Rushing back to my job? Get out of here
Hancock lingers in Oz for money-spinning interview
As soon as my time in camp is up, I will return to Suffolk to hold surgeries where I will catch up with my constituents and discuss matters of concern.
– MATT HANCOCK LETTER TO CONSTITUENTS
MATT Hancock is finally heading home after cashing in on his I’m A Celebrity fame.
The disgraced politician missed his planned flight from Australia because he was giving a lucrative interview.
He is expected to try to defend his decision to leave his constituents without an MP when he headed into the jungle for the ITV reality show.
Mr Hancock, Tory MP for West Suffolk, had vowed to go straight back to work after leaving the jungle.
He wrote to constituents: “As soon as my time in camp is up, I will return to Suffolk to hold a surgery where I will catch up with my constituents and discuss matters of concern.”
Instead, he stuck around longer than most of the other contestants – and his own girlfriend, Gina Coladangelo, who flew home solo on Monday afternoon.
Mr Hancock is believed to have caught a flight around six hours later.
He will come face-to-face with angry MPs in Parliament for the first time on Friday as he returns to Westminster for the second reading of his Dyslexia Bill.
He will also face a backlash in his own constituency, where he has been uncontactable for almost a month.
His stint on the show drew criticism from colleagues including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and he was suspended by the Conservative party.
Mr Hancock also still needs to answer how much of his appearance fee, believed to be around £400,000, he will donate to charity.
Mr Sunak said: “We’ve spent however long on all these challenges that the country faces. That’s what we should be focused on and that’s why I was disappointed he went on the show.”
There has also been criticism from families who lost loved ones to Covid after hospital patients were discharged into care homes during the early days of the pandemic, when Mr Hancock was Health Secretary.
And in June 2021, he was forced to resign after footage surfaced of him embracing Ms Coladangelo, then his aide, in a breach of his own rules on physical contact.
The affair also ended his 15-year marriage. But it did not stop him being invited on to the popular show, in which he finished third behind former England footballer Jill Scott and soap star Owen Warner.
I’m A Celeb hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly declared the series “the best for years” and said the inclusion of Mr Hancock was “interesting”. Dec said: “They were a really great bunch. “There was lots of laughs.”