Hancock And Media Hypocrisy

The Murdoch Sun has claimed a “World Exclusive” for its front page splash this morning, which tells readers of “HANCOCK’S AFFAIR WITH AIDE … Health Sec’s fling during Covid … He hired Gina as top advisor … Snogs in office … cheats on wife”. As Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point. And beyond that front page, there is more.

The supporting article, by Rob Pattinson and the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, the pretend journalist who has somehow been appointed the paper’s political editor, tells “HEALTH Secretary Matt Hancock has been having a secret affair with his closest aide … He cheated on his wife with Gina Coladangelo, 43, who he hired last year with taxpayers’ money, as Covid gripped Britain”. Gina Coladangelo? Is that a real name?

But do go on. “Mr Hancock, 42, and millionaire lobbyist Gina were caught on camera in a steamy clinch at his Whitehall office. Whistleblowers revealed the Health Secretary had been ­spotted cheating on his wife of 15 years with married Ms ­Coladangelo. He was seen kissing her at the Department of Health’s London HQ during office hours last month as the mutant strain began spreading”. All very dramatic. And it gets worse.

Hancock infamously became terribly righteous with Prof Neil Ferguson over the latter’s meetings with someone else’s wife earlier in the pandemic. Prof Ferguson resigned. Hancock, to no surprise at all, has apologised, but will not. Alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson has declared the matter to be closed.

Quite apart from confirming that in Bozo land there are no resignations, the story, such as it is, throws up uncomfortable questions for our free and fearless press, not least the leaking of CCTV footage from inside Hancock’s department, along with laws on data protection which may have been broken, to the Murdoch mafiosi.

But worse still is the more than strong rumour that Bozo himself has been unable to keep his pants zipped up, even during the pandemic. Add to that his significant previous with Jennifer Arcuri, and the probability that it was another Bozo awayday that caused the widely-reported bust-up with his then girlfriend Carrie Symonds (the latter dismissed by the right-wing press because the neighbours who reported it had voted Remain).

Whether Bozo was PM at the time or not, papers like the Sun have never taken the kind of judgmental line that they did with Hancock. Nor are any of them explaining with any conviction why their readers, many of whom have been able to even hug loved ones for more than a year now, should put up with politicians who shit on their own rules.

Worst of all, the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press will splash Hancock all over their front pages, telling readers about “steamy clinches” and what rules have been broken, will leer at Hancock’s unfortunate wife and let us know whether or not she’s still wearing her wedding ring, and then, come the next test of electoral popularity, with dump all over all the other parties and urge their readers to vote for the philandering SOBs.

And then they wonder why the public doesn’t trust them. I’ll just leave that one there.

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