It’s vaccine day – why shouldn’t Matt Hancock cry?

Make a note of the date – Tuesday 8 December – for we will be talking about this historic day for many years to come. Where were you when… Matt Hancock cried on national television?

I mean, sure, the administering of the first coronavirus vaccine in the UK is certainly not inconsequential, but give it a week or two and we’ll all have vaccine fatigue. “Right, who’s next? You may feel a little prick.” But how often does the health secretary break down in tears in front of Piers Morgan? Not ever – at least not in public, anyway.

Mr Hancock was coming to the end of his morning media round when he arrived on Good Morning Britain. He seemed bouncy enough. And why not? He must have been dreaming of this day – V Day, as we must immediately stop calling it – throughout the long months when everything was going wrong and all of it was his fault. But then he got a bit of grit in his eye. Annoying. All been there. Except it wasn’t that. Matt Hancock, the actual health secretary, appeared to be crying.  

Morgan immediately went into Life Stories mode. “You’re quite emotional about that,” he said, not about to let the moment pass (or, perhaps, the man who boycotted GMB for months off the hook). And so, as often happens when a tired, broken man is asked how he is feeling, things got a bit snotty. Between gasps for air, Mr Hancock stuttered: “Well, you know… it’s been such a tough year for so many people and there’s William Shakespeare putting it so simply for everybody. That, you know, we can get on with our lives.” That’s William Shakespeare, the second person to get the vaccine in the UK by the way, not the man who wrote All’s Well That Ends Well. Nice touch, though.

The tears and the wobbly chin didn’t last long but it was enough. Yes, just when I thought 2020 couldn’t get any weirder, I found myself feeling, not exactly sympathy, but something a bit like sympathy, for Matt Hancock. Is anyone working on a vaccine for that?

Come on, though, the poor guy hasn’t had a good time of it. He’s hardly slept; his hair has pretty much deserted him; and he has been advised to wear a gilet under his suit jacket. It’s been rough and, regardless of your views on his performance as health secretary, you wouldn’t envy the 2020 he’s had. His little “moment” on GMB was simply a brief admission of relief and it no doubt summed up what a lot of us are feeling. Things might just be OK again. So yes, I’ll admit it, I did feel a bit emotional. Would probably have given him a hug, if I’d had the vaccine.  

But many others didn’t agree. People were quick to point out on social media that, for all the theatrics, a lack of real-life, wet tears was conspicuous. It was obviously all an act, they claimed, to try and claw back some sympathy from a public, angry at his handling of the pandemic. The Financial Times described Mr Hancock “in the process of wiping away actual fake tears from his eyes”. By contrast, Mail Online ran the headline: “Stop blubbering, man”. So which was it? Too many tears or not enough tears? 

And does it really matter? I know it’s Matt Hancock we’re talking about but there is, perhaps, a serious point to be made here. When our first reaction to a man crying is to question whether he really was crying or to demand that he stop crying at once, it sends out a troubling message. A message that states: to show emotion risks mockery. Haven’t we all moved on from that? So much work has been done in recent years to encourage men to be more open, to remind them that crying is not a sign of weakness. Yet when a senior politician does just that, our immediate response is to laugh or question it.

I know – I really do – that Matt Hancock is not the most obvious candidate for this argument to be pegged to. He is not a particularly likeable character and he has made a thoroughgoing mess of the UK’s response to coronavirus. But put all that aside, if you can. Politician cries; world laughs. That’s the nub of it. I do wonder how many men have watched the GMB clip, seen the cruel reaction and interpreted it, subconsciously or otherwise, as a warning to themselves.