Matt Hancock: The key questions facing ex-health secretary when he gives evidence to COVID inquiry

Published

1 year ago

November 30, 2023

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Former health secretary Matt Hancock played a key role in the UK’s response to the COVID pandemic – and his decisions will today be scrutinised by the official inquiry.

Mr Hancock was a familiar face at the regular press conferences that took place during that period, giving updates to the public about social distancing measures, the state of the NHS and the vaccine programme.

In 2021, he was forced to resign after he admitted he broke the government’s own coronavirus guidance to pursue an affair with an aide.

Today it is his turn to give evidence to the COVID inquiry.

He will follow a string of high-profile witnesses who have already shared their experience of the pandemic with inquiry chair Baroness Hallett, including Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, Lord Simon Stevens, who was the chief executive of the NHS at the time, and former chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance.

Mr Hancock has already featured heavily in the testimonies of the witnesses who have given evidence to the inquiry so far.

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A spokesperson for Mr Hancock said he has “supported the inquiry throughout and will respond to all questions when he gives his evidence”.

Former NHS CEO Lord Stevens made this assessment of Mr Hancock when he appeared before the COVID inquiry at the beginning of November.

“The secretary of state for health and social care took the position that in this situation he – rather than, say, the medical profession or the public – should ultimately decide who should live and who should die,” he said in a written statement to the inquiry.

“Fortunately, this horrible dilemma never crystallised.”

However, although Lord Stevens suggested that Mr Hancock wanted too many powers in his capacity as health secretary, he did add that “for the most part” the former cabinet minister could be trusted.

“There were occasional moments of tension and flashpoints, which are probably inevitable during the course of a 15-month pandemic but I was brought up always to look to the best in people,” he said.

‘Nuclear levels of over-confidence’

The day before Lord Stevens gave evidence, the COVID inquiry heard from Helen MacNamara, who was deputy cabinet secretary during the pandemic.

She told the inquiry Mr Hancock showed “nuclear levels” of confidence at the start of the COVID pandemic and “regularly” told colleagues in Downing Street things “they later discovered weren’t true”.

For example, Ms MacNamara said the former health secretary would say things were under control or being sorted in meetings, only for it to emerge in days or weeks that “was not in fact the case”.

She also recalled a “jarring” incident where she told Mr Hancock that it must have been difficult to be health secretary during a pandemic, to which he responded by miming playing cricket, saying: “They bowl them at me, I knock them away” during the first lockdown.

‘Lied his way through this and killed people’

There is clearly no love lost between Mr Hancock and Mr Cummings, who told the inquiry that he repeatedly called for Boris Johnson to sack him.

Mr Cummings alleged that the ex-health secretary “lied his way through this and killed people and dozens and dozens of people have seen it”.

In a message sent to Mr Johnson in May 2020, Mr Cummings said: “You need to think through timing of binning Hancock. There’s no way the guy can stay. He’s lied his way through this and killed people and dozens and dozens of people have seen it.”

In August 2020, he wrote again: “I also must stress I think leaving Hancock in post is a big mistake – he is a proven liar who nobody believes or [should] believe on anything, and we face going into autumn crisis with the c**t in charge of NHS still.”

Mr Cummings also echoed Ms MacNamara’s accusation that the former health secretary told colleagues things that later were discovered not to be true, saying he “sowed chaos” by continuing to insist in March 2020 that people without symptoms of a dry cough and a temperature were unlikely to be suffering from coronavirus.

He also revealed that he purposefully excluded Mr Hancock from meetings because he could not be trusted.

Mark Sedwill wanted Hancock removed to ‘save lives and protect the NHS’

Messages exchanged by Lord Mark Sedwill, the former head of the Civil Service and Simon Case, the current cabinet secretary, revealed that Lord Sedwill wanted Mr Hancock removed as health secretary to “save lives and protect the NHS” – a play on the pandemic-era slogan at the time.

Lord Sedwill said this was “gallows humour” and that he did not use the work “sack” when speaking to Mr Johnson about his health secretary.

However, he did admit that Mr Johnson would nevertheless have been “under no illusions” about his feelings towards Mr Hancock.

‘He had a habit of saying things he didn’t have a basis for’

Sir Patrick Vallance, who was chief scientific adviser from 2018 to 2023, was another figure who claimed Mr Hancock would say things “he didn’t have a basis for”, which he attributed to “over-enthusiasm”.

He told the COVID inquiry: “I think he had a habit of saying things which he didn’t have a basis for and he would say them too enthusiastically too early, without the evidence to back them up, and then have to backtrack from them days later.

“I don’t know to what extent that was sort of over-enthusiasm versus deliberate – I think a lot of it was over-enthusiasm.”

Asked if this meant he “said things that weren’t true”, Sir Patrick replied: “Yes”.

‘I have a high opinion of Matt Hancock as a minister’

One COVID witness who did defend Mr Hancock was Michael Gove, who was minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster during the pandemic.

He told the inquiry that “too much was asked” of Mr Hancock’s department at the beginning of the pandemic.

“We should collectively have recognised that this was a health system crisis at an earlier point and taken on to other parts of government the responsibility for delivery that was being asked of DHSC [department for health and social care] at the time,” he said.

He added: “I have a high opinion of Matt Hancock as a minister.”

Politics

CZ refutes claims in latest WSJ article on Trump-linked crypto dealings

Published

25 mins ago

May 23, 2025

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CZ refutes claims in latest WSJ article on Trump-linked crypto dealings

Binance co-founder and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has pushed back against a report in The Wall Street Journal, calling it a “hit piece” filled with inaccuracies and negative assumptions.

In an X post, Zhao criticized the publication’s portrayal of his alleged involvement with World Liberty Financial, the decentralized finance project backed by a business entity affiliated with US President Donald Trump. Trump’s sons — Eric and Donald Jr. —are involved in the management of the company.

Zhao said the WSJ article portrayed him as acting as a “fixer” for the WLF team and its co-founder Zach Witkoff during foreign trips.

The article suggested Zhao facilitated introductions and meetings for WLF leaders during foreign trips, including a visit to Pakistan that reportedly resulted in a memorandum of understanding with a local official.

“I am not a fixer for anyone,” Zhao said, firmly denying that he connected Pakistani official “Mr. Saqib” with WLF or organized any engagements abroad. “They had known each other way back, whereas I only met with Mr. Saqib for the first time in Pakistan.”

WSJ reports on Steve and Zach Witkoff

Zhao’s response follows a WSJ investigation highlighting a complex string of diplomatic and business interests involving WLF.

The report raised concerns about the blurred lines between public duties and private interests and focused on diplomatic and business dealings involving WLF co-founders Steve Witkoff and his son, Zach Witkoff. Steve Witkoff serves as the US Special Envoy to the Middle East under the Trump administration, while Zach Witkoff has been involved in securing a reported $2 billion crypto deal.

The report raised questions about whether diplomatic efforts overlapped with private crypto ventures, and implied Zhao may have been attempting to curry favor with the Trump administration

On May 6, Zhao confirmed that he is seeking a pardon from the Trump administration for his earlier money laundering conviction.

The report also highlighted that WLFI, which raised over $600 million in token sales, does not disclose the names of all its investors aside from some publicly known ones like Tron founder Justin Sun, who attended Trump’s memecoin dinner on May 22.

Trump hosted the dinner for the largest investors of his Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin. Sun, Magic Eden CEO Jack Lu and BitMart CEO Sheldon Xia were among attendees and shared photos of the event.

Zhao claims the WSJ report is an “attack” on crypto

Zhao claimed the WSJ submitted a list of questions containing what he described as “wrong and negative assumptions.” He and his public relations team responded by pointing out several factual inaccuracies, he said, but concluded that the article was “built on a flawed narrative.”

Zhao slammed the WSJ, calling it a “mouthpiece” for anti-crypto forces in the United States. He said the forces behind the publication want to hinder efforts to make the US a crypto capital.

“They want to attack crypto, global crypto leaders and the pro-crypto administration,” CZ claimed, saying the article is part of a broader effort to stifle the industry’s growth in the US.

This is not the first time Zhao has clapped back at the WSJ recently. In an April 11 report, the publication cited anonymous sources alleging that Zhao agreed to testify against Tron founder Justin Sun as he settled with US prosecutors.

CZ dismissed the report, saying that people who become government witnesses don’t go to prison and are protected. CZ also claimed that someone paid WSJ employees to smear his name.

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Politics

Cetus offers $6M bounty after $220M hack as Sui faces decentralization debate

Published

2 hours ago

May 23, 2025

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Cetus offers M bounty after 0M hack as Sui faces decentralization debate

Cetus is offering a $6 million white hat bounty in an effort to recover $220 million in stolen digital assets, while emergency responses from the Sui Network have raised concerns about decentralization.

Sui-native decentralized exchange (DEX) Cetus was exploited for over $220 million worth of cryptocurrency on May 22. However, Cetus managed to freeze $162 million of the stolen funds shortly after.

Cetus has since offered a white hat bounty of up to $6 million for the exploiter for returning the stolen 20,920 Ether (ETH), worth over $55 million, along with the rest of the stolen funds currently frozen on the Sui blockchain.

“In exchange, you can keep 2,324 ETH ($6M) as a bounty, and we will consider the matter closed and will not pursue any further legal, intelligence, or public action,” Cetus wrote in a message embedded in a blockchain transaction on May 22.

Cetus offers $6M bounty after $220M hack as Sui faces decentralization debate — *A bounty offer to the hacker. Source: Suivision*

However, Cetus will “escalate with full legal and intelligence resources” if these assets are off-ramped or sent to cryptocurrency mixers and not returned promptly.

A white hat bounty is offered to ethical hackers who seek protocol vulnerabilities to prevent future exploits.

Cryptocurrency hacks soared to $90 million across 15 incidents in April, a 124% increase from March when hackers stole $41 million worth of digital assets.

Meanwhile, the industry is still recovering from the largest crypto hack, which saw Bybit exchange lose over $1.4 billion on Feb. 21, 2025.

SUI considers emergency white list function to override transactions

Meanwhile, GitHub activity shows the Sui team has considered implementing an emergency whitelist function that would allow certain transactions to bypass security checks, potentially to recover funds linked to the hack.

“It appears that the Sui team asked every validator to deploy patched code so they could take away @CetusProtocol hacker’s $160 million via an unsigned tx,” said Chaofan Shou, a software engineer at Solayer Labs.

However, an unnamed Sui engineer told Shou that “validators held off deploying this and currently they are only denying tx that involves hacker’s objects,” he said in a May 22 X post.

The move has sparked criticism among decentralization advocates, who argue that the ability to override transactions contradicts the principles of a decentralized permissionless network.

Despite widespread criticism in the crypto community, some saw the rapid response as a sign of progress, not centralization.

“This is what real world decentralization looks like. Not just powerless, but responsive and aligned with the community,” said pseudonymous crypto sleuth Matteo, adding that decentralization “isn’t about standing by while people get hurt, it’s about the power to act together, without needing permission.”

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Hyperliquid backs 24/7 crypto trading in CFTC comments submission

Published

3 hours ago

May 23, 2025

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Hyperliquid backs 24/7 crypto trading in CFTC comments submission

Hyperliquid, a decentralized perpetuals exchange operating on its own layer-1 blockchain, has submitted formal comments on 24/7 derivatives trading to the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

In a May 23 X post, Hyperliquid Labs announced that it has “submitted two comment letters to the [CFTC] in response to its recent Requests for Comment on perpetual derivatives and 24/7 trading.” The team behind the decentralized exchange (DEX) added:

“We commend the CFTC for its proactive engagement on these topics, understanding of which is fundamental to the evolution of global markets.”

Hyperliquid stated that it is committed to the advancement of the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. The team also claimed that its implementation “exemplifies how core DeFi principles can be put into practice to enhance market efficiency, market integrity, and user protection.”

CFTC’s 24/7 derivatives plans

Hyperliquid’s remarks follow CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger recently saying that crypto perpetual futures contracts could receive regulatory approval in the US “very soon.” Perpetual crypto futures “can come to market now,” she said.

“We’re seeing some applications, and I believe we’ll see some of those products trading live very soon,” Mersinger said. She also added that it would be “great to get that trading back onshore in the United States.”

Perpetual futures contracts are a type of derivative that allows traders to speculate on the price of a crypto asset without owning it, similar to traditional futures, but with no expiration date. Such contracts remain open indefinitely and are kept in line with the spot market price using a funding rate mechanism, where payments are exchanged between long and short positions at regular intervals.

Crypto derivatives are a busy area

The crypto derivatives market has recently been swarming with announcements of product launches, acquisitions and regulatory developments. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently said the exchange will continue to look for merger and acquisition opportunities after acquiring crypto derivatives platform Deribit.

Armstrong’s remarks followed Coinbase’s agreement to acquire Deribit, one of the world’s biggest crypto derivatives trading platforms. Europe is seeing just as much hustle in the crypto derivatives industry as the Americas are.

Major crypto exchange Gemini has also recently received regulatory approval to expand crypto derivatives trading across Europe. Elsewhere, DeFi platform Synthetix will also venture further into crypto derivatives, with plans to re-acquire the crypto options platform Derive.

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