'Why had so many Covid inquiry witnesses called Matt Hancock a liar?'

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Henry Hill on the inews site
Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian
Gerard Baker in The Times
Liam Denning in The Sydney Morning Herald

published 1 December 2023

Matt Hancock's hopes of restoring his reputation lie in tatters

Henry Hill on the inews site

The former health secretary was not at the Covid inquiry to "bare his soul", writes Henry Hill on the inews site. He was there to "salvage his reputation". But "such figures as Patrick Vallance and Helen MacNamara have accused him of serially misleading people" and "asked why so many previous witnesses had called him a liar, the best Hancock could manage was that nobody had said that to him at the time". His reputation will be "washed away" by the inquiry.

Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian

The Middle East conflict "isn't some ghoulish competition, where any empathy shown to dead Israelis leaves less available for Palestinians", writes Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. After "harrowing stories" of young women forced to watch "as other women were gang raped, mutilated and shot" by Hamas on 7 October, the response on social media has "ranged from casual whataboutery to a gruesome variant of the 'pics or it didn't happen' school of online scepticism".

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Gerard Baker in The Times

It's "obviously true" that with Henry Kissinger the "moral ledger has plenty of entries on the debit side", writes Gerard Baker, but a "fair accounting of his legacy" would "surely acknowledge that he did more than almost anyone in the second half of the 20th century to avert global war and advance the cause of human freedom". Now "we should worry" whether the US can produce more people of such "talent".

Elon Musk's new Cybertruck electric pick-up is for "people with money to spend and who like having the cool new thing", preferably in "the most visible way possible", writes Liam Denning in The Sydney Morning Herald. In terms of "revenue and profits", the Cybertruck "looks like a non-event on the former and likely a drag on the latter". But it is "reminding people that Tesla still sets the agenda for EVs, in the US anyway".

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