Photo of betrayed wife Martha sealed hypocrite Hancock’s fate

Few politicians wanted to be caught in the net that snared former prime minister John Major, when he advocated returning to a moral code of “back to basics” — later fellow Tory Edwina Currie publicised the fact they had had an illicit affair that scarcely aligned with family values. In a government led by Boris Johnson, too, few wanted to preach about codes of sexual morality.

And so the focus turned to “hypocrisy” — the hypocrisy of a Government minister lecturing the public about maintaining social distance, not hugging (not grandparents, not those in care homes, not even the dying), while he himself was evidently doing some very intimate embracing.

Public anger grew at the “do as I say, not as I do” trope and ire was further inflamed by information that his lady friend, Gina Coladangelo, likewise married with three children, was on the public payroll as a paid adviser. That she lived in a house worth £4.5m and drove a car worth £70,000 were nice details.

Who do these elites think they are? Their affairs can’t be “private matters” — when the Government monitors almost every movement of its citizens, extending its powers deep into family life.

Mr Hancock’s colleagues refrained from condemning him, at first, but they also refrained from defending him.

As he became the butt of jokes, as well as anger, it was inevitable he would have to go: resigned (or perhaps fired), not for the adultery, but for breaching social distancing guidelines.

(Even the Bishop of Manchester, who evidently doesn’t like outdated references to the Ten Commandments, preferred to criticise Mr Hancock for breaking social distancing rules rather than having “a bit of a fling”.)

If a French novelist, or film-maker, was telling this story, they would portray it as an ardent, mad love affair, in which a man and a woman were willing to lose all — position, reputation, families — for a reckless, headstrong passion with the immortal cry: “Cet amour est plus fort que moi!” You could see it that way. Mr Hancock does seem to have been smitten by Ms Coladangelo this long while — maybe ever since Oxford.

Yet most people didn’t. The chorus of disapproval against Mr Hancock mounted and the A-word burst forth from many a keyboard. He was called a rat, a slimeball, a sleezebag, a venal, callous, adulterer.

It was the picture of his betrayed wife, Martha, that called forth the invective. Here was the innocent party in this imbroglio, who, apparently, didn’t even know about the relationship.

Photos of Martha Hancock looking brave while besieged on all sides by the paparazzi were pitiable. To add insult to injury, her husband had apparently transmitted long Covid to the woman who was now seen as the victim of the narrative.

The revelation that Hancock had woken up his eight-year-old child to break the news that daddy was leaving home — his wife coping with the distress — added another layer of obloquy.

No, we don’t like to be judgmental in an age when we preen ourselves in being tolerant and compassionate, but judgment does break out, somehow, and the splash headline “DISGRACED” was emblazoned across Mr Hancock’s image.

Questions about security, about his use of private emails for Government business, about whether correct procedure was followed in the hiring of Ms Coladangelo all followed.

Questions about standards in public life were aired. Does “anything go” with these politicians?

Politicians at Westminster have been brought down by sexual relationships before: from Charles Stewart Parnell’s love for a married woman, to John Profumo’s affair with Christine Keeler, to Margaret Thatcher’s much-favoured minister Cecil Parkinson — pilloried for fathering a child outside of marriage.

But modern British society had come to view such episodes as narrow-minded and, yes, judgmental. A man (or a woman) is made of flesh and blood and if there are moments of passion, or even plain old lust, in their private life, that doesn’t necessarily impinge on their public duties.

A person can fall in love with someone other than their spouse and get carried away. Surely it’s harsh and Victorian to condemn them for an all-too-human failing?

Yet, in Mr Hancock’s case, it didn’t pan out like that. The hypocrisy issues, the security questions, the questions about “correct procedure” in hiring Ms Coladangelo may all be germane.

But, in human terms, it was the way he exposed his wife to public humiliation that prompted so much contumely.

“Adultery” may not be condemned as a sin anymore, but it’s evident that someone pays the price in emotional damage when “cheating” is exposed.