“I just wanted a friend”: Hancock responds to Covid “chumocracy” complaints

Accusations of “chumocracy” at the heart of the government’s Covid-19 response have swirled following Matt Hancock’s appointment of an advisory role at the DHSC to a university friend, Gina Coladangelo. 

In a sad twist, the Health Secretary, has admitted that part of his motive for engaging in cronyism was that he “doesn’t really have that many friends”. When pressed on the issue, the minister remarked that “sometimes it’s just nice to have someone to talk to. There’s nothing quite like when you’re with someone you care about, tenderly gazing as they sign a contract to produce £7.3m of antiseptic wipes.”

It has since unfolded that in a multi-tiered system, Hancock has assigned different levels of contract in exchange for different intensities of friendship. In exchange for a standard PPE manufacturing contract, the Health Secretary has demanded socially distanced walks, sessions with his various AirFix models, and the right to play on the games on their phone. 

The most extreme tier, for the price of a weekly phone call and a whispered “I love you”, sees the government provide the relevant party with sole responsibility for track and trace.

It is speculated that Dido Harding has become a grudging but reliable friend to Hancock, but has refused to reprise the ‘friends with benefits’ arrangement the pair shared having both studied at Oxford, as “he always used to cry afterwards”.