My MP abandoned us for I’m A Celebrity, too – I know how Matt Hancock’s constituents feel

I know from experience that heading into a celebrity competition as an MP doesn’t exactly strengthen your image in the eyes of the public

Matt Hancock has reached a new low – or to be more specific, he’s gone down under; planning to round off his 2022 by biting a bull’s penis on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and flogging his pandemic diaries after sending coronavirus patients off to die in care homes.

To misquote Regina George of Mean Girls: stop trying to make Matt Hancock’s political comeback happen.

According to an ally of the former health secretary, it’s all about the politician showing the “human side” to those in public office and drawing viewers’ attention to his campaigning around dyslexia. We know Tories have an image of being well-off, but raising awareness of disabilities is a bit bloody rich when he oversaw a public health crisis in which 60 per cent of Covid deaths were of disabled people.

The argument about showcasing the “human side”, meanwhile, makes him sound like some political Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – and as a constituent of ex-culture secretary Nadine Dorries, I know from past experience that heading into a celebrity competition as an MP doesn’t exactly strengthen your image in the eyes of the public.

It was 2012 when the Mid Bedfordshire MP decided to abandon parliament for the jungle, and while I was not of voting age at the time, there was an almost indescribable disconnect from the wider public conversation once our parliamentary representative had left the country.

Her role as an MP was a constant, representing the political discourse of an ultra-Tory seat – until it wasn’t. UK democracy never sleeps, yet for us, it was suffering from an eight-hour jet lag.

We learned what Ms Dorries’s priorities were: that the role of an MP was no more than a stairway from the revolving door of UK politics, to wherever the officeholder wanted to go. There is no humanity in the shameful pursuit of self-interest. Just think of all the important issues she could have raised in parliament or on social media – instead, she had a mouthful of kangaroo testicles.

Arguing that you can “reach new audiences” on an ITV gameshow to me feels like an admission that you aren’t doing enough to reach young people in your constituency.

Voting for a Conservative MP to be stung by a scorpion – while satisfying – is not a political education. And what’s so infuriating about Hancock’s argument about giving politicians the “human touch” is that we’ve seen him do that already: on CCTV, in the middle of the pandemic, breaking his government’s own Covid rules, kissing his former aide.

We really don’t need to be reminded of that mess again and (I imagine), neither does Hancock himself. As he said in his resignation letter: “The last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis.”

Aside from the coronavirus crisis becoming the cost of living crisis, what’s changed? What has possessed Hancock to share details of his personal life now, when not long ago he was desperate to put it back behind closed doors?

Mid Bedfordshire constituents like me were robbed of the chance of some light escapism by way of reality TV in 2012. Now, Hancock’s West Suffolk voters are being similarly robbed. But so too are the Covid-bereaved, the care home workers with trauma, the disabled people grieving the loss of members of their community, the health and social care workers who were crying out for a pay rise when all they got instead were claps on people’s doorsteps. Every time they see Hancock on TV, they’ll be reminded of the horrifying losses of the pandemic. We all will.

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This will backfire. Take it from Dorries – people haven’t exactly warmed to her, post-jungle. In fact, my fellow constituents were overjoyed at the prospect she may get put in the House of Lords instead; replaced by someone who is a bit more present in Mid Beds.

Hancock, however, has a problem: everyone has been affected by his incompetence as health secretary in some way.

So, as he looks to the more personal side of politics on I’m A Celeb, he may soon (like Dorries) realise that he’s bitten off more than he can chew – literally.