Lessons of the Matt Hancock saga

MATT HANCOCK, the now-former UK health secretary, was caught on video in a moment of breathtaking indiscretion with his aide. An office video camera caught him passionately pulling the beak of not his wife.

The kiss between the two was the stuff of Mills and Boon book covers. Many Brits bristled at the glaring duplicity of a man imposing covid19 restrictions on others, but himself appearing immune to them.

In the UK, under pandemic guidelines, Brits put ailing loved ones into ambulances never to see them again. Sons and daughters stayed away as parents died in care homes.

These sacrifices were made over several months and here was the man responsible grinding on his goomah like two hormone-fevered teens at a school dance.

Initially, Hancock refused to step down in response to calls for his head. He wrote a letter of apology to Prime Minister Boris Johnson for breaking the covid19 rules. Johnson, beset by his own pandemic fumbles, compounded the offence by accepting the “sorry bro.”

The PM tried to entomb the radioactive scandal in a haughtily dismissive statement, indicating that he considers the matter closed.

It wasn't closed. The party now start.

Consequently, Hancock was forced to resign. The man at the head of the UK's covid19 management strategy stepped down even as the pandemic rages. That's how committed the Brits are to public accountability.

The UK media sifted through the wreckage of Hancock's spectacular misstep. Debates on shows like Good Morning Britain were a trove of lessons for TT.

Hosts Susannah Reid and whoever isn't Piers Morgan at the moment conducted an excellent autopsy of political malfeasance and public betrayal. One of the show's guests was conservative former health secretary Edwina Currie.

Currie suggested Hancock should be judged on his performance, not on some “saintly standards” imposed by society.

Reid pointed out that it is Hancock who imposed saintly standards on the public and he had a responsibility to uphold the rules he set. Now, here's the bit in the exchange that's of interest to our local journalists – Currie took on a condescending tone with the ITV journalist, asserting some entirely imagined superiority that demands deference. The presenter quickly pulled up Currie's socks in a no-nonsense manner. She wasn't cowed by a truculent former politician and remained committed to getting answers.

This is important for several reasons. The UK's early response to the pandemic was marred by a litany of poor decisions costing thousands of lives. Even though their vaccination rollout appears to be going smoothly, this doesn't erase the serious consequences of past negligence. Hancock wasn't judged on moral turpitude, but a sketchy track record culminating in an astounding act of hypocrisy.

Another British presenter argued that Boris Johnson doesn't get to decide when people stop talking about an issue. So there are multiple parallels to our circumstances in that ongoing debate in the UK.

After our scandalous vaccination fiasco just a few weeks ago, PM Rowley decided, as far as he was concerned, that was the end of the matter. He unilaterally declared the Minister of Health had no case to answer even though Deyalsingh was making glaring errors in real time. Additionally, his stewardship under the pandemic has been questionable from the beginning.

There's a pattern to this avoidance of accountability. The Attorney General famously flouted covid19 rules he's responsible for drafting in an online arm-wrestling stupidathon. Commenting on the matter, Dr Rowley said he isn't giving anyone a free pass. Still, Faris Al-Rawi wasn't censured for his reckless behaviour that sent all the wrong signals to the public. As observers in the UK pointed out, ordinary citizens take their cues on the pandemic from the actions and utterances of the leadership.

In the UK, the public lays the results of the state's pandemic strategy directly at the feet of the health secretary and the PM. In TT, the people place the burden for management of the pandemic at the feet of the people.

In the US and UK, public officials cannot hide behind the worn-out mantra of “this pandemic is unprecedented” or “all nations of the world are experiencing the same troubles.”

Other nations made mistakes, but people there learned from them. There were also clear consequences for those responsible. In TT the consequences for the mistakes of our leaders are born by the public.

Our government claims credit for perceived successes and apportions blame elsewhere for catastrophic failures. Such contempt for accountability can yield only one result – continued decline and suffering.