Matt Hancock affair was an issue on the doorstep, says Tory Party co-chair

Amanda Milling said voters in the Batley and Spen by-election did raise concerns about the former health secretary’s conduct.
Matt Hancock with Gina Coladangelo
PA Wire
Gavin Cordon2 July 2021

The behaviour of Matt Hancock was an issue on the doorstep in the Batley and Spen by-election, the Tory Party co-chair has admitted.

Mr Hancock resigned as health secretary after CCTV footage emerged of him kissing a close aide in his office in breach of social distancing rules.

Initially when the story broke last Friday, Boris Johnson stood by him, accepting his apology and insisting the matter was closed.

I know the public will be incredibly frustrated because at the end of the day we have all made a huge number of sacrifices

Amanda Milling

However Mr Hancock was forced resign the following day after Conservative MPs made clear his position had become untenable.

Amanda Milling the party co-chair, acknowledged his conduct had been an issue in the final stages of the by-election campaign.

“It was something that came up on the doorstep, I have to be honest about that. They (voters) had some issues over the weekend in terms of what happened,” she told Sky News.

She added: “I know the public will be incredibly frustrated because at the end of the day we have all made a huge number of sacrifices. But Matt did the right thing by resigning. The matter is now closed.”

Conservative Party co-chairman Amanda Milling
PA Archive

Her comments are likely to lead to frustration among Conservative activists after the party came within 400 votes of winning in Batley and Spen, delivering a body blow to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

It will raise questions over whether the party could actually have taken the seat if the Prime Minister had sacked Mr Hancock when the news first broke.

Ms Milling said that it had been a “tremendous result” for the Tories to get so close in a constituency which Labour held with a 3,525 majority at the 2019 general election.

“It was a very, very close result. This is not a great win for the Labour Party. They have only won by a matter of just over 300 votes,” she said.

“Governing parties don’t gain by-elections and actually taking it to such a small number of votes is in itself a tremendous result.”

She insisted that Mr Johnson remained very popular among voters.

“There is a lot of love for the Prime Minister. He gets a tremendous lot of support on the doorstep,” she said.

Meanwhile Labour is continuing to press for answers as to whether Mr Hancock followed proper procedures when he appointed Gina Coladangelo to the board of the Department of Health and Social Care for £15,000-a-year for just 15 days’ work.

She has since also resigned from the department.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in