Why Matt Hancock is such a willing victim of ‘gotcha!’ TV

He’s a humiliated politician facing 50 and oblivion – of course he’s going risk a media grilling if it keeps his name on screen, writes Salma Shah

Hancock is now a public profile looking for a purpose (PA)

Why does Matt Hancock do it? Willinging exposing himself to a pretty brutal grilling from Kate Garraway on Good Morning Britain about his appearance in the jungle and that social distance-busting clinch. There was no public clamour for him to appear, no discernible objective; but once again, he popped up in the TV studios for another hit of that drug: relevance – so beloved by politicians.

Hancock is now a public profile looking for a purpose. Like so many others of his generation, he was swept up in the rising tide of David Cameron’s success. But thanks to his TV appearance on I’m a Celebrity (he was stripped of the Tory whip for flying off to the jungle) and his less than shining behaviour during the pandemic (he broke his party’s own lockdown rules because he “fell in love”); he is now, before the age of 50, facing the fact that his frontbench political career is behind him. Inevitably, he’s left casting around for something to do.

This seems to be a feature of the current generation of MPs. Hancock came in, rose through the ranks at great speed and then – when the political career flatlined – turned to reality TV. So, is a career in media a logical place to go after public service?