Even by Tory standards, Matt Hancock has reached a new low

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Hancock will be remembered as one of the UK’s greatest misfortunes (Andrew Parsons/Parsons Media)

It was the UK’s great misfortune that Matt Hancock was health secretary during most of the coronavirus pandemic.

Hancock will be remembered for handing out generous PPE contracts, with minimal scrutiny, to his drinking pals like Alex Bourne. All while Hancock was carrying on an affair with his aide, Gina Coladangelo, during a crisis when people weren’t allowed within two meters of each other.

That’s all before his shameful but highly lucrative 30-day stint on I’m a Celebrity. Hancock’s excuse for being on reality TV, when he should have been representing his West Suffolk constituents in parliament, was that he wanted to show viewers the “real me”. The “real” Hancock made sure to collect a £320,000 fee from the show before donating only 3 per cent of it to a dyslexia charity too.

All this was bad enough. But we now know, via leaked social media messages, that then health minister Hancock ignored scientific advice to get hospitalised, elderly people tested for Covid before they were returned to their care homes.

But according to him, the messages are “doctored”. Even by Tory standards, this is a new low.

Sasha Simic

London

Would the EU really want to go through the last six years all over again?

David Nelmes in his letter recently advanced the laudable view that the UK try to rejoin the EU now as “sooner the repair, smaller the job”. He sees opinion polls with a majority in favour of rejoining as supporting evidence.

Yet the opinion is, sadly, not there yet. The polls are not conclusive, neither main political party is openly advocating for rejoining the EU, and with a general election still a while away I doubt Brexit will be front and centre in any campaign. Anyway, would the EU really want to go through the last six years all over again unless we were totally genuine?

I feel that the EU would not allow any reopening or discussion regarding the UK’s re-entry until we, as a nation, have sorted ourselves out. All main parties would need to be in favour of rejoining, with the public wholeheartedly in favour. I’m afraid we’re looking at 10 years to get to that point, and then we’d still have to accept whatever terms they’d offer.

John Daintith

Chew Magna, Somerset

This is a crisis caused by conservatives

After reading The Independent’s story on A&E delays, I have lost all faith in our prime minister Rishi Sunak. A multi-millionaire who uses private medical care couldn’t possibly understand the importance of our NHS. Moreover, his government has been starving the NHS of vital funds for years, to purposefully drive people to private health care.

Private medical care is not about saving lives like the NHS but about making profits. Sunak continues to ignore NHS staff demands for fair pay and acceptable working conditions, leaving them with no other option but to take strike action or leave the NHS entirely.

A recent example of the government’s callous attitude is when the health secretary refused to turn up to a meeting with junior doctors to negotiate pay. With 1,000 excess deaths a week, 12 years of Tory austerity has clearly led the NHS to collapse. Without any doubt, this is a crisis caused by the Conservatives. Tens of thousands of people are dying because of this government.

Jeannette Schael

Tadley, Hampshire

Surely this is the time for Johnson to take a back seat

Boris Johnson’s fall from grace might have added the poetic irony of his position; after all, it was Europe that made him in 2016 and the same sparring partner that undid him in 2023. Throughout his political career, Boris Johnson has used Europe and the EU to further his own interests. But now that the “oven ready” deal has been unwrapped and found wanting by the smart diplomatic footwork of the current prime minister, Johnson is out on a limb.

This self-styled Europhobic booster boaster has become Macavity. Humiliated over the Northern Ireland protocol, investigated by the Commons privileges committee, losing Tory backbench support and hoping, like Micawber, that “something will turn up”. Perhaps it will but surely this is the time for Johnson to take a back seat, or no seat at all.

Graham Lane

London

Pretending Shamima Begum will eventually give up is a forlorn hope

Clearly, to some eyes, Shamima Begum represents some kind of symbolic terror threat to our national security. This young woman has been trying for years to “come home” after initially deciding to turn her back on the West.

Leaving her to brood over her circumstances and persist in her high-profile campaign merely keeps the pot boiling.  Pretending Shamina will eventually give up and stop pestering the UK authorities is a forlorn hope. We should allow her to travel back to the UK and have her day in court. It would send an equally strong message to have her face justice here than leave her bitter and fulminating dangerously in a refugee camp!

Steve Mackinder

Denver