Was it morally correct for the media to publish the Matt Hancock video pictures?
More than a week has passed since Matt Hancock resigned as Secretary of State for Health and Care due to publication of video footage of him with his aide in private, and so revelation of his intimate relationship with her. It is no longer front-page news, and the world has moved on leaving him and her and their respective families to pick up the pieces and handle a tragedy which will no doubt last much longer than a week of headlines.
The incident raises numerous issues. Was the CCTV camera which recorded events in his private office installed secretly, without his knowledge? If so, by whom and why? Having reviewed the footage, what motivated the person responsible to pass it to the media? Was this spying for cash? Security questions of real importance need to be asked, as cabinet ministers seek assurance of the absence of cameras and indeed microphones in private offices.
Questions as to the propriety of Matt Hancock’s behaviour remain unanswered. Not so much as to sexual morality or fitness for office as a result of the intimacy, which the majority of commentators have not pursued but accept it seems as a personal matter; but as to whether appointment of an aide, with whom he has a personal relationship, to an official position in Government was an abuse of power. Were public funds used by him to further her interests and his? And whether health service contracts were awarded to persons associated with her during the pandemic? There may be innocence on all counts. It will be notable if such questions remain unanswered and go off the radar as time goes by and the media focus elsewhere.
Once Matt Hancock had resigned there was little media sport in pursuing him. The most insistent questioning from those opposed to UKGOV and especially the Prime Minister, particularly Keir Starmer and colleagues, centred on the reaction of Boris Johnson to the matter. Should Boris Johnson have sacked Matt Hancock immediately he knew of his behaviour? Here was a chance to use his inaction to demonstrate more weakness and moral corruption of the Prime Minister. Initially the emphasis was largely on drawing similarity between the two men as regards their faithfulness to their partners, which carried little weight publicly. The realisation that here were social distancing rules being breached on camera soon took over, though it is hard to believe that is the first thing that jumped to mind for most people.
Maybe Boris Johnson, by accepting Matt Hancock’s apology, genuinely believed that could end the matter not having spotted the “social distancing crime” being committed. Or did he and his advisers see that circumstances were such that Matt Hancock would be forced to fall on his sword as pressure built and hypocrisy became his sin, with public confidence destroyed? In embarrassing situations is it not normally the case that resignation substitutes for the sack, the perpetrator so retaining some dignity? Would not perhaps the Prime Minister be reluctant to create the precedent that a breach of social distancing rules was automatically a sackable offence – it is almost certain that all ministers, just like perhaps 99% of the population, have been guilty of some failure with regard to rules that have been impossible to follow perfectly. Perhaps Boris Johnson played smart cards, leaving Matt Hancock to make the obvious right decision, while Sajid Javid was lined up to replace him on the same day.
Is it perhaps right to ask whether the media was justified in publishing clips from the video with all the slur that accompanied it? It seems to be assumed that seeing the pictures was obviously in the public interest, but perhaps that should at least be challenged. Publication had a cost. Should a major factor in the decision to publish have been the adverse impact on the wife and especially the three children of Matt Hancock, and the husband and three children of his aide. After all the same media have been highly vocal, reasonably so, on the appalling damage to mental health of the pandemic and measures taken to combat it. Particularly on the mental health of children. Was sufficient, if any, thought given to the damage inflicted for example on those six children, which the public humiliation increased by the titillation encouraged by the pictures will have caused. Life at school will not have been enhanced.
Matt Hancock retired as a Minister in ignominy. A politician’s thick skin will be needed for some time. For many, such as Dominic Cummings and those who rate his performance in the pandemic as hopeless, his resignation will not have come too soon. That the slinging of brickbats at him is now a waste of time may disappoint some. To liken his being caught to the conviction of Al Capone for tax evasion is neatly smart, but certainly unfair. Indeed, Dominic Cummings may be disappointed that his efforts now will have no influence on the demise of Matt Hancock’s front bench career.
Perhaps today it is right that a married Minister’s affair is no longer met with the hypocritical moral indignation that it used to be and is no longer automatically a resignation or sacking matter, and that personal lives can have a private place even in politics. It is evidently right that Matt Hancock resigned as he had lost authority in his Department, and probably with the public, and it would have been impossible to take his requirements seriously. Most important, as a member of the public interviewed on television observed, he was obviously distracted and could not devote the 100% attention required to defeating the pandemic and the interests of the public. Perhaps it is wrong and unnecessary to have presented his humiliation in the pictures and sordidness which was the approach of so much of the media, and so rubbing the faces of his and his aide’s families in the tragedy they were living and will continue to live. It was not necessary to wantonly humiliate, in particular, six children. Meanwhile the media’s first reaction to the announcement of the divorce of Michael Gove and his wife, Sarah Vine, was to question compliance with social distancing rules, as they sought privacy for themselves and their children in what they themselves describe as an amicable separation.
