Former UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who oversaw the country’s response to COVID-19 throughout the pandemic’s first year, was expelled from the Conservative Party for joining a reality TV programme.
Hancock, a former government official who is still a member of Parliament, will take part in “I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of This Place.
The programme brings a number of well-known people—often C-list celebrities—to the Australian rainforest where they are put through tests involving spiders and snakes before being eliminated one at a time by the audience.
Boy George, a member of the Culture Club, and Mike Tindall, a former rugby player whose wife Zara is a niece of King Charles III, are among the other competitors this year.
Hancock’s involvement in the scheme, according to Simon Hart, the chief whip for the Conservative Party, is “a problem serious enough to warrant suspension of the whip with immediate effect.” Hancock will therefore serve as an independent in parliament rather than as a member of the Conservative caucus.
Hancock quit as health secretary in June 2021 after breaching coronavirus lockdown rules by having an affair with an aide in his office – violating a ban on different households mixing.
Hancock stated that he intended to use the programme to increase public awareness of dyslexia.
Hancock should be “trying to think on the awful repercussions of his time in government,” according to a group that advocates for the families of those who died during the pandemic. There have been about 178,000 coronavirus fatalities in the UK.
“Matt Hancock’s actions tore my family apart, and going on the TV to see him being paraded around as a joke is horrible,” said Lobby Akinnola of the organisation Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice.
The FDA union’s general secretary for senior government officials, Dave Penman, shared this opinion.
Oh, to have a job where you can decide for yourself that you’re taking a month off, forsake your work and obligations, be paid handsomely, and face minimal consequence, he remarked. He’ll undoubtedly serve as an example for other public employees, I’m sure.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesman, Max Blain, stated: “The prime minister feels that during a difficult time for the nation, MPs should be working hard for their people.
Sunak was “unlikely” to watch “I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here,” according to Blain. ”
Hancock could still make a comeback in the political arena. Nadine Dorries, a conservative MP, was demoted in 2012 after participating on the same programme. Nine years later, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed her to his Cabinet..
Former conservative minister of health gets suspended for appearing on reality TV
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