The Right Honourable Matt Hancock MP

[anonymoususer]

JagLover said:

Just when you think Hancock couldn't get any lower. 100% behind this plan apparently though it didn't seem to go any further as someone else no doubt talked some sense into him.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/06/matt-h...

It won't surprise me if he stands down from parliament altogether before the next election. He must be toast completely by now.

[Grumps.]

anonymoususer said:

JagLover said:

Just when you think Hancock couldn't get any lower. 100% behind this plan apparently though it didn't seem to go any further as someone else no doubt talked some sense into him.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/06/matt-h...

It won't surprise me if he stands down from parliament altogether before the next election. He must be toast completely by now.

Everybody keeps saying that.

[S600BSB]

anonymoususer said:

It won't surprise me if he stands down from parliament altogether before the next election. He must be toast completely by now.

Would anyone really notice?

[sugerbear]

anonymoususer said:

JagLover said:

Just when you think Hancock couldn't get any lower. 100% behind this plan apparently though it didn't seem to go any further as someone else no doubt talked some sense into him.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/06/matt-h...

It won't surprise me if he stands down from parliament altogether before the next election. He must be toast completely by now.

He has at least another 80k to stash away from his MP's salary until the next election.

[Upinflames]

ClaphamGT3 said:

As ever, the singing Marsh family nail it;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hvbBUkQ4Fk

WTAF?? Nail it??

[Jasandjules]

Can anyone please show me in these messages where they are concerned about deaths, health and protecting the public?

[abzmike]

Jasandjules said:

Can anyone please show me in these messages where they are concerned about deaths, health and protecting the public?

I think you'll find that material doesn't match the agenda of the journalist or newspaper publisher involved.

[youngsyr]

anonymoususer said:

JagLover said:

Just when you think Hancock couldn't get any lower. 100% behind this plan apparently though it didn't seem to go any further as someone else no doubt talked some sense into him.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/06/matt-h...

It won't surprise me if he stands down from parliament altogether before the next election. He must be toast completely by now.

1) IIRC, there is no mechanism for an MP to resign from parliament. They can only be kicked out?

2) Even if there were, do you think Hancock has the grace to use it?

[JagLover]

Jasandjules said:

Can anyone please show me in these messages where they are concerned about deaths, health and protecting the public?

I think they have to be careful with what the publish as there has to be a public interest defence, hence why not all released, I think though that some exchanges that have been released were concerned with this. Whitty and Handcock on testing for people going into care homes for example. Or a discussion of relative death rates by age. It is more that the overall impression is of politicking taking precedence over science and the petty nature of many of the exchanges and why decisions were made.

[abzmike]

youngsyr said:

1) IIRC, there is no mechanism for an MP to resign from parliament. They can only be kicked out?

2) Even if there were, do you think Hancock has the grace to use it?

There is... From Wiki...
Members of Parliament (MPs) wishing to give up their seats before the next general election are appointed to an office which causes the MP to be disqualified from membership. Historically, all "offices of profit under the Crown" could be used for this purpose. However, only two are still in use:[2][4]

Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham
Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead

Easily done if he wants - Can't see it though.

[ant1973]

Great FT article on this from the ever readable Jemma Kelly:-

https://archive.ph/Nqifg

"The reality, though, is that where many newspapers stand on this seems to be less determined by ethics and more by their position on the government’s response to the pandemic. And this brings up a more important ethical issue: basic journalistic principles — courage, fairness, independence and the pursuit of truth — are too often considered less important than planting a flag in a particular ideological corner.

As far as I’m concerned, the idea that a former minister who had hired someone to write a propagandistic memoir for him should be thought of as a “confidential source” needing protection is something of a stretch. However, I also find my eyes rolling skyward when I see Oakeshott saying that the reason she leaked the messages was in order to avoid a “whitewash” of the government’s pandemic response, when it seems to me that she quite happily spent a year writing the former health minister’s whitewashed Pandemic Diaries."

Nails the increasingly "this is my truth" style of reporting in the press in general especially over Covid, Russia, Immigration, Brexit and the like.

[isaldiri]

ant1973 said:

Nails the increasingly "this is my truth" style of reporting in the press in general especially over Covid, Russia, Immigration, Brexit and the like.

It almost certainly (correctly) reflects what the readership and wider public want I suppose. bit of a chicken and egg thing obviously but whether it's people only wanting to see something on 'their' side or the papers being selective in wanting to shape opinion in the first place is a little unclear...

[ant1973]

isaldiri said:

ant1973 said:

Nails the increasingly "this is my truth" style of reporting in the press in general especially over Covid, Russia, Immigration, Brexit and the like.

It almost certainly (correctly) reflects what the readership and wider public want I suppose. bit of a chicken and egg thing obviously but whether it's people only wanting to see something on 'their' side or the papers being selective in wanting to shape opinion in the first place is a little unclear...

It's hard to tell at times. The relationship between media, government and big business is increasingly "blurry".

I also think that there is an appetite on the part of some to administer a de facto "benign dictatorship" by corralling public opinion in a certain way via the media. Some of it is just the exercise of self interest, which is hardly novel.

When you accept that Governments are driven by public opinion via the media, you might think the former is beholden to the latter. While to some extent that is true, the state often uses media to shape the very opinion that they are apparently beholden to.

What is new is the emboldened way certain parts of the media feel confident in representing opinion as fact or, worse still, taking the "it's my truth" approach.

[JagLover]

ant1973 said:

isaldiri said:

ant1973 said:

Nails the increasingly "this is my truth" style of reporting in the press in general especially over Covid, Russia, Immigration, Brexit and the like.

It almost certainly (correctly) reflects what the readership and wider public want I suppose. bit of a chicken and egg thing obviously but whether it's people only wanting to see something on 'their' side or the papers being selective in wanting to shape opinion in the first place is a little unclear...

It's hard to tell at times. The relationship between media, government and big business is increasingly "blurry".

Worth pointing out that most of the media are reliant on big business for advertising and said big business increasingly sees its role as shaping the narrative with its ad spend rather than just sell product.

The only mainstream UK publication to question the Covid narrative, until very late in the Pandemic, was the Spectator as far as I am aware. Whose income model is mainly subscription based.

[Killboy]

Hold on - Do I have this right? Matt Hancock is in this mess because he hired someone to write a memoir on himself and they leaked all the dirt?

[B'stard Child]

Killboy said:

Hold on - Do I have this right? Matt Hancock is in this mess because he hired someone to write a memoir on himself and they leaked all the dirt?

A fair summary

[Killboy]

B'stard Child said:

A fair summary

So it is literally his ego's fault?

[S600BSB]

Is there really no way he can be recalled to parliament or whatever and face reelection? I know being an utter knob isn't a criminal offence, but really in his case...

[JagLover]

I think Sumption has summed it up best

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/03/10/ma...

Mainly about Hancock, though Bojo the clown gets some kicks at the end.

[oddman]

JagLover said:

I think Sumption has summed it up best

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/03/10/ma...

Mainly about Hancock, though Bojo the clown gets some kicks at the end.

Thanks for that.

I thought some of Sumption's comments during the pandemic were off the cuff reflexes of a principled liberal but not particularly insightful, but now he has the benefit of more scientific data; the WhatsApp files and some time to bring things together, he's made an impressive synthesis and critique.