Tory Men, affairs, Johnson, Hancock & Old Corruption
It isn’t of course just Tory men of a certain age that have affairs with women, often younger women, when they are already married. Some might well note that it’s a ‘man’ thing although in the slightly more enlightened days of 2021 no doubt women also have affairs.
However the structure of society invariably means that ultimately it is the woman who is left to sort out children and many other matters while the man moves on. The sign of a society divided by class and to a significant extent still by gender, as well as other matters.
It is in this context that we can begin to understand Matt Hancock’s affair with Gina Coladangelo.
The personal implications are not good, but it is a pattern Boris Johnson himself is extremely familiar with being a serial affair man. Johnson’s biographer Sonia Purnell has noted of his time as Editor of the Spectator (he was sacked by Andrew Neil):
At any one time there were usually one or two well-bred Oxbridge women in short skirts starting out in journalism- and quite a few found themselves invited to a Spectator lunch so that Boris could give them ‘advice’.
When he was Mayor of London Johnson was reprimanded for failing to declare an affair, said he wouldn’t do it again and then promptly started another.
There is a wider issue here and it is that the behaviour exhibited belongs to a pre-democratic world, before the 1832 Reform Act, the world of Cobbett’s Old Corruption. Here public roles were related not to merit but to who you were and who you knew.
Hancock’s friendship with a pub landlord and his transgressions over contracts are well known but the context of his relationship with Ms Coladangelo fits into the Cobbetian model.
The rigor of any appointment process seems to be in doubt. How did Ms Coladangelo come to be considered? She had known Mr Hancock at Oxford and when appointed, just like Johnson, he made no mention of it, and should have.
Then at some point an affair started between Hancock, the senior figure in the matter, and Ms Coladangelo a paid advisor. That is absolutely outside any protocol. Of course it happens but if and when revealed there should be consequences.
One doubts with Johnson at No.10 there will be.
Ms Coladangelo, who has known the health secretary since they worked together on student radio at Oxford University, was made a non-executive director of the Department of Health last September.
The role comes with a £15,000 salary and involves 15 to 20 days of work per year.
Last November the Times reported that Mr Hancock had failed to declare their friendship when appointing Ms Coladangelo as an adviser in March last year.
She held the role for six months before becoming a member of the Department of Health’s non-executive board.
BBC 25th June
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