Matt Hancock is not OK. Someone really ought to furlough him

There’s sometimes a fine line between a government reacting nimbly to events and one that appears to be totally at sea. But right now Boris Johnson is working flat out to make it abundantly clear that his government has chosen to firmly come down on the side of complete cluelessness.

On Wednesday at prime minister’s questions, Boris had been clear. It was entirely right for people from overseas working in the NHS and social care sectors to pay a £624 visa surcharge to use the NHS themselves. After all, if they were going to come over here and try to save people’s lives – the prime minister’s included – then they ought to pay for the privilege. It was just common sense. People working on the front line were far more likely to get coronavirus, so they could well end up using NHS resources that should have been available to hardworking Brits who wouldn’t dream of doing such a highly skilled job for so little money. Call it the Corona Cough-Up.

Midway through Thursday, though – after a lot of pushback from all opposition parties and several of his own MPs – Boris had a change of heart. NHS staff and care workers would be exempt from the surcharge. Though, needless to say, all other workers who helped keep the NHS up and running, such as delivery drivers and childminders, would still get fleeced. Because they were all still slackers and freeloaders.

So you might have thought that Boris might want to use the daily Downing Street press conference as a platform to explain his unexpected fit of compassion and largesse. Or even to express his delight that the police had decided that doing financial favours for someone he had been doing IT with was no big deal.

Only, Boris doesn’t do press briefings any more. Or anything much. Can’t be arsed. Why should the prime minister explain anything to anyone during the worst health crisis in 100 years? It was a nice afternoon, he was about to go on a 10-day Whitsun break with Carrie, Dilyn the dog and some baby that had mysteriously appeared in Downing Street, and he could do without the hassle. And it had been a whole two months since he’d taken 10 days off right at the beginning of the pandemic. In any case, he’d already had coronavirus, so he was just fine.

Inevitably, then, it was Matt Hancock who got lumbered with the press conference. Matt gets landed with all the shit jobs right now and he’s resigned to the fact that he’s been set up as the fall guy. Old habits die hard with the health secretary. His natural demeanour as the enthusiastic class nerd, whose exercise books are full of high-school massacre fantasies, is hardwired into his personality. He longs to stand up to the prime minister, but instinctively crumbles. He justifies it as furthering his career, but there’s a tragic sadness to his ambition these days. As if he knows he ran out of road several weeks back, but can’t help himself.

Matt opened by talking about mental health awareness week. “It is OK to not be OK,” he said. These were the only true and heartfelt words he said throughout the hour. Because he was talking to himself as much as anyone following the briefing on TV. Matt is not OK. He hasn’t been OK for a while. He’s become snappier, more short-tempered. He’s aged visibly over the past few months. Lines have appeared on his shiny, prepubescent face. In time, we might see hints of acne. If anyone in the cabinet really cared about his mental health, they’d put Matt on a furlough scheme for several months.

After monotoning his way through a spiel about various tests that he knows no one would take seriously, as the government has failed on just about every promise it has so far made during the crisis, Matt came to the bit he had been dreading: the questions. Inevitably, first up was Johnson’s U-turn on the visa surcharge. Here was his chance to stick up for himself, to say he had never believed in it and it had only ever been some vindictive scheme dreamed up by Boris and Priti Patel to keep Brexiters happy. But Matt didn’t have the self-worth to be anything other than a lapdog. Boris had misunderstood Keir Starmer at PMQs and had imagined he was talking about the surcharge in general and not just for NHS workers.

Matt was now in so deep that the lies began to slip off the tongue with increasing ease. Yes, the government was all over social care, and no person would be asked to sell their home to pay for their care. Which will come as news to my mother, who had to sell hers to pay for her care. But the health secretary’s worst moment came when he was asked about his “test, track and trace app” that only a few weeks ago he was telling the country would be key to easing lockdown restrictions, but has now gone missing in action. It was due to be launched nationwide in mid-May, but now Matt can’t even bring himself to mention it in polite conversation. Selective amnesia.

What app? Oh, that app. Well, when he had said it was vital, what he had really meant was that it was utterly peripheral. In fact, in many ways it was far better that the test and track process begin without the app, as it was far better to have tracking from people who had scarcely been given any training in what they were doing. Everything was going to be fine – just not yet. After a question about restarting football from Robbie Savage – basically, just forget it – Matt slipped away. It had been an ordeal. But no worse than the one Boris probably has lined up for him tomorrow. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.