LONDON: Matt Hancock has resigned as Britain’s health minister after he admitted breaking COVID-19 guidance by kissing and embracing an aide in his office, angering colleagues and the public during lockdown.
In a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock said the government “owes it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down”.
The prime minister said he was sorry to receive it. “You should be immensely proud of your service,” he wrote, adding, “I am grateful for your support and believe that your contribution to public service is far from over.”
Hancock has been at the centre of the government’s fight against the pandemic, routinely appearing on the television and radio to tell people to follow the strict rules to contain the virus.
An international newspaper showed Hancock kissing the aide in his office last month, at a time when it was against the rules for people to have intimate contact with a person outside their household.
Hancock had issued an apology on Friday. “I accept that I breached the social distancing guidance in these circumstances,” Hancock said, adding, “I have let people down and am very sorry.”
However, Britain’s leading newspapers, which all splashed the story on their front pages, said Hancock had lost any moral authority and must go.
“Hancock cannot now hope to put on a straight face and tell us how to behave and seriously expect us to listen,” The Sun said in its leader column. “There is the rank stench of hypocrisy.”
The opposition Labour Party had also questioned whether he had broken the ministerial code; the woman, a long time friend of Hancock’s, was appointed as a non-executive director, on a taxpayer-funded salary, to oversee and scrutinise the running of his department.
