Wife of cheating Hancock would be a much better MP, says Jenni
“DISHONOURABLE males” like Matt Hancock should stop risking their job, family and reputation for “a bit of hanky-panky”, broadcaster Jenni Murray says.
In a stinging admonishment to the former health secretary, ex-Woman’s Hour host Ms Murray also called on Mr Hancock’s betrayed wife Martha to stand against him and oust him as an MP at the next election.
He was forced to resign in June after CCTV stills showed him kissing aide Gina Coladangelo, 43, at his office inWhitehall.
Reports state that Matt Hancock, 42, has since left his wife Martha and their three children to start a relationship with his Oxford University friend, although the pair are not living together.
Last weekend he was photographed moving some of his belongings out of the family home, as Mrs Hancock spoke to him through the door – refusing to let him enter the house.
Ms Murray, who hosted BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour for over three decades, is encouraging Mrs Hancock, a 44-year-old osteopath, to run against her husband in hisWest Suffolk constituency.
Values
The popular broadcaster, 71, said Mr Hancock had forgotten the importance of “family values”.
Speaking in Saga magazine, Ms Murray said: “I’ve never quite got my head around the stories that so often hit the headlines, where a man in the public eye decides the grass will be greener with another woman who is not his wife.
“Why risk your job, your reputation and the lives of your wife and children for a bit of hanky-panky in the stationery cupboard?
“You know the thrill won’t last forever, but the damage to family life and trust will never end.
“So often it’s a man who risks his kids, his work and his finances.
“That’s what’s so shocking about men like Matt Hancock, Boris Johnson or indeed anyone whose secret affair becomes public knowledge – in the papers or the neighbourhood.”
She added: “Why do men put their wives, attractive, intelligent women of equal status to their own, in the position of the humiliated, sad creature
to be gloated over and pitied? As for Martha Hancock, she has handled the intrusion into her private life with aplomb.
“Not a sign of shame or embarrassment in front of the horde of paparazzi outside her home.
“She is greatly admired in her husband’s constituency of West Suffolk, where she has long been responsible for local networking while he’s been busy with other matters.
“Here’s my advice to Mrs Hancock: foster those supporters and at the next election stand for Parliament and replace him as MP.
“It’s time some of these dishonourable males, raised in the boys’ clubs of privilege, took more care of their family values.
“There’s also a rather famous saying of which they should all take note, whether their business is politics or not: ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’”
Mother-of-three Ms Coladangelo, married to businessman Oliver Tress, met Mr Hancock at Oxford, where they both studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics and worked at the student radio station.
Matt Hancock also met his wife Martha while he was studying at the university.