What Matt Hancock should have written in his Pandemic Diaries

The words flow like wine. Turns out I was right about absolutely everything

Wednesday 7 December 2022: Going to put out a statement on TikTok that I am standing down as an MP. But what shall I write in it? Yesterday my spokesman told everyone that I definitely wasn’t standing down, but now I am. This would put me in a tricky spot but thankfully I’ve already published my completely made-up “pandemic diaries” so I don’t actually need to make up anything to cover my arse on this one.

Think I’ll just say “want to explore exciting new possibilities to communicate with people of all ages”. That’ll do. Let the TV bookers know I’m available for absolutely anything. And that’s what I got into politics for after all, wasn’t it? To humiliate myself defending people that loathe me, to become a national laughing stock and walk away at the age of 44 to eat camel dick for coins.

Three months earlier...

September the something or other 2022: Wake up. No wife. Loathed by own kids. Career over. Got trench foot. Gina says I should publish my pandemic diaries. I say yeah! Great idea! We laugh. I go and sit on the toilet. I haven’t written any pandemic diaries but that’s no problem. That makes it even easier.

September the whatever: Ring publishers about The Pandemic Diaries. They all want to see the diaries. I laugh. I go and sit on the toilet.

September the who cares 2022: Sigh. Deep breath. I gather together all of the news clippings I can find from the last two years. I make a list of everyone who criticised me, what they said and when they said it. Inspiration is at hand. The work begins.

October the doesn’t matter it’s all made up anyway 2022: The words flow like wine. Turns out I was right about absolutely everything. Here we are in January 2020. Watch this. From my fingers come the words: “Dominic Cummings [the PM’s chief adviser] thinks Covid is a distraction from our official withdrawal from the EU next week. That’s all he wants Boris talking about.”

Wahey! One nil Matty Boy. Back in your box, Dom. Watch me go. I’m absolutely unplayable. These diaries are going to change the world! Imagine how much more I can winkle out of the Celebrity Come Dine With Me people once everyone knows I didn’t do anything wrong, I was right all along and everything was all everybody else’s fault.

October the next day 2022: I’ve just watched back the video of Prime Minister’s Questions from 29 January 2020. I don’t say or do anything at all, so I can definitely get away with saying that I sat there knowingly laughing to myself about how irrelevant everything everybody else said and did was. I will also claim that, on that day, I rang up the head of the World Health Organisation to give him the benefit of my wisdom but knowing, as I definitely did then, that he’s in China’s pocket, he’ll be made to look stupid too. Another victory for Samuel Peep Show. Get in.

Whenever 2022: I’m getting to the bit where I did a press conference in Downing Street in April 2022, and despite my department being squarely responsible for absolutely everything that’s gone wrong – mainly that there’s no PPE and no tests, so everyone in the NHS is risking their own lives just by going to work – I say that the main thing that has gone wrong is the Treasury’s fault.

This leaves me, the diarist, in a bit of a bind, really, as there’s already prima facie evidence in the public domain about my propensity to blame everyone else for everything I did wrong, which is also, just between you and I, the entire point of me writing these diaries. But don’t worry, don’t panic, I’ve already had a brilliant idea. At this point, I’ll write in my diary that I made a mistake.

I’ll write, “In truth I should have given a frank answer about something I was responsible for – like that we haven’t got the private sector ramping up testing fast enough. Not my finest hour.” This, I have to say, is a proper stroke of genius. Plant the seed. Get it out there nice and early that you’re not afraid to admit when you’ve got something wrong. Now it’s just going to look even more credible when I entirely rewrite the next two years of history for my own ends.

Next day 2022: Right. This is the really tricky bit. Got to get this right. I’m up to the hospital evacuation bit now. There are a lot of people out there who now know three things about me. One is that I was having an affair at the same time as arguing for criminal prosecution for anyone doing exactly what I was doing. Two is that I will do absolutely, absolutely anything for money. Three, and this is the big one really, is that I evacuated untested hospital patients into care homes, causing a massive wave of preventable deaths. Not sure how I am going to style this one out really.

Three weeks later 2022: “We must make sure that anyone going from a hospital into a care home is kept away from other residents. I hope this message filters through and is followed.”

That’s going to have to do. I’m just going to have to write that. Will people think it’s damning that even in my very obviously retrospectively written diaries, I couldn’t come up with anything better than that? “I hope this message filters through and is followed.” Will people say, “Hang on, you’re the actual health secretary. You’ve written a lengthy diary in which you claim that only you and you alone ever understood what was going on, and at the moment of most crucial importance, all you’ve got to say is you ‘hope this life and death message filters through and is followed’?”

Yeah, I mean. It’s not great, is it? But I can’t um and ah for another three weeks. I’ve got to write something. This will have to do. This is harder than I thought it would be. Christ, I need a holiday.

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November 2022: Taking a break from all this diarising to sod off to Australia to burrow around in the dark with rats and get abused by Boy George. Sounds a bit grim but come on, four hundred grand! Nagging doubt in back of mind that there’s no possible justification for doing this but come on, FOUR HUNDRED GRAND! I’ll blatantly lose the whip but FOUR HUNDRED GRAND!

I’ll have to come up with some absolute drivel about my campaign for dyslexia and then not actually mention it for the first three weeks of the competition. Now I read that back it doesn’t sound like a great idea but then I’m probably not thinking very clearly, am I, because FOUR HUNDRED GRAND!

5 December 2022: Well that was GREAT. Not sure if the camera picked it up but there was a moment, just a fraction of a second long, where I could see Mike Tindall looking into my eyes and I could clearly see that he didn’t entirely loathe me. What a rush. What a rush! I have found my purpose in life. Bye-bye Question Time! Hello prime time!

Two months later...

February 2023: Call from agent. Says do I want to do Celebrity Wife Swap? Yes, I say, yes! Yes yes yes! She says it was just a joke. Oh, I say. This isn’t as much fun as I thought it would be.