A Tory MP broke ranks to call for cheating Matt Hancock’s resignation today in fresh embarrassment for the beleaguered Health Secretary – after a 60-second video of his kiss with a married aide emerges.  

Duncan Baker has become the first Conservative MP to go against the Prime Minister – who yesterday personally backed Mr Hancock to stay on and said he ‘considered the matter closed’.

Mr Baker, MP for North Norfolk, told his local newspaper that the Health Secretary ‘has fallen short’ of ‘the appropriate morals and ethics’ that apply to someone in his position – and has told the Government his feelings ‘in the strongest possible terms’.

Boris Johnson is being urged to sack Mr Hancock amid a tidal wave of hypocrisy allegations over images and a subsequent video clip showing the Health Secretary kissing his married aide Gina Coladangelo in the corridor outside his office at the Department for Health.

Despite championing draconian restrictions on ordinary citizens, he kissed and embraced Mrs Coladangelo on May 6 – eleven days before the ban on hugging was lifted. Both are married with three children.

The Health Secretary’s wife of 15 years Martha Hancock today glanced at reporters as she left the couple’s London home wearing dark sunglasses, as Whitehall rumours claim she threw her husband – who she met at university – out of the family home. 

Some 49 per cent of voters now think Mr Hancock should resign – with just 25 per cent feeling he should stay on, a YouGov poll has found.

Earlier today, an unnamed ally who was set to defend Mr Hancock on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme failed to turn up – with presenters Mishal Husain and Martha Kearney forced to explain that he’s ‘not been answering his phone’.

‘We had been expecting to speak to a supporter of Matt Hancock this morning but he’s not been answering his phone. We will keep trying,’ the programme announced.

The ally would have been a rare voice in support of the cabinet minister.

On an extraordinary day: 

• Mr Hancock was accused of breaking the ministerial code, which calls for ‘proper and appropriate’ working relationships;
• Downing Street refused to comment on whether he had broken the law as well as social distancing guidance;
• Mr Johnson was said to be considering moving Mr Hancock to a low-profile role;
• Tory MPs stepped up calls for the scrapping of ‘authoritarian’ lockdown rules promoted by Mr Hancock;
• Ministers faced questions about the role played by Mrs Coladangelo, a millionaire former lobbyist married to the founder of the Oliver Bonas retail chain;
• An investigation was launched into how security camera footage of Mr Hancock kissing Mrs Coladangelo in his office was leaked to The Sun;
• Mr Hancock’s wife Martha declined to comment, amid Whitehall rumours that she had thrown him out of the family home;
• Scientists suggested Mr Hancock’s conduct could undermine compliance with remaining Covid restrictions;
• Former top aide Dominic Cummings stepped up his attacks on Mr Hancock, saying his ‘negligence’ during the pandemic had ‘killed people’.

Tory MP Mr Baker, who was elected in 2019, told his local newspaper the Eastern Daily Press: ‘In my view people in high public office and great positions of responsibility should act with the appropriate morals and ethics that come with that role.

‘Matt Hancock, on a number of measures, has fallen short of that. As an MP who is a devoted family man, married for 12 years with a wonderful wife and children, standards and integrity matter to me.

‘I will not in any shape condone this behaviour and I have in the strongest possible terms told the Government what I think.’

Mr Hancock had put Mrs Coladangelo, a friend from university, on the public payroll only last year. He made no comment on claims he was having an affair with the 43-year-old in his apology yesterday, but added: ‘I have let people down and am very sorry.’

Astonishingly, however, he refused to resign and, after crisis talks in No 10, the Prime Minister personally backed him to stay on and said he ‘considered the matter closed’. 

Last night, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick backed the PM’s stance, adding that the public should allow Hancock to ‘get on with the job’.

He told BBC Radio’s 4 Any Questions: ‘There’s a task to be done, Matt is on the job doing that, and I think we should allow him to get on with the job.’

He added: ‘The rules have been hard. It is everybody’s duty to follow the rules, but equally I’ve not been somebody who has criticised and condemned people when they’ve made mistakes.’

 

The decision not to fire Mr Hancock prompted fury last night across the political spectrum, among members of the public and even from business leaders enraged by the Health Secretary’s hypocrisy. 

Tory whips were bombarded with complaints from their MPs. 

A Savanta ComRes snap poll found the public wanted Mr Hancock to quit by a margin of 58 to 25. A separate YouGov survey had the margin at 49 to 25.

Support for the 42-year-old was ebbing even in Downing Street, with one senior figure saying his conduct was ‘gross’ and describing the apology he offered yesterday as ‘pathetic’.

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said: ‘It will all be down to public opinion – it’s the only thing No 10 cares about. They’re polling, focus-grouping all the time and if that starts showing the public want him out then he could be gone by Monday.’ 

Another Conservative MP said: ‘It’s getting like Animal Farm: all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.’

Sayeeda Warsi, a former Conservative Party chairman, attacked the failure to sack Mr Hancock, saying: ‘It’s a bad decision by Matt and a bad decision by the PM.

‘He’s got a huge amount of questions to answer in relation to Covid contracts, access to parliament, giving out jobs. Is there anything anybody could do any more which would make them resign?’ 

Hannah Brady, of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: ‘Hancock has treated bereaved families with contempt. He’s got to go.’ In a letter to Mr Johnson the campaign group said that Mr Hancock’s continuing presence in the Cabinet was ‘an embarrassment to the Government’.

Labour also called for the Health Secretary to go and branded the Prime Minister ‘spineless’ for failing to sack him.

Party chairman Anneliese Dodds said: ‘The charge sheet against Matt Hancock includes wasting taxpayers’ money, leaving care homes exposed and now being accused of breaking his own Covid rules. His position is hopelessly untenable. Boris Johnson should sack him.’ 

It comes as newly emerged footage appears to show Mr Hancock checking the corridor is clear before closing the door, leaning on it to stop it opening before the pair launch into their passionate embrace.

And speaking to MailOnline tonight, the aide’s millionaire businessman father Rino Coladangelo, 70, refused to comment other than to say: ‘My daughter is a wonderful woman.’

There was no on-camera apology to the public from the Health Secretary yesterday despite questions over whether he had lost his focus on the pandemic.

When Neil Ferguson, a key government adviser, resigned for breaching lockdown rules last year, Mr Hancock said he was right to go and the police should investigate.

Last September Mr Hancock told people not to start romantic relationships because of the risk it could spread Covid.

And on May 16, ten days after his clinch with Mrs Coladangelo, he said people should be ‘careful’ about the new freedom to hug – and suggested they should do so only outside with people who had been fully vaccinated. Liberal Democrat health spokesman Munira Wilson said: ‘Matt Hancock is a terrible Health Secretary and should have been sacked a long time ago for his failures.

‘This latest episode of hypocrisy will break the trust with the British public. He was telling families not to hug loved ones, while doing whatever he liked in the workplace.

‘Rules for them and rules for us is no way to run a country.’

Mystery surrounds the recruitment of Mrs Coladangelo, who met Mr Hancock while volunteering at the student radio station at Oxford University in the 1990s. She worked on Mr Hancock’s failed Tory leadership campaign in 2019 and was secretly taken on as an unpaid adviser at the Department of Health last year before being made a non-executive director on a £15,000 contract.

A Tory source said the pair had become inseparable, adding: ‘They always appeared to be incredibly close. Her status was always slightly mysterious but she went everywhere with him. She was in every meeting.’

The Health Secretary was grilled about his conduct by senior figures from the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team before Mr Johnson decided he would stand by him. The Prime Minister, who was sacked by Michael Howard for lying about an extramarital affair, is said to have been reluctant to hand the media a scalp.

Downing Street refused to comment yesterday on whether Mr Hancock had offered his resignation at any point.

The episode echoes the infamous lockdown-busting trip to Durham made by Mr Cummings last year.

Paul Charles, founder of The PC Agency, a travel consultancy, said: ‘Most people in the country will be asking themselves why they should listen to advice on travel and social distancing when the Health Secretary isn’t even following the rules. The sector has been so badly hit, it’s even more galling now to see ministers in such positions.

‘Most people will be questioning whether Matt Hancock has any position of authority.’

In its letter to the Prime Minister, Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said: ‘If Matt Hancock is unable to find the decency to do the right thing and resign his position it is paramount that you relieve him from it.’

As Downing Street made its first comments it confirmed suspicions that Boris Johnson would not sack his Health Secretary given his own chequered love life, especially after his own alleged four-year affair with American pole-dancing businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri, who he employed as an advisor while Mayor of London. 

Mr Hancock’s kiss with Mrs Coladangelo, a mother-of-three whose husband Oliver Tress is the founder of clothing shop Oliver Bonas, is alleged to have taken place in the corridor outside his office at the Department for Health’s headquarters in central London at around 3pm on May 6 this year – the day of the UK local elections and a week after his first coronavirus jab.  

Mr Hancock is said to have checked the corridor is clear before closing the door, leaning on it to stop it opening before launching into their passionate embrace. The Sun claims they have been having an affair that has been the talk of the department – but it is not known if they remain in a relationship that was a secret until yesterday.  

He married Martha, 44, in 2006 and the couple have three children together. Mrs Hancock looked sad and upset as she left the couple’s home but didn’t speak to reporters about her husband’s alleged infidelity.  Her husband was nowhere to be seen, however, she was still wearing her wedding ring.    

The shutters were closed at the £4.5million South London home Mrs Coladangelo shares with Oliver Tress and their three children yesterday. They are also believed to have a country home near the West Sussex coast. She has been working as an advisor for Mr Hancock since last year, with one source saying: ‘Before Matt does anything big, he’ll speak to Gina’.

But they first met at Oxford University 25 years ago at their college’s radio station and Mrs Coladangelo is friends with Matt Hancock’s wife on Facebook and they have spent time together socially.  

Earlier on Friday, Downing Street said the Prime Minister has accepted Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s apology for breaching social distancing guidelines and ‘considers the matter closed’.

‘You’ve seen the Health Secretary’s statement, so I would point you to that,’ a spokesman for the Prime Minister said after being asked by reporters why Mr Hancock remained in post.

‘I don’t really have anything further to add.

‘The Health Secretary set out that he accepted he had breached the social distancing guidelines and he has apologised for that.

‘The Prime Minister has accepted the Health Secretary’s apology and considers the matter closed.’

Asked whether Boris Johnson had ‘full confidence’ in Mr Hancock, the spokesman replied: ‘Yes.’

Downing Street repeatedly refused to comment on whether Health Secretary Matt Hancock had broken the law after he was pictured kissing a close aide in his Whitehall department.

A Downing Street spokesman told a Westminster briefing: ‘I would point you to his statement. He says ‘I accept I breached the social distancing guidance in these circumstances’.

‘He sets out that he apologises for that and as I say, the Prime Minister has accepted that apology.’

Responding to the PM’s spox claiming the Matt Hancock affair is ‘closed’, a Labour Party spokeswoman said: ‘This matter is definitely not closed, despite the Government’s attempts to cover it up.

‘Matt Hancock appears to have been caught breaking the laws he created while having a secret relationship with an aide he appointed to a taxpayer-funded job. The Prime Minister recently described him as ‘useless’ – the fact that even now he still can’t sack him shows how spineless he is’.

England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty has declined to comment on Matt Hancock’s actions.

Asked outside the Department of Health, in central London, on Friday afternoon if he had anything to say about the Health Secretary’s apology, Prof Whitty replied: ‘Nothing.’

Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has said there are ‘legitimate public interest questions to be answered’ after images were published appearing to show Health Secretary Matt Hancock in an embrace with his aide.

When asked about the matter during a press conference, Mr Drakeford said: ‘I think there is a legitimate distinction to be drawn between what people do in their private lives and what they do in their public lives.

‘I’m not trying to make points about what people do as entirely private matters, but in the case of Mr Hancock it does seem to me that there are some issues that are of genuine public interest.

‘I do think there are questions that need to be answered about whether those rules were broken, the social distancing rules.

‘Mr Hancock himself was very quick to condemn a senior academic from Imperial College when he was found breaching those rules, so I think there are questions, legitimate public interest questions, to answer there.

‘I think there are legitimate public interest questions to be answered about how individuals are appointed if they turn out to be in a different sort of relationship with the minister who was responsible for their appointment.

‘Certainly here in Wales, I always expect the whole of our ministerial team to observe the rules that we expect other people to observe.

‘You can’t make laws for other people and then not be willing to abide by them yourself.’

Mr Hancock was meant to be at Newmarket Racecourse to visit the vaccination centre but a spokesman revealed he cancelled at the last minute ‘early this morning’. 

A Department of Health probe into how the footage from outside Mr Hancock’s office was leaked is expected, with the whistleblower described as a former civil servant who was angry about his ‘brazen’ affair, adding: ‘They have tried to keep it a secret but everyone knows what goes on inside a building like that’.  

The kiss was also 11 days before the Government relaxed safety rules including giving permission for the public to hug at a time where Mr Hancock told people: ‘Always stay two metres away from people you don’t live with’ and using the mantra: ‘Hands, face and space’.

Labour Party chair, Anneliese Dodds, commenting on revelations about Matt Hancock, said: ‘If Matt Hancock has been secretly having a relationship with an adviser in his office – who he personally appointed to a taxpayer-funded role – it is a blatant abuse of power and a clear conflict of interest.

‘The charge sheet against Matt Hancock includes wasting taxpayers’ money, leaving care homes exposed and now being accused of breaking his own Covid rules.

‘His position is hopelessly untenable. Boris Johnson should sack him.’ 

Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Health and Social Care Munira Wilson MP said: ‘Matt Hancock is a terrible Health Secretary and should have been sacked a long time ago for his failures.

‘This latest episode of hypocrisy will break the trust with the British public. He was telling families not to hug loved ones, while doing whatever he liked in the workplace.

‘It’s clear that he does not share the public’s values. Rules for them and rules for us is no way to run a country.

‘From the PPE scandal, the crisis in our care service and the unbelievably poor test and trace system, he has utterly failed. It is time for the Health Secretary to go.’

A Whitehall whistleblower who leaked the footage and reportedly no longer works for the department, told The Sun it was ‘shocking that Mr Hancock was having an affair in the middle of a pandemic with an adviser and friend he used public money to hire’.

The alleged affair piles even more pressure on Mr Hancock, who was already reportedly battling for his job over his handling of the pandemic Dominic Cummings released WhatsApp messages from the PM that showed Mr Johnson branded him ‘f***ing useless’.

Aside from the serious allegations of an affair, there will also be questions to answer about kissing someone outside his bubble during the pandemic and whether this breaches any of the Covid rules he has helped create. 

Mr Hancock, who is yet to comment, cancelled an event in his West Suffolk constituency yesterday morning where he would have faced questions over the affair and whether he can keep his job. He also deleted an Instagram post from last night where he said he ‘works with some brilliant women’.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said it was an ‘entirely personal’ matter for his cabinet colleague.  He told LBC radio: ‘I have seen the photo but, as ever with private matters, I always try to avoid commenting on other people’s personal lives and I think I’ll stick with that tradition here.’

Asked whether the Health Secretary should have been ‘ignoring social distancing’, Mr Shapps replied: ‘I’m quite sure that whatever the rules were at the time were followed. You’ll recall that there was a point at which social distancing rules were changed but, as I say, I don’t want to comment on somebody else’s private life – that is for them.’

The Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said he would not be commenting on an ‘entirely personal’ matter after pictures were published allegedly depicting his married Cabinet colleague Matt Hancock in an embrace with his closest aide.

Mr Shapps told Sky News that former lobbyist Gina Coladangelo – who the Health Secretary met at university – would have gone through an ‘incredibly rigorous’ process to get the job.