Editor’s note: Matt Hancock has made headlines for everything from his affair with Gina Coladangelo to being “bullied” on reality TV. But for bereaved families who lost their loved ones to Covid, the former health secretary has a much darker legacy. Hancock is still an MP, but he currently sits in an Australian jungle taking part in “bushtucker” trials. Back in the UK, he has already lost the Tory whip, and councillors in his constituency are calling for him to resign.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines shame as “a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour”. As Matt Hancock has shown by arguing over potatoes with Boy George and being voluntarily covered in slurry on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here, the feeling is not one with which he is familiar.
There are two possible reasons that Hancock is not ashamed. Either he is unaware of any ‘wrong or foolish behaviour on his own part’ – or he does not care, and feels no distress as a result. If it is the former, worry not. I will gladly remind him of his failures during his time in government.
