A week is a long time in politics.....

I heard Ken Clark on the radio this morning. Ken, as i am sure you will remember, was chucked out of the Tory party for refusing to support a Hard Brexit. I thought that Ken might take the opportunity to put the boot into Matt Hancock. But he didn't. He defended him. He said things like "it's a private matter for the two families to deal with". On the issue that the snogging broke the social distancing rules, Ken suggested "It was a bit like two work colleagues forgetting the rules for an instant and shaking hands". Shaking hands??? Blimey, I've heard some far fetched suggestions to explain poor behaviour over the years, but that takes the biscuit. I certainly don't care what Matt Hancock or any politician does in their personal life. I think most of us would agree that politicians and others in the public eye do a have a right to a private life. But what Mr Hancock was up to with his old friend Gina was conducted in a pretty public place and broke the basic social distancing rules that Matt had been telling us all to follow. Then ask what Gina was doing in whatever her role was and how she was recruited into it, and the word cronyism surfaces pretty quickly.

What's this got to do with the debate about the future for Hexham? Firstly, it might mean we need to get on with it as some governments, even with big majorities, sometimes get overwhelmed with scandal which bring them down surprisingly quickly. Boris Johnson is an opportunistic chancer and sometime soon senior Conservatives are going start wondering if he is going to be an electoral liability at the next general election, despite his current popularity. Secondly, the Matt Hancock situation perhaps illustrates one big difference between Conservatives and Progressives. For progressives, it's pretty clear he should resign as he has been exposed as a hypocrite. For Conservatives, resignation is a thing to avoid at all costs if you can get away with it.

Hopeless Hancock needs to go, like the hopeless Conservative Party. How can the voters of Hexham Constituency hasten the departure of this government and replace it with something much better?

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