LONDON (AP) — Matt Hancock, the U.K’s scandal-prone former health secretary, sought an unlikely type of redemption Sunday: attempting to win “I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here” — a grueling, often gruesome reality show set within the Australian jungle.
Hancock led Britain’s response to COVID-19 in the primary yr of the pandemic, telling people to steer clear of others to guard the health service — then got caught breaking his government’s own rules when video emerged of him kissing and groping an aide he was having an affair with.
He was forced to resign when The Sun newspaper published the CCTV images. This time, though, he knew the camera was on, and behaved in ways many might find much more distasteful: eating the raw nether parts of camels, cows and sheep, amongst other things.
“I’m a Celebrity…” sends a gaggle of famous people, often C-list celebrities, to the Australian rainforest, subjects them to trials involving spiders and snakes, and so they are eliminated one after the other based on a public vote.
While many Britons have been disgusted by Hancock’s appearance, blaming him for apparent failings in the federal government’s early response to the pandemic, viewers upended expectations by voting Hancock through to Sunday evening’s final. He finished third. Former England soccer star Jill Scott won the competition and actor Owen Warner finished second.
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The previous health chief outlasted Culture Club singer Boy George and former rugby player Mike Tindall, whose wife, Zara, is the niece of King Charles III. Tindall body tackled Hancock in one other of the show’s tasks, and has been poking fun at the previous health secretary’s politicking.
“He clearly desires to win,” said Tindall, adding that Hancock was always aiming his T-shirt with voting number on the camera. “Once a politician, at all times a politician. At all times polling for votes.”
Fellow politicians have been less enthusiastic than the show-voting public. When it was announced that Hancock would seem, he was slated by fellow lawmakers, including many from his own party, and he was suspended as a Conservative member of parliament.
His success seems to have done nothing to ease their ire. Talking to Sky News Sunday, Cabinet minister Mark Harper said: “I don’t think serving members of Parliament needs to be participating in point of fact television programs.
“Nevertheless well they do on them, I still think they needs to be doing the job for which they’re paid a very good salary — which is representing their constituents.”
Announcing that he was going to “step up,” Australian comedian Adam Hills, host of comedy current affairs show “The Last Leg,” went to Hancock’s constituency in eastern England last weekend and met with locals to listen to their problems.
“I reckon I can do a greater job in per week than he has done so far,” Hills said on the show.
Still, a political comeback for Hancock will not be out of the query. Conservative lawmaker Nadine Dorries was suspended in 2012 for appearing on the identical show. Nine years later, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed her to his Cabinet.
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