Loose Women react to Matt Hancock embrace video: ‘The country deserves an explanation’
Remarks come as calls for the health secretary to step down intensify
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Your support makes all the difference.The presenters of Loose Women were among the many people reacting to images and CCTV footage of Matt Hancock embracing his aide.
The alleged incident took place on 6 May, when government guidance said two people from different households should not hug.
On Friday’s (25 June) episode of Loose Women, Kaye Adams joked that it could be a “kind of new PCR test” to detect Covid-19.
Her co-host Jane Moore noted that we are in “unprecedented times”.
“I think that when you’re in a position like this, at the moment he’s probably got the most important cabinet job, so much of that is based on public trust, confidence, that is the asset of your job,” she said.
She said that “if what we’re seeing there in this photograph is as it seems” then there was a “strong argument” he had “breached the ministerial code”.
“I think the country deserves an explanation,” Adams said “I think we need more than this statement.”
Calls for the health secretary to resign intensified after a snap poll by Savanta ComRes found 58 per cent, including 46 per cent of Tory supporters, thought he should step down.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party has called for an investigation into the health secretary’s breach of lockdown, after the 42-year-old acknowledged that his embrace with married 43-year-old Gina Coladangelo had broken social distancing rules.
Deputy leader Angela Rayner wrote in a letter to prime minister Boris Johnson that Mr Hancock had “failed to declare that he was engaged in a relationship with someone who he personally appointed at taxpayer’s expense to serve as an advisor”.
However, Mr Hancock made clear he intends to fight to keep his job. Mr Johnson has said he accepts his minister’s apology and considers the matter “closed”.
Labour chair Anneliese Dodds insisted the cabinet minister’s actions amounted to “a blatant abuse of power and a clear conflict of interest” that rendered his position “hopelessly untenable”.