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Farewell Matt Hancock, These Were Your Best Worst Bits

From standing weirdly close to people and launching his own app to quitting because he kissed a colleague while telling people they couldn't hug – it's been a rollercoaster ride.
Farewell Matt Hancock, These Were Your Best Worst Bits
Matt Hancock. Photo: Matt Dunham - WPA Pool/Getty Images

Matt Hancock has resigned as UK Health Secretary, after he apologised for breaching social distancing rules, AKA having an affair with a colleague who he appointed. As he sets off into the sunset, here’s how we’ll be remembering him.

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Launching his own app

In 2018, while UK Culture Secretary, Hancock launched an eponymous app for his constituents in West Sussex, featuring a gallery of images alongside articles he had penned. If an MP launching their own social network wasn’t bizarre enough, the app also violated Apple’s data laws by harvesting user data.

Standing weirdly close to a woman

During the 2019 UK general election campaign, Hancock was involved in a series of unnerving videos, including one where he stands alarmingly near to Warrington Conservative candidate Wendy Maisey.

Breaking the law on PPE

After the UK government failed to publish information on contracts to procure personal protective equipment (PPE), a court ruled in February 2021 that the government had broken the law. Hancock dismissed the ruling as “delayed paperwork.”

Running away from the press

On the day of a blockbuster Select Committee hearing with Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings, Hancock was asked whether he was worried. Instead of answering, he proceeded to run away and wave.

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Being savaged by Cummings a few hours later

It turned out Hancock should have been worried because in the evidence hearing later that day Cummings painted a picture of a government in chaos, and that the Health Secretary should have been fired for “15-20” things.

Doing parkour, in slow-mo

Just look at it.

Doing weird crying on live TV

Interviewed by ITV1’s Good Morning Britain in December 2020 after the UK administered its first COVID vaccine doses, Hancock appeared to cry at the mention of a man called William Shakespeare (not that one).

Being called “totally fucking hopeless” by his boss, the literal Prime Minister

In an exchange of messages between Cummings and Johnson published on the 16th of June this year by Cummings, it emerged the Prime Minister had labelled his own Health Secretary as “fucking hopeless,” weeks into the pandemic.

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Photo: Dominic Cummings

Doing karaoke

Then there is this extremely cursed video of Hancock screaming the words to Bohemian Rhapsody in 2017. 

Congratulating “Daniel” Rashford, whoever that is

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Following an ultimately successful campaign to secure free school meals for children by Manchester United player Marcus Rashford, Hancock, who was part of the government refusing to feed hungry children, congratulated “Daniel” Rashford on his work.

Posting inexplicably menacing campaign videos

Seriously what is happening here.

Saying that a UK scientific adviser meeting his lover during lockdown was a “matter for the police”

:Eyes emoji:

Doing… whatever this is

And finally, posting about working with some “brilliant women” hours before a story about him having an affair with a colleague broke

On the day the world had to look at images of Hancock grabbing his colleague’s arse, Hancock’s Instagram posted a story that said “I work with some brilliant women.”