A liar and a thief

Matt Hancock has refused to resign after breaching the social distancing rules he set by groping a woman. We must suppose he hired her only in order to make such groping easier as she doesn't need the money. Boris Johnson has refused to sack him.

This is the same Matt Hancock who said of Neil Ferguson, after he had resigned for visiting his lover, that his actions were 'extraordinary' and that he 'took the right decision to resign'. The same Matt Hancock who said that it was 'just not possible' for Ferguson to continue advising the government. The same Matt Hancock who said the social distancing rules 'are there for everyone' and are 'deadly serious'. The same Matt Hancock who speculated that perhaps the police should be interested in Ferguson's behaviour. Ferguson, whose mathematical models of the pandemic have helped save tens of thousands of lives, didn't have to be told to resign of course. Hancock not so much: probably his miserable incompetence has caused tens of thousands of people to die horrible deaths. And now, as he has neither resigned nor been sacked, people will be less willing to follow the rules and more will die as a result: he has just added more names to the list of the people he has heedlessly slaughtered.

And Johnson: well, at least he's consistent: he refused to sack Dominic Cummings last year and he's refusing to sack Matt Hancock now. Johnson has never cared about the number of people he kills: he did not care last year and he does not care now. All Johnson cares about is Johnson.

So now the list of things a government minister can do and not lose their job is a little longer, democracy is eroded a little further and a few more people will die.

We seem to be living in some kind of joke made at our expense: a killing joke.