29 June 2021 - Health secretary Matt Hancock resigns after breaking social distance guidance
Matt Hancock quits as health secretary after breaking social distance guidance
Emma Harrison (BBC News, 28/06/2021)
Matt Hancock has resigned as health secretary after he breached social distancing guidance by kissing a colleague.
In a letter to the PM he said the government "owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down".
Boris Johnson said he was "sorry" to receive the resignation.
Matt Hancock resigns as health secretary after day of humiliation
Toby Helm, Michael Savage and Peter Walker (The Guardian, 26/06/2021)
Matt Hancock has resigned as health secretary after Tory MPs, ministers and grassroots Conservatives defied Boris Johnson and demanded he be dismissed from the government.
The minister fell on his sword after a day that began with senior Tories observing a deliberate silence over Hancock’s future – seemingly to test public opinion in their constituencies – before many later broke ranks to insist he had to go.
It is understood that Hancock had been considering resigning since Friday after his apology for kissing his closest aide, Gina Coladangelo, in his ministerial office – in breach of his own Covid-19 rules – failed to quell public outrage.
The huge NHS challenge facing Sajid Javid
Hugh Pym (BBC News, 28/06/2021)
Sajid Javid has taken over from Matt Hancock as Health Secretary for England at an extraordinary time - what does the change at the top mean for the NHS?
Mr Javid is a political heavyweight, having held two of the great offices of state, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary, as well as three other Cabinet posts.
What's more he was at one stage the minister in charge of social care in England.
Hancock saga highlights Boris Johnson’s ‘blind spots’
Annabelle Dickson and Emilio Casalicchio (Politico, 27/06/2021)
When it comes to matters of the heart (or trousers), Boris Johnson always seems to hedge his bets. And it's a tendency that has some colleagues worried.
The U.K. prime minister spent almost 48 hours backing his beleaguered Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who hit the headlines on Friday after pictures of him kissing a ministry colleague — by his own admission a breach of social distancing rules — were published in the Sun newspaper.
Johnson ignored calls for Hancock, one of the most public faces of the U.K.'s pandemic response, to be sacked. Instead, he insisted through his spokesman that he considered the matter closed following Hancock's apology. And when Hancock — under intense pressure from his own party colleagues — did eventually resign on Saturday evening, Johnson said he was "sorry" and left the door open for Hancock's return to high office.