Hancock’s half hour 

Hancockgate is upon us, the Hancock tapes are out, and world champion attention seeker and buttock squeezer Matt Hancock seems not to be enjoying his time in the limelight. Good, he deserves every ounce of opprobrium that is heaped upon him. His attempt to tell his side of the story through the pursed lips of Isabel Oakeshott (with friends like her you don’t need enemas) has completely backfired. Surplus as he is to Tory party requirements he has been thrown to the lions, into the hands of the fourth estate represented by The Daily Telegraph and the revelations keep coming, each one more incredible than the next.

Equally as sickening as Matt Hancock eating grubs in the Australian outback is the outpouring of self-righteous indignation from almost any journalist who feels that they were warning us all along, who was criticised for doing so and who feels offended by what they are reading about the former Health Secretary turned national laughing stock. But what did they expect from a man like Hancock, led by a mop-haired and clueless narcissist like Boris Johnson, fuelled by never once correct in any prediction he has ever made and fellow groper Neil Ferguson, advised by the ghoulish Chris Whitty and stern-faced Patrick Vallance to do? Only the valiant Peter Hitchens, who suffered more than most at the hands of the lockdown fanatics, seems to be taking the situation with a degree of equanimity. I share his low expectations of those in whom we invest political power through the ballot box and trust them only to look after their own interests.

I guess there was a day when politicians were really in it to make things better for us. Take Maggie Thatcher, for example, and say what you like about her, but I never once got the impression that she was in politics for personal gain. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Tony Benn could be considered in the same light as could many mavericks on both sides of The House in those days. They also had prior careers or had taken part in the Second World War. For some, on both sides, it was what they had seen during the war that prompted them to enter, and to remain for life, in politics.

But today’s bunch are career politicians in the sense that, on the whole, they have not had credible careers outside of politics prior to entering The House. The biggest problem most of them have had is the champagne not being at precisely the right temperature at their Oxbridge college dinners. When they do get elected as MPs, they consider it only worthwhile if they reach the higher echelons and, with the rate at which politicians are reshuffled, rehoused in Pentonville or caught with a rent boy, many more do see those higher echelons these days than in years gone by. Even then, they see politics as a stepping stone in their careers to one on the international speech circuit, a string of non-executive directorships or their own television programme. These are not people who can do the best thing that politicians can do, i.e. absolutely nothing in most circumstances. They are out to make their mark, and for every problem that arises a solution must be found – enter Covid-19.

We ponder in wonder that a relatively mild virus could lead, thanks to our leaders, to economic, social, health and educational disaster. We ask how billions could be spent on measures for which no evidence of effectiveness existed, and how a virtually useless—but not harmless—vaccine could be rolled out with such efficiency and enthusiasm. Just take a look at who our leaders are. If you can bare it, read some of the Hancock revelations and then take a look across the western world at who their counterparts are (or, increasingly, were) and you have the answer. I rest my case.

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.