Editorial
Matt Hancock, who reportedly plans to release a book, has insisted he ‘didn’t break Covid rules’ by kissing his aide, Gina Colangelo, in his ministerial office during the pandemic.
Speaking on Dragon’s Den star Steven Bartlett’s podcast, The Diary of a CEO, the former Health Secretary claimed he broke ‘guidelines’ instead.
He said: “I resigned because I broke the social distancing guidelines then.
Watch a clip from the interview below…
“They weren’t actually rules. They weren’t the law. But that’s not the point. The point is they were the guidelines that I’d been proposing.
“It actually happened after the rules were lifted, but the guidance was still in place. So I’m not trying to claim that I hold no bitterness about this because I broke the rules, I fess up, I broke the guidance, and there were only two people responsible for this.”
The former cabinet member resigned less than 24 hours after footage was leaked by The Sun of the pair kissing.
Hancock, who has since left his wife, said the incident happened because he ‘fell in love’.
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The 43-year-old continued: “It happened because I fell in love with somebody.
“I brought her into the department to help with public communications. And so we spent a lot of time together, ironically, trying to get me to be able to communicate in a more emotionally intelligent way.
“And we fell in love. And that’s something that was completely outside of my control. And of course, I regret the pain that that’s caused and the very, very, very public nature.
“Anybody who’s been through this knows how difficult it is, how painful it is doing that in public is incredibly painful, but I fell in love with someone.”
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