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November 21, 2024 - 5:00pm
Matt Hancock has today told the Covid inquiry that efforts from other parts of Government to relax lockdown rules “stiffened his resolve” to extend them.
The inquiry, which at £208 million will be the most expensive in British history, heard that the former health secretary was “in a battle with other parts of Government to ensure that the measures that we were taking were enough to stop the spread of the virus”. “There was pressure from others to release measures which were, in my view, too soon,” Hancock said. “And it stiffened my resolve to resist those measures to relax too soon”.
Hancock was asked about how his experiences on the frontlines in A&E departments impacted his decisions. The former MP for West Suffolk told the inquiry that after a difficult shift in the Basildon hospital in January 2021 during the second wave of Covid, a doctor burst into tears and said to him: “We’re in a second wave, secretary of state, you cannot allow a third”. “We were also in the middle of the vaccine rollout which was the ultimate way out of it,” Hancock claimed. “And it was critical that we didn’t release too soon before the vaccine had the chance to work.”
The former health secretary also told the inquiry: “And I’d spent the whole Autumn before that fighting for lockdown to stop the second wave. I’d been determined to do everything I could but that [exchange with the doctor] made it even stronger.”
In the wake of Covid-19, the damage wrought from extended periods of lockdown and harsh restrictions is still being assessed, particularly in the health and social care sectors. A landmark 2023 report from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) described lockdown as having a “catastrophic effect” on the country’s social fabric.
“During lockdown calls to a domestic abuse helpline rose 700%; mental ill health in young people went from one in nine to one in six and nearly a quarter amongst the oldest children,” the report stated. “Severe absence from school jumped 134%; 1.2 million more people went on working-age benefits, 86% more people sought help for addictions; prisoners were locked up for 22.5 hours per day.”
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SubscribeAll this, all this, when Hancock is just a common criminal.
Not a common one. Not many manage to damage so many people’s lives, be known and still be able to walk around free. Let’s hope not for much longer.
What a gaslighter. Confiscate all he owns. Put him in an unheated flat. No visitors. Do not allow him to walk in the sun. Do not allow him to go to church, to work, to the store or the movies. Make him a test subject for any and all pharma experiments.
So not only is he stupid, he’s proud of his stupidity. Classic Dunning Kruger.
It wasn’t his ‘resolve’ that stiffened, but his propensity for extramarital liaisons.
Something generally does need to “stiffen” in order to have those relations
The guy who managed to start a liaison while in lockdown wants to convince us of his moral strength and decision making skills ?
Pathetic little twerp.