The first sign Matt Hancock had that he was feeling the strain of dealing with the Government’s attempt to fight coronavirus was when he noticed wife Martha scrutinising his thinning hair.
She singled out a single grey strand and promptly pulled it out.
It was the last week in April, a big moment politically and personally for 41-year-old Health Secretary.
He was mightily relieved to reach his much-vaunted target of 100,000 Covid tests a day with hours to spare.
But it came at a cost: ‘We hit the target but in the process I got my first grey hair!’ he laughs.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock, 41, was mightily relieved to reach his much-vaunted target of 100,000 Covid tests a day with hours to spare in the last week of April
Tiggerish Hancock loves setting himself political targets. But when the results of the inevitable inquiry into the Government’s handling of the pandemic are published, many expect him to be in the cross hairs.
He has been the subject of vicious sniping from unnamed Downing St sources for allegedly ‘over-promising and under-delivering’ on combatting the virus, the fiasco of the anti-Covid app and clashes with the Prime Minister.
Yet sitting in his office in the Health Department in Westminster, Hancock did not look like a man expecting the coronavirus chop.
In his first major interview since the crisis began in March, he warned drunken thugs they faced jail if they abuse today’s reopening of pubs and announced the biggest ever flu jab programme to help the NHS prepare for the risk of a new Covid wave in winter.
In a rare public show of emotion, he talked candidly of how the crisis has made him rethink his approach to politics and life.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock with horse Star of Bengal after going out riding with the Clarehaven Stables in Newmarket
Hancock, a father of three, was struck down by Covid at the same time as Boris Johnson, and says that although he was back at his desk in a week it was a ‘horrible’ experience.
‘For two days I couldn’t swallow, eat or drink. It was like having shards of glass in your throat.’
Hancock believes that being trim – he is six feet tall and twelve stone seven pounds – helped him get over it quickly. ‘Thin people get through it better than fat people,’ he said.
Could he match his chunkier fellow survivor Boris Johnson’s theatrical performance of one or two press ups in front of the cameras in his Downing Street study?
‘I’m not in competition with the Prime Minister,’ Hancock replied coyly, before adding: ‘I can do maybe 25.’
Hancock believes that being trim – he is six feet tall and twelve stone seven pounds – helped him get over it quickly
Three of Hancock’s friends have been lost to Covid: economics professor Deepak Lal; Sir Peter Sinclair who taught him when he joined the Bank of England after university; and British envoy Steven Dick, who worked for Hancock when he was Culture, Media and Sports Secretary.
‘This really matters for me,’ he said. ‘This isn’t just another disease and it isn’t just a policy problem. I feel the effects of it really personally. People I admire and respect have died. Friends. I got off lightly.’
Hancock is planning a quiet Super Saturday: a pint of beer with his brother Chris – and a haircut. And in suitably responsible style (unlike Boris Johnson’s reckless dad Stanley) has booked a family ‘staycation’ in Cornwall in August.
He has often been accused of paying more attention to political games than principles. Not any more, he claimed: ‘I have learned about the need to rise above some of the politics…the comings and goings.’
He defended his record in curbing the virus, but there is no escaping the fact that Britain has one of the highest numbers of fatalities in the world.
Three of Hancock’s friends have been lost to Covid: economics professor Deepak Lal; Sir Peter Sinclair who taught him when he joined the Bank of England after university; and British envoy Steven Dick, who worked for Hancock when he was Culture, Media and Sports Secretary
And most experts admit there were mistakes in delaying the initial lockdown and failing to protect the elderly in care homes, and bungles over testing and apps.Hancock will be the fall guy, not Johnson or the scientists; it’s on his watch, I suggested.
‘Everybody was doing the best job they possibly could. The decisions we took we took together… we were trying to use all the information at your disposal and come to the best judgements that collectively you can.’
Note his use of the words ‘together,’ ‘collectively’, ‘all the information at your disposal’.
A cynic’s translation might be: ‘I might be the Health Secretary but everything I did was signed off by the Prime Minister so don’t blame me. And if I made any blunders it was because the scientists gave me the wrong information.’
Was he big enough to admit he personally had got some things wrong? He replied cautiously: ‘We are constantly learning…’ I interjected: ‘You dumped the elderly into care homes, thousands died.’ He replied: ‘That wasn’t the case.’
Finally he conceded there were things he wished he had done differently. He regrets banning loved ones from attending relatives’ funerals, for instance.
But he insisted he had got many things right. ‘I was told there’s nothing we can do about it…the NHS will be overwhelmed. But we protected the NHS.’
He refuses to apologise for losing his cool when interrupted by BBC Radio’s Nick Robinson, pleading tetchily: ‘Let me speak!’
‘The thing that gets to me is the injustice,’ he said of Robinson’s constant interruptions. ‘If people are being unfair I do find that frustrating.’
He conspicuously failed to deny reports he had protested to Johnson, saying ‘give me a break!’, in a row concerning the Government’s virus handling.
Some of Johnson’s allies have always been suspicious of Hancock, a Remainer and member of the David Cameron/George Osborne inner circle despised by Johnson.
In last year’s leadership contest, Hancock attacked Johnson’s call to prorogue Parliament to force through Brexit and sided with journalist Charlotte Edwardes who said Johnson groped her at a dinner party.
Matt Hancock was struck down by Covid-19 at the same time as Prime Minister Boris Johnson (pictured at today’s Downing Street press conference)
When Hancock’s own leadership challenge flopped, he shamelessly backed the hot favourite Johnson.
Spectator editor Fraser Nelson has said Tory critics see him as a ‘sycophant who crawls up to anyone who is in power.’
Hancock responded without blushing: ‘Guilty as charged. I’m a team player.’ Piers Morgan has called him a ‘pathetic, pious, hapless, hypocrite, bossy school prefect.’ ‘I can’t deny the last,’ roared Hancock.
Not everyone is out to get him.
He proudly pointed out that the smart John Lewis blue tie he wore for the interview was sent to him by a constituent who assumed from his regular appearances at Downing Street press conferences in a pink tie that he didn’t have any other.
Hancock said his first lesson in politics and economics came when his mother Shirley and step-father Bob’s high-tech family firm in his native Cheshire faced bankruptcy after a client failed to pay a bill on time.
A self-confessed geek, he wrote computer codes for the firm from the age of 15.
Spectator editor Fraser Nelson (left) has said Tory critics see Matt Hancock as a ‘sycophant who crawls up to anyone who is in power’. Piers Morgan has called him a ‘pathetic, pious, hapless, hypocrite, bossy school prefect’
‘Every day we hoped the cheque would come and when the postman came I’d run from the breakfast table. I can still hear the noise of that letter box.
‘When the cheque came, mum took it straight to the bank and the business survived. It made me ask how can a perfectly successful business go under because of something completely out of their control.
‘It is why my heart goes out to businesses so badly hit by this crisis.’
Having barely had a day off for five months, he is keen to have time with his own children.
He was amused when his daughter asked for help with her home school studies only to discover it was an essay on politics.
More improbably he also worked as a schoolboy ‘horse catcher’ at the Grand National in nearby Liverpool.
‘My job was to stand next to a big jump and if a jockey fell off, catch the horse. One year I gave a jockey a leg up and he finished the race. They changed the rules after that!’
The naughtiest thing he will admit to is fibbing as a student sports radio reporter in his Oxford days.
Due to report on an England rugby match at Twickenham, he overslept and filed his reports watching it on TV in a pub in Reading, while pretending to be at the game.
‘I went into a phone box opposite the pub and said ‘here I am, live at Twickenham, as the teams take the field, the crowd enthusiastic on their feet in applause!’ he laughs, imitating a commentator’s patter.
It’s not the most recent ‘naughty’ thing he has done, however. As we discussed his attempts to curb drunken scenes in pubs today, he confessed to having got drunk himself just six months ago at Christmas, declining to give further details.
But Hancock pledged 100 per cent support for police chiefs who are tasked with stopping ‘Super Saturday’ leading to riotous behaviour.
Asked if judges and magistrates should take a tough line with booze-fuelled idiots who start pub fights, he said: ‘Of course, the law is there for a reason.’
When Hancock in 2012 took part in a charity horse race at Newmarket, the home of British flat racing in his West Suffolk constituency, he got tips on tactics from top jockey Frankie Dettori. ‘I was told to tuck in behind who I thought would win, pull out at two furlongs and kick on.’
It sounds like a metaphor for his political rise, I suggested.
‘I won the race,’ he grinned.