Public ‘absolutely seething’: Britain’s health minister quits after breaching his own COVID rules

London: The most senior minister in charge of battling the coronavirus pandemic in Britain has quit after pictures and video emerged showing him flouting social distancing rules while conducting an affair with a senior aide.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock resigned from the cabinet on Saturday afternoon, local time, with an apology for breaching the same rules he had spent months asking the public to comply with.

“I understand the enormous sacrifices that everybody in this country has made and those of us who make these rules have got to stick by them and that’s why I’ve got to resign,” he said.

Matt Hancock was pictured leaving Downing Street with Gina Coladangelo on May 1.Credit: Getty

Hancock had tried to cling onto his job after the Sun newspaper on Friday published images and footage of Hancock locked in an embrace with Gina Coladangelo, a friend from university who was this year appointed as a non-executive director at the Department of Health and Social Care.

Hancock was seen poking his head out a door to make sure nobody was coming before he kissed Coladangelo and ran his hands up and down her body.

The office rendezvous occurred when government guidance - which Hancock had helped devise - effectively banned hugging and physical contact with people from other households.

Boris Johnson backed Hancock as the scandal raged on Friday but the two met at the prime ministerial retreat Chequers on Saturday and the Health Secretary handed over his resignation letter.

Coladangelo, a millionaire lobbyist, also stepped down from her role at the health department on Saturday. The role paid about £15,000 ($27,450) a year.

Hancock will be replaced by Sajid Javid, who quit as chancellor in early 2020 amid a Downing Street power struggle.

Hancock’s departure and the arrival of the respected Javid will offer Johnson the chance to reset the troubled health portfolio as the United Kingdom moves on from the worst of the pandemic.

The affair had sparked widespread anger in Britain and prompted some Conservative Party MPs to demand Hancock’s resignation.

Veteran Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope told BBC radio his constituents were furious.

“They felt that he was in breach of the ministerial code; that he was in breach of the lockdown regulations; that he is the person who has been passing the laws, signing off the regulations, requiring people to comply with restrictions upon their freedom - many of which people don’t agree with - but they’ve complied with, out of respect for the rule of law,” Chope explained.

“And they’re absolutely seething now, that having made sacrifices themselves, including not seeing loved ones and all the rest of it, they find that the person who was in charge of all this feels free to not comply with his own regulations.”

The 42-year-old Hancock was already under pressure over the UK’s high death toll, questions over NHS contracts and revelations Johnson had last year called him “totally f---king hopeless” in a Whatsapp message sent to senior officials.

Matt Hancock will sit on the backbench after resigning from cabinet.Credit: Getty

Johnson’s former top aide, Dominic Cummings, had also accused Hancock of botching the government’s response to the pandemic. Cummings told politicians last month that Hancock “should have been fired” for alleged lies and errors.

Cummings himself was accused of breaking the rules when he drove 400 kilometres across England to his parents’ home during the spring 2020 lockdown.

Johnson on Saturday showered praise on Hancock and said the minister had been asked to tackle “a challenge greater than that faced by any of your predecessors”.

He also kept the door open from Hancock to eventually return to the frontbench.

In his resignation letter, Hancock said: “The last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis.

“I want to reiterate my apology for breaking the guidance, and apologise to my family and loved ones for putting them through this. I also need to be with my family at this time.

“We owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down, as I have done by breaching the guidance.”

With AP