BORROWED TIME

‘That’s not fair – give me a break,’ he said to PM in ‘petulant’ tone

MATT HANCOCK is living on ‘borrowed time’ as Health Secretary following clashes with the three most powerful members of the Government over the Covid crisis, The Mail on Sunday has been told.

Mr Hancock is understood to have pleaded ‘give me a break’ when Boris Johnson reprimanded him over the virus testing programme – leading to open questioning within Downing Street over Mr Hancock’s long-term political future.

His run-in with Mr Johnson follows battles with both Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove over the best strategy for managing the pandemic.

Shortly after Mr Johnson returned to work at No 10 a fortnight ago, he and Mr Johnson had a tense exchange about the the Health Department’s ‘grip’ on the crisis, during which Mr Hancock said to the Prime Minister, in what has been described as a ‘petulant’ tone: ‘That’s not fair – give me a break.’

He is also being blamed in some Government quarters – or scapegoated, according to his allies – for not moving quickly enough to do more to protect care homes from the epidemic. Officials in Whitehall knew as early as the first week of March that the projected death rate among the over-90s was expected to be as high as 50 per cent, leading to discussions about ‘cocooning’ the institutions from infection.

But as the infection rates started to climb later that month, care workers were still entering the homes – many of them having travelled in on public transport – without the necessary protective equipment.

With the reproduction rate of the virus now falling in the wider community, it is the continuing spread in residential care homes which has so far prevented Mr Johnson from lifting more of the lockdown measures. And Mr Hancock has annoyed Downing Street with his tendency to come up with spur-ofthe-moment policies – such as his threat last month to ban all outside exercise, which he had to climb down over almost immediately.

One No10 source expressed irritation at what they described as ‘Hancock’s insistence on playing the big man’ during the crisis.

It has led to the Health Secretary being likened by some to a school prefect – but one ‘who never gets to be head boy’.

A senior Government source said: ‘The feeling is that Hancock is on borrowed time. He has fallen out with the most powerful figures in the Government, from the Prime Minister down. Nothing will change immediately. But once we have beaten this thing, expect him to be moved.’

As a Cabinet ‘dove’ who opposes an early relaxation of the lockdown rules, Mr Hancock has been engaged in running ideological battles with Chancellor Mr Sunak, who leads the Cabinet ‘hawks’ who are keen to pull the economy out of its Covid-inflicted nosedive as soon as possible. Although allies of both men insist they share the same aim of saving lives while protecting the economy, there is little doubt that they differ about how to achieve it – and have had ‘robust’ exchanges on the matter.

Mr Hancock has also made the mistake of crossing swords with Mr Gove, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The two Cabinet ministers – who each chair one of the four committees set up to tackle the virus, as well as sitting on the daily C-19 super-committee chaired by the Prime Minister, and the Cobra emergency committee – have clashed over the supply of ventilators and protective equipment.

Mr Gove was described by one colleague as being ‘much more across the detail’ than Mr Hancock – and ‘not shy about displaying it’.

Mr Hancock is also regarded with suspicion within Mr Johnson’s pro-Brexit inner circle because of his previous closeness to George Osborne, the Remainer former Chancellor. He ran for the leadership last year on a soft-Brexit ticket, only to pull out when he mustered just 20 votes. He switched to supporting Mr Johnson, the frontrunner, in the process shedding his soft Brexit views and dropping his opposition to Mr Johnson’s plan to suspend Parliament to force through Brexit.

At one point during Mr Johnson’s campaign, when Mr Hancock visited his Commons office to offer his support, Mr Johnson is said to have made an obscene hand gesture as Mr Hancock left.

Mr Hancock also attracted criticism last week for telling a female Labour MP to ‘watch her tone’ after she grilled him on the Government’s coronavirus testing strategy. His remark to Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, who also works as an A&E doctor, sparked uproar among MPs who accused him of sexism. Mr Hancock was forced to abandon his threat to ban all outside exercise under intense pressure from Downing Street. One official said at the time: ‘If he doesn’t dig himself out of this hole [at that day’s press conference] then we will do it for him’. Mr Hancock duly performed a sharp U-turn at the briefing. A source close to Mr Hancock said: ‘We’ve been working incredibly well with the PM and the whole No10 team and have had nothing but total support from them.’

The source added that Mr Johnson had praised Mr Hancock for doing an ‘amazing job in hellishly difficult circumstances’.

‘Once we’ve beaten this, expect him to be moved’ Boris ‘made a rude hand gesture as Hancock left’