Covid-19 Inquiry interrogation hardly light entertainment for Matt Hancock - The Yorkshire Post says

It was hardly light entertainment, as Mr Hancock – who stepped down from his Secretary of State role after being caught breaching his own Government’s social distancing guidance by kissing colleague Gina Coladangelo – had to refute claims that he was a liar.

Inquiry counsel Hugo Keith KC said a number of witnesses had made reference to Mr Hancock “lying”, “getting overexcited and just saying stuff” and saying things “which surprise people because they knew the evidence base wasn’t there”.

Mr Hancock said: “I was not. You will note that there’s no evidence from anybody who I worked with in the department or the health system who supported those false allegations.”

He also took the time to bemoan a “toxic culture” and “deep unpleasantness” at the heart of Government during the pandemic, suggesting the level acrimony between major figures handling one of the country’s biggest crises in modern history.

Meanwhile, his assertion that “ma ny, many lives” would have been saved if the nation had gone into the first coronavirus lockdown three weeks before it actually did on March 23, 2020 is not likely to surprise those who lost loved ones in the m onths that followed.

Nor will his defence that there “enormous uncertainty” and only 12 identified cases in the country at that time be any consolation.