A top Tory wants people to stop calling Matt ‘hopeless’ Hancock ‘hopeless’


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The justice secretary has criticised calling Matt Hancock “hopeless”. It comes after Dominic Cummings revealed Boris Johnson’s damning messages about the health secretary.

“Hopeless” Hancock

Robert Buckland said on 20 June that “to bandy around words like that” does “nobody any service at all”. And he insisted Hancock commands the government’s “full support”.

Cummings was the prime minister’s chief aide until he walked out of Downing Street in November. He revealed a series of WhatsApp messages between himself and Boris Johnson as he continued their war of words.

One exchange included Johnson describing Hancock as “totally fucking hopeless” while discussing testing early in the coronavirus pandemic. Buckland told Sky’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday:

[Hancock’s] been a most useful and dynamic Health Secretary who enjoys our full support.

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Reminded that they were the prime minister’s words, Buckland said:

I’m not going to get into text messages or WhatsApp messages sent between people and then disclosed in a rather unfortunate way. I don’t believe that’s actually a reflection of the reality.

I’ve been working within Cabinet, within Government, throughout this crisis and I don’t detect any suggestion that somewhere there is anything but the fullest confidence of what Matt has been doing and what he continues to do energetically.

No comment

Meanwhile, John Bercow shared his assessment of Hancock after the former Commons speaker revealed he had switched allegiances to join the Labour Party. The former Tory MP told Phillips:

Well I think it would be fair for me to say that I would buy Matt at my valuation and sell him at his and realise a healthy profit in the process

Other people have struggled with the question. After being asked if Hancock is “hopeless”, NHS chief Simon Stevens smirked and then refused to answer:

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    1. Okay, how about “Total complete and utter WANKER Hancock”?
      Or some of the old catchphrases;
      Flipping kids!
      Hello mayday hallo mayday hello mayday hello mayday!
      A pint? That’s half an armful!
      Look! Six eggs and only five soldiers!
      I’ve got mangel wurzels in my garden I’ve got mangle wurzels in me shed I’ve got mangel wurzels in my bedroom I’ve a mangel wurzel for a head!
      I’ve trodden on better faces than yours on the way down!
      Things seemed to go wrong too many times……

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    2. The top Tory is my MP, better watch your backside Mr Buckland, as you will get dragged down with the rest of the Tory filth.

      And you should release Assange too, as you are the Justice Secretary.
      Remember when you told me in person he should have been sent to Euquador, September 2020? I haven’t forgotten, remember the person stood by you from your office when you, said it? She is a witness.

      Were you a naughty boy when you were a QC? Just asking for a friend…

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    3. You know, in ten years time, check out how much his net-worth will have increased. “Hopeless”? He is the perfect scapegoat for all the corrupt money-stacking that has gone on by the entire Cabinet. And that is his role.

      The role of the corporate media is to cover for him as long as possible, to protect the rest of the Cabinet. If that becomes unfeasible, then he will be sacrificed, and the news moved onto other topics.

      And he will get a sinecure in the ‘private sector’, a well paid one for his ‘loyalty’ – not to the PUBLIC of course, because that is embarrassing “Boy Scout” stuff, but to the Oligarchy, and to the Brexshit Billionaires.

      TBF, it’s quite possible he knew this was his role from the very beginning, [cough nervously, re-arrange tie, lift nose to look confident].

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