Matt Hancock has no answers for anything – but he does have a six-point plan and a very small badge

Matt Hancock has unveiled his latest battle plan. The next one is scheduled for next week

Given that Matt Hancock is currently failing to reach his own targets on coronavirus testing and ventilators, failing to have much of a clue how many thousands of people are dying from undiagnosed coronavirus in an unknown number of care homes, and failing to provide the proper protective equipment to prevent NHS doctors and nurses dying at work, you’d think he perhaps wasn’t looking forward to facing the first ever video conference-based version of the Health Select Committee.

But nothing could be further from the truth. It’s week four of lockdown now and, according to sources, the atmosphere has become so tense in the Hancock household that even two hours being torn to shreds over the laptop comes as a welcome relief.

The decision to hold parliamentary hearings over popular video conferencing service Zoom has been criticised by internet security experts since the moment it was announced, and it turns out they were right, as Russian hackers have leaked these extraordinary transcripts from Mr Hancock’s house, recorded just moments before the meeting began.

“Matt why haven’t you emptied the dishwasher?”

“Darling, I recognise, just as you do, that the dishwasher needs to be emptied. That is why today I am launching my five-pillar plan for dishwasher emptying. No dishwasher can hope to be emptied without engaging the plates, the cutlery, the mugs and the cereal bowls. Everyone must play their part. I get it. And that is why I am saying, today, that by the end of the month, that dishwasher will be empty.”

“Matt, I know you’re busy but I can’t do all the home schooling by myself. I just can’t. You’re going to have to help.”

“Listen, since this crisis began, my sole focus has been on ensuring that you do not become overwhelmed. If you can’t cope, that has knock-on effects for the whole family. That is why, today, I am launching my six-point Mini Hancock battle plan.

Point 1. Switch on the telly. Point 2. Put Paw Patrol on. Point 3. Go back to staring at my phone. Point 4. OK, point 4 we’ll worry about later, because by the time we’re on to Point 2, I’ll have launched a new seven-point plan anyway. But the point is this. I get it. I hear you. We will get through this crisis if we all do our bit.”

“Matt, I know you’re the secretary of state for health at a time of the world’s biggest ever public health emergency, and compared to you, I am nothing, but it’s still your turn to take the bins out. I’m not doing it again.”

“Look, I want you to know that you are valued in what you do. People like you are the backbone of the Hancock household. And that is why, today, I am giving you a very, very small badge, with the word BINWOMAN written on it in tiny letters. To give you the recognition that you deserve.”

“Matt, your mother phoned. She said, when you do the Health Select Committee thing later, and they ask you why you’ve not sorted out the testing, or the PPE, or the ventilators, or the care homes, or anything else, just try and give a proper answer. Don’t just come out with some new load of old crap about six-point plans and five-point pillars and three-point turns and all the rest of it. No one believes a word of it, she said. She said you’re just making a wally of yourself.”

“OK, tell her, I’m going to level with her. The results on the Basic Credibility Of Her Son front are not where they should be. But that is why I am setting a new target, today, to stop talking complete bollocks, completely, by the end of April. As I said last week, we cannot get a grip on all the bollocks until we have a clear picture of where it is coming from. We have now completed that phase of the plan and we are now clear that the bollocks is coming from me.

“Tell her that today I can announce that I have launched an independent inquiry into whether this new terrible outbreak of complete bollocks may even have escaped from a special Chinese bollocks laboratory that was secretly set up inside the UK secretary of state for health, which is to say, me.

“Dominic Cummings has read a big book on Chinese Spies and he reckons Jeremy Hunt’s wife’s done it. Eamonn Holmes was talking about it on the telly this morning. Says it’s got something to do with a giant lasagne they’re making inside Wembley Stadium.

“All I can say is that until that inquiry has concluded, please tell mum I’ll do my best.”

******

“Hello secretary of state, it’s Jeremy Hunt here. Thank you for joining us today. Can you tell us why it is that France estimates that 50 per cent of its Covid-19 deaths have happened in care homes, and your estimates put the figure in the UK at two per cent. That’s just not realistic, is it?”

“Well chair, what I can tell you is that today I am launching a twenty-two-sided triangle for social care, we are ramping up that triangle and by the end of the month, it may even be a nine-point square. In the meantime, it is very important that…”