Is Matt Hancock being bullied on I’m A Celeb?

If anything, Matt’s fellow campmates have been more civil than the MP for West Suffolk deserves

Is there any more depressing way to spend your Monday night than reading the comments on Ant and Dec’s Facebook page? I wish I hadn’t given any part of my evening over to this deeply sad activity, but here we are.

There seems to be an extremely vocal contingent of I’m A Celeb viewers who believe that Matt Hancock is being “bullied” – by his campmates, by the show’s two presenters and by the general public voting for him to take part in trials.

“You guys simply have to stop the bullying towards Matt,” wrote one user. “In a time where mental health is of great importance, sitting on the sidelines and claiming that it’s what the public wants, is not good enough! Someone has to stop it, please!”

Won’t somebody please think of Matt Hancock? Won’t somebody think of the former health secretary who didn’t bother assessing the risk of piling untested hospital patients into care homes where – oops! – 40,000 elderly and vulnerable people died?

It’s interesting that mental health is being introduced to the debate. You know what is bad for mental health? Grieving a loved one, knowing they died alone. Not being able to say goodbye or hold their hand one last time.

Combine this with the frustration and helplessness of knowing that the people who were setting the rules around Covid weren’t following them – see: Matt Hancock caught on CCTV in his workplace kissing his former aide, Gina Coladangelo. And add to that the fact that their “unlawful” decisions led to thousands of unnecessary deaths, thousands of bereaved families and untold suffering and misery.

If anything, Matt’s fellow campmates have been more civil than the MP for West Suffolk deserves. It’s not bullying, it’s discomfort. They’re sharing a space with the flesh and blood embodiment of why most people hate politicians. I wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t want his weaseling toxicity rubbing off on them.

But in the minds of a subsection of Facebook users, Hancock is an pink-cheeked, Ed Sheeran-warbling king. “I hope and pray mat [sic] wins the jungle wipe smile off all there [sic] faces. Matt to win.”

How short some people’s memories are. If there’s anything you deserve not to be so easily and swiftly forgiven for, it’s making pandemic response calls that cost people their lives – and then, just to rub salt in the wound, jetting off to a reality TV show in Australia to make a quick £400,000, while the UK Covid inquiry is stil ongoing.

You wouldn’t know it from the “top comments” selection on Ant and Dec’s latest Facebook posts, though. “This year this programme is ridiculous and it’s all about bullying Matt who I must say is handling it all brilliantly. If it was a woman that was having this bullying there would be an outrage and it would be stopped straight away.”

Ah, the famous reality TV bullying police, who protect female contestants. I don’t remember them on Love Island when Ofcom received 1,500 complaints about bullying behaviour from the men in the villa directed at deaf model Tasha Ghouri. Making the I’m A Celeb campmates’ dislike of Hancock into a gender issue is really scraping the dregs of the excuse-barrel.

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I am not here for the rehabilitation of Matt Hancock’s image. I don’t care how many camel penises he chokes down, he’s being paid £400,000 to mess about on a reality TV show when he’s also collecting a salary – £84,144 a year – for the MP job he should actually be doing. And all while the rest of us are struggling to pay for basics in a cost of living crisis.

Bullying in workplaces, in politics and in public life is a real issue – just look at the allegations staining the Tory party at the moment, which now implicate Dominic Raab and Gavin Williamson, and the shadow health secretary Wes Streeting’s offensive and abelist slur against former leader Jeremy Corbyn in the Commons last week.

But trying to frame Matt Hancock as a victim of bullying, because the other contestants on a reality TV show might not enjoy sitting round a campfire with him – for a multitude of extremely valid personal and moral reasons – degrades the entire issue.

Matt Hancock isn’t getting bullied. He’s not even being held accountable. And the latter needs to happen, soon.