Does Matt Hancock have what it takes to fashion a political comeback?

The newly trendy ex-health secretary is back in the public eye after resigning in disgrace. Can he return to the Tory frontbenches or is he doomed to panel show humiliation, asks Sean O’Grady

Hancock at Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball in London earlier this month (Reuters)

The other day a photograph emerged on social media that looked very much like one of those cruel photoshopped parodies that for some reason people feel the need to create to ridicule the rich and powerful. It was what seemed to be a skilful but nonetheless faked image of former cabinet minister Matt Hancock in a black polo neck with faded jeans, as if at a party at Andy Warhol’s in about 1971. Hancock was made to look like a male model, possibly in Vogue, more likely a Woman’s Weekly knitting pattern supplement, but very much the cool cat. How silly to go to all that trouble just to feature such an absurd image on Twitter, just to ridicule a health secretary who broke his own public health rules in the middle of a pandemic, possibly on more than one occasion. And then you glance at it again and notice the caption and there it is: “Matt Hancock at Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball in London. Reuters.” And it doesn’t get more trendy than that. At least until Hancock turned up. The image is real. It is unconscious self-parody. The boy is certainly putting himself about a bit more.

Hancock is at a crossroads. Having gained the support of his indulgent constituency party, he has escaped any threat of deselection. He is thus still assured of a safe seat in the Commons as base, and he seems convinced that he, unusually, will be able to make a political comeback from a personal incident that turned into a sensational political scandal. They are rare, though.

The more likely path – though the cases are widely different in their seriousness and detail – is that he’d follow the likes of David Mellor, Lembit Opik, and Neil Hamilton and move into the world of panel shows, ritual humiliation on Have I Got News For You, panto, being booked for Talking Pints with Nigel Farage on GB News, and general light entertainment, which in Hamilton’s case included a comic turn in the Welsh parliament and as leader of that well-known novelty act, Ukip.

It would be harsh, but undoubtedly entertaining, to watch Hancock devour reptilian offal in the celebrity jungle, literally and metaphorically, but that is not Matt’s self-image. For him, his career as a statesman has been merely interrupted by some tragic errors of judgement. In case you need reminding, the first was when he got into the slowie-at-the-school disco snog with his (very) special adviser and the other when he went to a lockdown-busting party in the Downing Street garden (though he disputed the balding man in the ark blue suit was necessarily him). Only 43, he doesn’t see his future as a career backbencher, chairing select committees, writing pamphlets for Policy Exchange, and parked comfortably on the executive of the 1922 Committee. An MP’s salary is not enough for him and, one suspects, his new partner and his new maintenance commitments.

Hancock wants to be a minister, a man of affairs in more senses than one, and above all taken seriously… and, who knows still, as a possible leader of his party. This, by the way, despite Boris Johnson privately assessing him as “totally fucking hopeless”. The Hancockian ambition to lead is indeed real. In the 2019 Tory leadership he compared himself to Margaret Thatcher, with a refreshing lack of self-awareness that was to become all-too-familiar before long. He got 20 votes and stood down after the first round. It was enough to get him a mid-ranking cabinet post at health, presumed to be comparatively low-profile.

Hancock wants to be a minister, a man of affairs in more senses than one, and above all taken seriously… and, who knows still, as a possible leader of his party

Politically, Hancock is doing the right things the wrong way to be rehabilitated. He has ventured out to confess his sins, but finds himself forced to abase himself to no great effect, admitting “I’d blown up every part of my life … I let a lot of people down” provoking a wave of public indifference. He declared he’d got a book deal, only for the publishers to issue a denial. A job offer to be a UN envoy in Africa was hastily withdrawn after a nasty backlash. An earnest attempt to promote a dyslexia charity was punctured by Phillip Schofield asking: “Was it your dyslexia that meant you misread the social distancing rules?”

This just left Hancock, a man whose every portentous word on Covid the nation used to hang upon, whimpering on the sofa. When you get mauled by Schofield you know your time as a senior politician must be up.

Yet, like some crazed gimp, Hancock just begs for more punishment. He was one of the few Tories prepared to tour the broadcast studios to defend the indefensible over partygate, and ridiculed for doing so, not least because he wasn’t that good at it. No doubt Downing Street is grateful for the Somme-style pointless sacrifice, but given that he was Johnson’s human shield as a disposable minister for health, and was due to be sacked even before his indiscretions with Gina Coladangelo, the display of loyalty is not likely to lead to early reinstatement. These days the Tory party has more talent about, and Hancock will have to play his own attempt to “build back better” as a longer game, hoping a new leader will revisit his virtues. Perhaps for that reason his first post-scandal parliamentary intervention was a sycophantic question about the furlough scheme put to his right honourable friend, the chancellor. You can guess what he’s up to.

Still, high-level post-scandal political comebacks aren’t impossible. Peter Mandelson is probably the outstanding example in recent times, resigning twice from the Blair cabinet only to find himself reappointed after a decent pause, and even coming back a third time when Gordon Brown unexpectedly looked to him for the secret of political resurrection. Before “Mandy”, in an earlier age there was “Parky” (Cecil Parkinson), a favourite of Margaret Thatcher who might have been appointed chancellor and succeeded her were it not for his affair with his secretary. He quit when the story broke in 1983, but six years on Thatcher brought him back to cabinet as energy and transport secretary, where he failed to revive the old magic. William Hague actually made him party chair for a while, but only to let his ravaged party wallow in the warm glow of nostalgia for the 1983 election landslide Parky engineered.

The only other remotely successful political comeback after a humiliating sacking was, erm, Boris Johnson. Some might have thought (hoped) Johnson’s career was over when party leader Michael Howard fired him as a shadow culture minister back in 2004. It was, of course, because Johnson had lied to him about an affair.

Tellingly, though, the spin put around by a “friend” of Johnson at the time was clever as well as prophetic, painting him as some heroic figure sticking up for his wife and children: “Michael Howard has made a terrible error of judgement. Boris's private life has nothing to do with the press or anyone else. He should not be dismissed for trying to protect his family, which is all he has done.”

“It is this kind of over-reaction that is driving people away from public life. Much worse was written about Bill Clinton, and he is considered a great statesman. Boris will be back: the Tories need him more than he needs them.”

The lesson would seem to be that to get back successfully after a scandal you have to be like Mandelson and Johnson, and possess the dark native cunning of the true political survivor. Self-belief is nowhere near enough, as Hancock is discovering.