We hope Sajid Javid will be less in thrall to doomsters of Sage than Matt Hancock
Saj not Sage
BY brazenly trying to cling to his job, Matt Hancock added stupidity to a charge sheet that already included rank hypocrisy, glaring conflicts of interest and a possible criminal breach of his own lockdown laws.
Voters will put up with flaws in politicians’ private lives — but they will not tolerate a Health Secretary who solemnly tells the public to do one thing, while contemptuously flouting the Covid rules himself.
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That he couldn’t see this only made an appalling situation even worse and inflicted further damage to the reputation of himself and the Government.
But the Prime Minister cannot escape criticism either for allowing Mr Hancock to stay in office for 36 deeply unedifying hours after the Sun exposed his affair with aide Gina Coladangelo.
His declaration on Friday that Mr Hancock’s antics were a private affair and the matter was “closed” was a serious lapse of judgment
It cost him public goodwill and enraged Tory MPs, who were besieged by complaints from furious constituents.
When the end inevitably came for Mr Hancock on Saturday night, the PM did at least move swiftly to appoint a replacement, and the Sun welcomes Sajid Javid’s assertion that he wants a return to normal “as quickly as possible”.
Indeed, there is every reason to hope that former Chancellor Mr Javid will be less in thrall to the doomsters of Sage than the lockdown-loving Mr Hancock.
So come on PM. Accept you got it wrong on Friday and get on the front foot again.
Unlock the country in full on July 19, finish the vaccine rollout, get the economy roaring again — and give us our lives back.
Ex-stink-tion
THE latest attack on the mainstream media by hard-left eco-fanatics at Extinction Rebellion was a very environmentally unfriendly one, at least for anyone close enough to smell it.
The twisted narrative of the protesters is that papers like this one are in the pocket of the Government.
Oh, and hiding the truth about climate change. What rot!
We have to suppose they were too busy plotting mayhem to read The Sun’s devastating stories exposing the former Health Secretary’s wrongdoings.
And they obviously don’t care for sensible measures to help the environment, like those championed by our long- running Green Team campaign.
They don’t want you to, either.
Their preferred medium is online where abuse is rife, accountability is negligible and where they can bully and “cancel” anyone who dares have opinions less extreme than their own.
But we’ll carry on holding the powerful to account and promoting effective environmental campaigns, without fear or favour, in the best interest of our readers.
And we’ll ignore the stench of self-righteousness coming from a few law-breaking muck spreaders.