As well as the hypocrisy of a man who seemed at times to delight in locking down fellow citizens during the pandemic, here are some other reasons for enjoying the spectacle of this turd being forced to spend time having rotten tomatoes, dead cats and other items thrown against him in the stocks:
Among the beneficiaries of his department’s largesse are Topwood, a company run by his sister and brother-in-law, in which he has a 20 per cent stake, which secured a contract with NHS Wales worth £150,000; Alex Bourne, who used to run Hancock’s local pub and won a £30million deal for Covid tests despite having no previous experience in the sector; and Hancock’s married lover Gina Coladangelo, appointed to a taxpayer-funded role, and her brother, an executive at a private healthcare company which has won a string of public sector contracts.
From an article by Daniel Miller.
What is perhaps unsurprising is that there is not more anger about this. It’s as if this level of jobs-for-the-boys/girls is now par for the course. The ironies abound. A few years ago, the UK enacted something called the Bribery Act, designed to stop UK companies bribing officials and others into winning contracts. To be clear, it is not stated anywhere I know that what Hancock (an unfortunate surname) did was illegal, but it sails pretty close to the wind. Directors of companies and those in public positions have to disclose a lot these days. I’ll be interested to see what ultimately happens.
To go all libertarian “meta-context” here, a berk such as Hancock is political road-kill, a footnote to history as and when it this melancholy period of history is written. But what he represents is how in the hunt for fame and riches, the public realm attracts such bottom-feeders. Brass neck, a certain pushiness and so forth, can take certain people very far. With such a large chunk of our lives controlled or mediated by the State, such creatures flourish. Large C and small conservatives are supposed to understand all this. Yesterday, the US marked Independence Day and the Founders crafted the Constitution and the elaborate set of checks and balances with such issues in mind. What is troubling about today is that I see zero sign anywhere, and certainly not from the Boris Johnson administration, about learning wider lessons from the venality on display in the Hancock case.
Addendum: I see the Queen (who would have been advised by Mr Johnson) has conferred a collective George Cross medal on the National Health Service. In the eyes of some, the NHS should have been renamed the National Covid Service over the past 18 months or so. To honour a socialist entity such as the NHS is quite a bold step. The only two other collective holders of the GC are the island of Malta (my second nation by marriage) and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
