Matt Hancock accused of breaking rules in icy Hyde Park swim
Matt Hancock has come under fire for another alleged failure to follow the rules after taking a dip in Hyde Park’s Serpentine lake without membership.
The disgraced former health secretary famously landed in hot water after being snapped in a steamy clinch with aide Gina Coladangelo, breaching social distancing guidance – which cost him his Cabinet career.
Six months after retreating to the backbenches, he has cut no ice with Serps Swimming Club which poured cold water on his apparent bid to show off his breast stroke.
In a chilling statement, the club tweeted: ‘Serpentine swimming is strictly for members only, and no guests permitted.’
The 43-year-old insists he was ‘invited in for an impromptu swim by enthusiastic club members’ according to The Times.
But the club’s tweet prompted ridicule as people suggested it must have been a ‘work event’ and ‘nobody told him the rules’ in a dig at Prime Minister Boris Johnson over the ‘partygate’ scandal which has left the nation seething.
Others joked civil servant Sue Gray – who will quiz Dominic Cummings as part of her inquiry into alleged Downing Street parties – should investigate Mr Hancock over the swim.
Pictures showed the MP for West Suffolk stripped down to his shorts and baring his chest as he plunged into the lake.
Dad-of-three Mr Hancock has only just emerged from isolation after testing positive for Covid for a second time last week.
It comes as Mr Johnson ‘categorically’ insisted no one had told him a gathering at Downing Street in May 2020 was against the rules.
Mr Johnson survived a scathing PMQs today when former Tory cabinet minister told him ‘In the name of God, go’.
Minutes before the PM stood up in the Commons, Bury South MP Christian Wakeford, elected in the 2019 vote, defected to the Labour party.
During the raucous session, a grinning Sir Keir Starmer made a BYOB joke, as the Labour leader told the PM: ‘Last week he said he didn’t realise he was at a party and surprise, surprise no-one believed him.
‘So this week he has got a different defence – nobody warned him that it was against the rules.’
He added: ‘Why on earth does he think his new defence is going to work?’
But the Conservative leader remained defiant – refusing to resign and insisting his party ‘win again in Bury South…under this prime minister’.
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