Matt Hancock the blank made few friends when grilled over the NHS and Brexit

MPs find health secretary’s no-deal contingency plans have more than a few holes

Be careful what you wish for. Matt Hancock has always been one of life’s more Tiggerish characters. A hyperactive man-boy whose enthusiasm and bumptiousness – combined with a gift for telling people what he thinks they want to hear – far exceed his natural talents. As sycophancy seldom goes unrewarded in Westminster, Hancock has managed to rise entirely without trace. First as a junior minister, then as culture secretary he contrived to leave no discernible mark and now finds himself in the thankless task of health secretary.

Bullshit only gets you so far when you come up against squeezed budgets and an ageing population and reality is now beginning to bite. Hancock has aged several years in the past few months and now looks all of 18. His appearance on Tuesday before the health and social care select committee to face questions on his department’s Brexit preparations will have done nothing to reverse that process.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2EFrY1F