Matt Hancock should be dealing with NHS waiting lists – not spending hours on the past

There was something jarring about watching the health secretary spend more than four hours talking about the past on the day that NHS waiting lists hit 5.1 million, writes John Rentoul

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said he was a ‘team player’ (unlike some other people he didn’t mention) (PA)

Matt Hancock agreed with Dominic Cummings, his tormentor, more than expected. While most of Cummings’s lurid charges against the health secretary fell by the wayside for lack of evidence, Hancock said he “bitterly” regretted that he had failed to overrule the scientific advice at the start of the pandemic in order to shut down society earlier.

To that extent he shared Cummings’s self-criticism of the entire government for being too slow to realise what it was up against. But that was fairly safe ground for the health secretary, because as long as he could claim to have followed the clinical advice, all the condemnation made with the benefit of hindsight bounced harmlessly off him.

As for Cummings’s specific criticisms of him, he was able to sweep them aside because, as he said: “It is telling that no evidence has been provided – there is a reason for that, I think.” He was asked if he knew that Cummings wanted the prime minister to fire him. “Yes, because he briefed the newspapers at the time,” said Hancock. “Or someone briefed the newspapers and I now have a better idea who it was.”