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We witness the joyous spectacle of Matt Hancock giving a speech at a vaccine research centre in Oxford.
Various questions swirl around Hancock at the moment, and they do not smell good. Did he, for example, tell the cabinet last March that the people being removed from hospitals and placed in care homes had been tested for Covid, when they actually hadn’t? This is what Dominic Cummings accused him of during last week’s select committee appearance. A blatant lie, covering up a bit of eye-popping incompetence that had led to thousands of deaths. It is hard to think of a more serious allegation levelled at a senior politician in the last half-century.
Hancock was asked directly about this, and here is his answer, in full:
“I think the best approach is to take responsibility for all things that have happened, and, as health secretary, I do that for all the decisions I have been responsible for. The vaccine programme is an incredibly important programme that we’ve learned the lessons from in the same way that we’ve learned the lessons throughout the crisis – lessons for how best to protect people – and we’ve updated the rules all the way through, and we’ve been very open about that. That’s a very important part about how you handle an unprecedented situation.”
It’s not what you’d call a resounding “no”, is it? If you’d been wrongly accused of accidentally causing the deaths of a very large number of elderly people and then effectively covering it up, you might imagine yourself issuing a rather firmer denial than one sentence of complete waffle followed by a segue on to a different subject altogether.
That's "Soapy" Hancock for you - as slippery as wet Dove .....
That's "Soapy" Hancock for you - as slippery as wet Dove .....
Ah, so no different to Peter 'Lord' Mandelson then. So if MH carries on the way he's doing, he too could become a Baron .. ya gotta larf!
Indeed ..... it's others who speculate - I always attribute .....
Bad news for the Party Omah.
What you reckon any chance of the Party getting into power this century?
A week on from Domageddon and the Tories have gained another 3 points in the latest YouGov polling, giving them a 16 point lead over Labour at 46% to 30%. That’s tied for the Tories’ biggest lead since last spring. Guido imagines this poll will get less attention than the Observer’s survey immediately after Cummings’ testimony, which showed a 6 point drop for the Conservatives – so much for that…
It’s not all bad news for Labour though: they’ve managed to gain 1 point since last week. Maybe Life Stories did Starmer some favours after all…
UPDATE: One co-conspirator points out that, on these numbers, the Tories would be awarded a majority in the region of 120 seats…