Special Forces Operator and Royal Marine Mountain Leader Chris Oliver berating at Hancock in the interrogation room, saying: “You think, ‘f*** this, I’m going to have a bit of that. I’m going to break the rules here, I’m going to break the rules on a number of occasions.’
“From sitting on this side of the table that’s exactly how it went down.”
The MP insisted he was “very careful” not to break the law but admits he did not think about the Government guidance being put out at the time.
Continuing the interrogation, Royal Marine Commando and Special Forces Sergeant Jason ‘Foxy’ Fox raged: “When we dish out a set of orders, we f****** live our life by that as well.”
Earlier this week, Billingham, who didn’t take part in the interrogation, admitted his team “pushed” the former health secretary “as hard as they could” during his stint on the show but the team did not have “time” to get “everything” they wanted out of him.
The SAS leader shared at the launch event this week: “We wanted to get to really know who he was going for… and his decision making… and yeah, we pushed as far as we could to get it out of him
“I want to know, we all wanted to know… and yeah, I guess a nation does want to know, so we got as far as we could with him but it was hard work.”
Former United States marine Rudy Reyes said he wanted to get know Hancock as “nobody likes him”.
He said: “I just wanted to take him as a recruit, and let his actions and how he shows up for each task and how he conducts himself, that would dictate the way that I would treat (him) but we did notice quite quickly, he can’t take criticism and we don’t like that.
“There’s no time to bark orders… we’ve got a training schedule, we’ve got things to do and that will get (us) thrown off course and be horrible so that’s why it comes across that way.”
The West Suffolk MP stars in the show’s biggest line-up with 16 famous faces, including Gareth Gates, Melinda Messenger and James Argent, being put through their paces in the jungle phase of SAS selection in Thung Ui, north Vietnam.
Mr Hancock lost the Tory whip over his appearance on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and his earnings from reality programmes have been revealed on the MPs’ register of interests.
His stint in the Australian jungle on the ITV reality show earned him £320,000 last year, of which £10,000 was donated to charity.
The MP said he made donations to St Nicholas Hospice in Suffolk and the British Dyslexia Association from his fee, adding that the £10,000 he gave away was more than his monthly salary as an MP which is around £7,000 per month.
Hancock, who has said he will stand down at the next general election, earned £45,000 for taking part in Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.
Already his stint is making headlines, after it was revealed that he and fellow cast mate Jermaine Pennant were ordered by their SAS instructors to fight.
