I was ridiculed in Whitehall for my faith in Covid jab

BELIEVING in the vaccine saw Matt Hancock ridiculed in Westminster, his diaries reveal.

He says in the months before the first Covid jabs were approved he faced opposition from ‘sceptics’, including in No 10. But on December 1 the UK became the first country in the Western world to authorise Pfizer and BioNTech shots.

Hancock describes the scenes of ‘elation’ as he announced the news in the Cabinet room – recalling that Boris Johnson ‘danced a jig’ – and his embarrassment as he ‘blubbed’ on television when the first Briton was inoculated on ‘V-day’. Gina Coladangelo, his adviser who later became his lover, said: ‘At least you showed how you felt.’

He also reveals that he feared the rollout would have to be cancelled because three early recipients had serious reactions.

In the diaries, Mr Hancock tells of his focus on the vaccine as the route out of the pandemic, mentioning jabs more than once a page and his desire to have it as quickly as possible. He refers to ‘a briefing against me from No 10’ in a newspaper article which quoted a Whitehall source saying the vaccine was ‘a running joke’.