I’m a Celebrity: do the public like Matt Hancock after all?

Matt Hancock’s arrival on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! was met with anger and derision, but as the jungle contestants have been whittled down to just five the tide of public opinion could now be turning.

A readers’ poll this week by The Sun has the former health secretary as favourite to win the reality TV show, with 25% of readers supporting him. “I’m a Celeb fans in dramatic U-turn – saying they now want Hancock to win,” the paper said.

“And there it is,” said Caitlin Moran in a column for The Times, “even if Hancock doesn’t eventually end up as King of the Jungle, his seemingly suicidal mission has ended in triumph.”

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

‘His mistakes cost the lives of thousands’

Not everyone shares Sun readers’ enthusiasm for the scandal-hit former minister, however. Hancock was accused of “dancing on the grave of so many people” as he has progressed through the show, the Mirror said.

“Distraught relatives” told the paper that “seeing the Tory MP brazenly laughing and joking on the ITV show has been devastating”.

Tiffany Jones, whose father Colin died in hospital in Portsmouth just before Christmas in 2020, said: “I can’t watch it. I normally watch it every year, but I can’t with him in it. I can’t understand why he’s there, his mistakes cost the lives of thousands of people across the country.”

Former contestant Chris Moyles also expressed bewilderment at Hancock’s ongoing success in the show, saying it’s “blowing his mind”.

After he was voted out last night, Moyles “confessed his despair” that so many members of the public voted to save Hancock from being ejected from the show. The result has given rise to “speculation that the politician could end up reaching the final”, Metro said.

‘Better at showbiz than politics’

Speaking on BBC’s Question Time about Hancock’s time in the jungle, Greater Manchester’s mayor Andy Burnham said: “He’s clearly better at showbiz than he is at politics… better at Bushtucker trials than clinical trials, for sure.”

Burnham added “He’s not, in my view, a bad person, but… (there) are things that he should be here answering for, not in the jungle trying to curry favour with other celebrities and the British public.”

One of those is the question of whether he breached the government’s business appointment rules by not consulting the relevant watchdog before appearing on the TV show.

In a letter to Oliver Dowden, the most senior minister in the Cabinet Office, Eric Pickles wrote: “I am writing to you in my capacity as chair of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments [Acoba] to bring to your attention a breach of the government’s business appointment rules.

“Mr Hancock did not seek Acoba’s advice before signing up to two television series, ITV’s I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! and Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins.”

But Pickles didn’t recommend any further steps, finishing: “It is a matter for you to decide what appropriate action to take.”

Laying out Hancock’s potential path to victory, Politico’s Emilio Casalicchio said that “if Hancock can get through tonight’s episode, he’ll be in the final four ahead of the program finale at the weekend.”

Regardless of whether he makes it that far, Hancock has already got what he came for, said Moran in The Times: “The member of parliament for West Suffolk seems to have got some of the ‘forgiveness’ he was willing to eat anus to achieve.”