Matt Hancock's defence of Tony Abbott makes as much sense as the government's decision to give him a Brexit trade role

When he floundered over accusations of homophobia and misogyny against the former Australian prime minister, he proved Britain will work with any ‘expert’, even if they’re dreadful

Did someone appoint Matt Hancock the secretary of state for "well, I, I, um, er"?

There was an awful lot of that when Kay Burley raised the issue of the British government’s interest in handing the "homophobic, misogynistic" (per Burley's comments) former prime minister of Australia, a trade role. A role, not a job. Tony Abbott has made that clear.

To bring you up to speed on the roster of awful comments the former prime minister has made, Abbott has also said our leaders should “think like health economists” and talked, in a speech at one of Britain’s innumerable right-wing think tanks that give failed politicians like him a platform, about “families sometimes electing to make elderly relatives as comfortable as possible while nature takes its course”.

He’s also a climate crisis denier.

All this helps to explain why Hancock struggled so badly in the face of the grenade Burley chucked at him. He was being asked to defend the indefensible; the appointment of a certified paid-up member of the International Arseholes Club to an important role by the British government.

In the face of that, responding with "well, I, I, um, er", is understandable, but not by any means acceptable.

You’d have thought Hancock, of all people, would have done a bit better though.

At one point he positioned himself as a “big tent” one nation type Tory, ignoring the fact that these people have mostly either left or been booted out by the jackbooted nationalists who now run the party under Bozo the Clown.

But Hancock opted to take another path. Being a lickspittle, the best and really the only way to get ahead in Bozo’s regime, he chose the worst sort of pragmatism over principle and did what he was told even if it made for some very uncomfortable interviews.

With all the practice defending the indefensible he’s had, especially as the pandemic-era health secretary, you’d have thought he’d have become good at it, but apparently not.

At one point he even tried the old “I’m here to talk about my role” line, which Burley smoothly pointed out he’d been doing for, what, eight minutes?

But eventually, he remembered the script.

Abbott might have been a dismal prime minister who was booted out by his own party, but apparently he's a trade expert and Britain has to have the best experts.

By the same logic, perhaps the Department for Culture Media & Sport should look at the qualifications of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko for a role advising on sport and fitness. He’s fond of showing off his ice hockey skills, even in the middle of a pandemic, so I guess you could call him an expert, and he might become available soon. At least that’s what his people are hoping. As Britain needs the best experts even if they happen to be dreadful, he’ll surely merit a call.

Still, you can understand Abbott’s appointment in a way. The International Arsehole’s Club is doing pretty well at the moment. In addition to Bozo, it has Donald Trump in the US, both of whom are chipping away at democracy, which is something other members of the club are doing all over the world according to the most recent edition of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s global democracy index.

If you want to sign trade deals with blinkered leaders, maybe it’s a good idea to appoint one yourself, except that they don’t always seem like each other very much.

The (justifiable) anger that’s greeted Abbott’s impending appointment also serves as a handy distraction from the government’s pandemic failings which have led to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of British people whose families didn’t want to let nature take its course and weren’t after leaders thinking like health economists.

Hancock really needs that throwing at him in interviews, again and again, and again, even if we know he doesn’t have any good answers because, frankly, there are none. In post-covid Britain, there are only tears.