Have you ever wanted to plant one on Matt Hancock? Here’s the next best thing

No deepfakery, no AI, no CGI. The real Matt Hancock, his real face and a real fist. I just can’t stop watching the former health secretary being punched on TV, writes Tom Peck

Former Liverpool forward Jermaine Pennant did the deed, somewhere in the jungle in North Vietnam, in a sparring match on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins (Channel 4)

It’s taken a very long time, but the wait is over. From this day forward, and theoretically until the end of time, any man, woman or appropriately aged child will be able to go on to YouTube, type in “Matt Hancock getting punched in the face” and there it will be.

No deepfakery, no AI, no CGI. The real Matt Hancock, his real face and a real fist. It’s hard to tell how many people have already watched it, not least as my own viewing figures may account for at least 2,000 in just the first 18 hours of its existence.

No longer wishful thinking. No longer just the stuff of dreams for the man who ruled over us during Covid, and did a truly terrible job of it. Before today, to see Matt Hancock getting punched in the face you had to just close your eyes and hope to see it somehow projected in soft watercolour on to the backs of your eyelids.