Coronavirus: The trials and tribulations of Matt Hancock

The health secretary is virtually unsackable right now, writes Sean O'Grady, and his recent blunders seem only to prove that he knows that all too well

Tory figures have started to voice criticisms of the way ministers have handled the crisis (PA)

Given the coronavirus epidemic tearing through Britain’s care homes, and an overall fatality rate of about 50,000 (on the “excess deaths” measure, including indirect fatalities), the tribulations of Matt Hancock on breakfast television may seem trivial.

They are trivial, of course, even though one popular news website led its coverage of current events with the headline “Matt’s Morning Meltdown”. Hancock’s dismissive remarks towards broadcast journalists shouldn’t really bother anyone. They wouldn’t matter at all if, first, Meltdown Matt wasn’t the minister in charge of the NHS and the care sector during a deadly pandemic and, second, everything was otherwise tickety-boo.

So used is Hancock to being grilled by the media that it no longer seems to count as some sort of special event in his daily diet of stress. He now treats his broadcast appearances with the same casual insouciance as he might display telling off his six-year-old child, when Hancock Jr is making a mess and being especially peevish (clearly a trait in the Hancock family genome).