Matt Hancock resigns as Health Secretary after kissing aide scandal

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Matt Hancock has resigned as Health Secretary the day after video footage emerged of him kissing an aide in his ministerial office in a breach of coronavirus restrictions.

He wrote a letter of resignation to Boris Johnson where he said the Government ‘owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down’.

Images and video showed Mr Hancock in an embrace with aide Gina Coladangelo last month, and the Health Secretary was facing increasing pressure to quit over the breaking of social-distancing rules. 

Mr Hancock added: ‘The last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis.

‘I want to reiterate my apology for breaking the guidance, and apologise to my family and loved ones for putting them through this. I also need (to) be with my children at this time.’

The Prime Minister said he was ‘sorry’ to receive Mr Hancock’s resignation as Health Secretary.

He said Mr Hancock ‘should leave office very proud of what you have achieved – not just in tackling the pandemic, but even before Covid-19 struck us’.

Boris Johnson added: ‘I am grateful for your support and believe that your contribution to public service is far from over.’

Ms Coladangelo is also reportedly leaving her position on the board of the Department of Health. 

Mr Johnson had refused to sack Mr Hancock, with his spokesman saying the PM considered the matter closed after receiving the West Suffolk MP’s apology on Friday.

But on Saturday Conservative MPs began to break ranks to call for Mr Hancock to go.

The 42-year-old’s resignation comes after he was accused of having an affair with lobbyist Gina Coladangelo, wife of Oliver Bonas founder, triggering a series of calls for him to step down, namely from:

• Duncan Baker, who became the first Conservative MP to go against the Prime Minister who backed Mr Hancock
• Mr Baker, MP for North Norfolk, said the Health Secretary ‘has fallen short’ of ‘appropriate morals and ethics’ 
• Former Work and Pensions Secretary and MP for Tatton Esther McVey urged Hancock to step down too 
• An unnamed supporter was due to be interviewed on BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme at around 7.20am 
• But they failed to turn up, with presenters forced to explain that he’s ‘not been answering his phone’ 

In response to his resignation, the Prime Minister wrote: ‘You should leave office very proud of what you have achieved – not just in tackling the pandemic, but even before Covid-19 struck us.’ 

Mr Hancock also said in a video posted to Twitter: ‘I’ve been to see the Prime Minister to resign as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. I understand the enormous sacrifices that everybody in this country has made – that you have made. And those of us who make these rules have got to stick by them and that’s why I’ve got to resign.

‘I want to thank people for their incredible sacrifices and what they’ve done. Everybody working in the NHS, across social care. Everyone involved in the vaccine programme. And frankly everybody in this country who has risen to the challenges that we’ve seen over this past 18 months.

‘I’m very proud of what we’ve done to protect the NHS and the peak, to deliver that vaccine rollout – one of the fastest in the world – and I look forward to supporting the government and the Prime Minister from the backbenches to make sure that we can get out of this pandemic.

‘We’re so close to the end – and then build back better so that this country can fulfil its potential – which is so great – and I will do that with all of my heart.’

Tory MP Mr Baker, who was elected in 2019, told his local newspaper the Eastern Daily Press: ‘In my view people in high public office and great positions of responsibility should act with the appropriate morals and ethics that come with that role.

‘Matt Hancock, on a number of measures, has fallen short of that. As an MP who is a devoted family man, married for 12 years with a wonderful wife and children, standards and integrity matter to me.

‘I will not in any shape condone this behaviour and I have in the strongest possible terms told the Government what I think.’

Labour chair Anneliese Dodds tweeted: ‘A Health Secretary who behaved like rules didn’t apply to him. 

‘A Prime Minister who didn’t have the guts to remove him. A government riddled with sleaze. Now Matt has gone, the Prime Minister must clean up this crony government.’ 

Esther McVey had earlier told GB News on the issue: ‘If it had been me, I would have resigned myself.

‘I am hoping Matt Hancock is thinking the same thing, that he doesn’t have to have to have it pushed upon him.

‘It will be viewed far more favourably if he comes forward and says: ‘reassessing it’, and that’s what I’d like to see.’

Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope told Radio 4’s PM programme that his local party association ‘felt that he was in breach of the ministerial code; that he was in breach of the lockdown regulations; that he is the person who has been passing the laws, signing off the regulations, requiring people to comply with restrictions upon their freedom – many of which people don’t agree with – but they’ve complied with out of respect for the rule of law. 

‘And they’re absolutely seething now, that having made sacrifices themselves, including not seeing loved ones and all the rest of it, they find that the person who was in charge of all this feels free to not comply with his own regulations and I think that’s the essence of it really.’

He added: ‘I agree with that. I think that his position is untenable. For that reason, the sooner he does the honourable thing and announces his resignation, the better – because otherwise it is not going to go away.

‘This is going to run and run, and it will impact adversely upon all of those of us who are involved in public life who are trying to set an example.’ 

Mr Hancock had put Mrs Coladangelo, a friend from university, on the public payroll only last year. He made no comment on claims he was having an affair with the 43-year-old in his apology yesterday, but added: ‘I have let people down and am very sorry.’

Astonishingly, however, he refused to resign and, after crisis talks in No 10, the Prime Minister personally backed him to stay on and said he ‘considered the matter closed’. 

Last night, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick backed the PM’s stance, adding that the public should allow Hancock to ‘get on with the job’.

He told BBC Radio’s 4 Any Questions: ‘There’s a task to be done, Matt is on the job doing that, and I think we should allow him to get on with the job.’

He added: ‘The rules have been hard. It is everybody’s duty to follow the rules, but equally I’ve not been somebody who has criticised and condemned people when they’ve made mistakes.’

The decision not to fire Mr Hancock prompted fury last night across the political spectrum, among members of the public and even from business leaders enraged by the Health Secretary’s hypocrisy. 

Tory whips were bombarded with complaints from their MPs. 

Support for the 42-year-old was ebbing even in Downing Street, with one senior figure saying his conduct was ‘gross’ and describing the apology he offered yesterday as ‘pathetic’.

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said: ‘It will all be down to public opinion – it’s the only thing No 10 cares about. They’re polling, focus-grouping all the time and if that starts showing the public want him out then he could be gone by Monday.’ 

Another Conservative MP said: ‘It’s getting like Animal Farm: all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.’ 

Sayeeda Warsi, a former Conservative Party chairman, attacked the failure to sack Mr Hancock, saying: ‘It’s a bad decision by Matt and a bad decision by the PM.

‘He’s got a huge amount of questions to answer in relation to Covid contracts, access to parliament, giving out jobs. Is there anything anybody could do any more which would make them resign?’ 

Hannah Brady, of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: ‘Hancock has treated bereaved families with contempt. He’s got to go.’ In a letter to Mr Johnson the campaign group said that Mr Hancock’s continuing presence in the Cabinet was ‘an embarrassment to the Government’.

Labour also called for the Health Secretary to go and branded the Prime Minister ‘spineless’ for failing to sack him.

Party chairman Anneliese Dodds said: ‘The charge sheet against Matt Hancock includes wasting taxpayers’ money, leaving care homes exposed and now being accused of breaking his own Covid rules. His position is hopelessly untenable. Boris Johnson should sack him.’ 

It comes as newly emerged footage appears to show Mr Hancock checking the corridor is clear before closing the door, leaning on it to stop it opening before the pair launch into their passionate embrace.

And speaking to MailOnline tonight, the aide’s millionaire businessman father Rino Coladangelo, 70, refused to comment other than to say: ‘My daughter is a wonderful woman.’

There was no on-camera apology to the public from the Health Secretary yesterday despite questions over whether he had lost his focus on the pandemic.

When Neil Ferguson, a key government adviser, resigned for breaching lockdown rules last year, Mr Hancock said he was right to go and the police should investigate.

Last September Mr Hancock told people not to start romantic relationships because of the risk it could spread Covid.

And on May 16, ten days after his clinch with Mrs Coladangelo, he said people should be ‘careful’ about the new freedom to hug – and suggested they should do so only outside with people who had been fully vaccinated. Liberal Democrat health spokesman Munira Wilson said: ‘Matt Hancock is a terrible Health Secretary and should have been sacked a long time ago for his failures.

‘This latest episode of hypocrisy will break the trust with the British public. He was telling families not to hug loved ones, while doing whatever he liked in the workplace.

‘Rules for them and rules for us is no way to run a country.’

Mystery surrounds the recruitment of Mrs Coladangelo, who met Mr Hancock while volunteering at the student radio station at Oxford University in the 1990s. She worked on Mr Hancock’s failed Tory leadership campaign in 2019 and was secretly taken on as an unpaid adviser at the Department of Health last year before being made a non-executive director on a £15,000 contract.

A Tory source said the pair had become inseparable, adding: ‘They always appeared to be incredibly close. Her status was always slightly mysterious but she went everywhere with him. She was in every meeting.’

The Health Secretary was grilled about his conduct by senior figures from the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team before Mr Johnson decided he would stand by him. The Prime Minister, who was sacked by Michael Howard for lying about an extramarital affair, is said to have been reluctant to hand the media a scalp.

Downing Street refused to comment yesterday on whether Mr Hancock had offered his resignation at any point.

The episode echoes the infamous lockdown-busting trip to Durham made by Mr Cummings last year.

Paul Charles, founder of The PC Agency, a travel consultancy, said: ‘Most people in the country will be asking themselves why they should listen to advice on travel and social distancing when the Health Secretary isn’t even following the rules. The sector has been so badly hit, it’s even more galling now to see ministers in such positions.

‘Most people will be questioning whether Matt Hancock has any position of authority.’

In its letter to the Prime Minister, Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said: ‘If Matt Hancock is unable to find the decency to do the right thing and resign his position it is paramount that you relieve him from it.’

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of anti-lockdown protesters marched through central London on Saturday demanding the ‘arrest’ of Matt Hancock after he was caught breaching Covid rules by kissing his married aide while preaching the restrictions to the rest of the UK.

Anti-lockdown protesters were seen marching along through central London before descending on Downing Street on Saturday as they called for ‘freedom’ and the end to all Covid lockdown regulations after Freedom Day was delayed from June 21. 

As well as demanding the end to lockdown, protesters brandished placards that demanded police ‘arrest Matt Hancock’ after he was caught breaching Covid safety regulations by kissing his married aide – despite asking the rest of the country to follow the strict restrictions. 

As Downing Street made its first comments it confirmed suspicions that Boris Johnson would not sack his Health Secretary given his own chequered love life, especially after his own alleged four-year affair with American pole-dancing businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri, who he employed as an advisor while Mayor of London. 

Mr Hancock’s kiss with Mrs Coladangelo, a mother-of-three whose husband Oliver Tress is the founder of clothing shop Oliver Bonas, is alleged to have taken place in the Department for Health’s headquarters in central London at around 3pm on May 6 this year – the day of the UK local elections and a week after his first coronavirus jab.  

Mr Hancock is said to have checked the corridor is clear before closing the door, leaning on it to stop it opening before launching into their passionate embrace. The Sun claims they have been having an affair that has been the talk of the department – but it is not known if they remain in a relationship that was a secret until yesterday.  

He married Martha, 44, in 2006 and the couple have three children together. Mrs Hancock looked sad and upset as she left the couple’s home but didn’t speak to reporters about her husband’s alleged infidelity.  Her husband was nowhere to be seen, however, she was still wearing her wedding ring.    

The shutters were closed at the £4.5million South London home Mrs Coladangelo shares with Oliver Tress and their three children yesterday. They are also believed to have a country home near the West Sussex coast. She has been working as an advisor for Mr Hancock since last year, with one source saying: ‘Before Matt does anything big, he’ll speak to Gina’.

But they first met at Oxford University 25 years ago at their college’s radio station and Mrs Coladangelo is friends with Matt Hancock’s wife on Facebook and they have spent time together socially.  

Earlier on Friday, Downing Street said the Prime Minister has accepted Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s apology for breaching social distancing guidelines and ‘considers the matter closed’.

‘You’ve seen the Health Secretary’s statement, so I would point you to that,’ a spokesman for the Prime Minister said after being asked by reporters why Mr Hancock remained in post.

‘I don’t really have anything further to add.

‘The Health Secretary set out that he accepted he had breached the social distancing guidelines and he has apologised for that.

‘The Prime Minister has accepted the Health Secretary’s apology and considers the matter closed.’

Asked whether Boris Johnson had ‘full confidence’ in Mr Hancock, the spokesman replied: ‘Yes.’

Downing Street repeatedly refused to comment on whether Health Secretary Matt Hancock had broken the law after he was pictured kissing a close aide in his Whitehall department.

A Downing Street spokesman told a Westminster briefing: ‘I would point you to his statement. He says ‘I accept I breached the social distancing guidance in these circumstances’.

‘He sets out that he apologises for that and as I say, the Prime Minister has accepted that apology.’

Responding to the PM’s spox claiming the Matt Hancock affair is ‘closed’, a Labour Party spokeswoman said: ‘This matter is definitely not closed, despite the Government’s attempts to cover it up.

‘Matt Hancock appears to have been caught breaking the laws he created while having a secret relationship with an aide he appointed to a taxpayer-funded job. The Prime Minister recently described him as ‘useless’ – the fact that even now he still can’t sack him shows how spineless he is’.

England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty has declined to comment on Matt Hancock’s actions.

Asked outside the Department of Health, in central London, on Friday afternoon if he had anything to say about the Health Secretary’s apology, Prof Whitty replied: ‘Nothing.’

Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has said there are ‘legitimate public interest questions to be answered’ after images were published appearing to show Health Secretary Matt Hancock in an embrace with his aide.

When asked about the matter during a press conference, Mr Drakeford said: ‘I think there is a legitimate distinction to be drawn between what people do in their private lives and what they do in their public lives.

‘I’m not trying to make points about what people do as entirely private matters, but in the case of Mr Hancock it does seem to me that there are some issues that are of genuine public interest.

‘I do think there are questions that need to be answered about whether those rules were broken, the social distancing rules.

‘Mr Hancock himself was very quick to condemn a senior academic from Imperial College when he was found breaching those rules, so I think there are questions, legitimate public interest questions, to answer there.

‘I think there are legitimate public interest questions to be answered about how individuals are appointed if they turn out to be in a different sort of relationship with the minister who was responsible for their appointment.

‘Certainly here in Wales, I always expect the whole of our ministerial team to observe the rules that we expect other people to observe.

‘You can’t make laws for other people and then not be willing to abide by them yourself.’

Mr Hancock was meant to be at Newmarket Racecourse to visit the vaccination centre but a spokesman revealed he cancelled at the last minute ‘early this morning’. 

A Department of Health probe into how the footage from outside Mr Hancock’s office was leaked is expected, with the whistleblower described as a former civil servant who was angry about his ‘brazen’ affair, adding: ‘They have tried to keep it a secret but everyone knows what goes on inside a building like that’.  

The kiss was also 11 days before the Government relaxed safety rules including giving permission for the public to hug at a time where Mr Hancock told people: ‘Always stay two metres away from people you don’t live with’ and using the mantra: ‘Hands, face and space’.

Labour Party chair, Anneliese Dodds, commenting on revelations about Matt Hancock, said: ‘If Matt Hancock has been secretly having a relationship with an adviser in his office – who he personally appointed to a taxpayer-funded role – it is a blatant abuse of power and a clear conflict of interest.

‘The charge sheet against Matt Hancock includes wasting taxpayers’ money, leaving care homes exposed and now being accused of breaking his own Covid rules.

‘His position is hopelessly untenable. Boris Johnson should sack him.’ 

Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Health and Social Care Munira Wilson MP said: ‘Matt Hancock is a terrible Health Secretary and should have been sacked a long time ago for his failures.

‘This latest episode of hypocrisy will break the trust with the British public. He was telling families not to hug loved ones, while doing whatever he liked in the workplace.

‘It’s clear that he does not share the public’s values. Rules for them and rules for us is no way to run a country.

‘From the PPE scandal, the crisis in our care service and the unbelievably poor test and trace system, he has utterly failed. It is time for the Health Secretary to go.’

A Whitehall whistleblower who leaked the footage and reportedly no longer works for the department, told The Sun it was ‘shocking that Mr Hancock was having an affair in the middle of a pandemic with an adviser and friend he used public money to hire’.

The alleged affair piles even more pressure on Mr Hancock, who was already reportedly battling for his job over his handling of the pandemic Dominic Cummings released WhatsApp messages from the PM that showed Mr Johnson branded him ‘f***ing useless’.

Aside from the serious allegations of an affair, there will also be questions to answer about kissing someone outside his bubble during the pandemic and whether this breaches any of the Covid rules he has helped create. 

Mr Hancock, who is yet to comment, cancelled an event in his West Suffolk constituency yesterday morning where he would have faced questions over the affair and whether he can keep his job. He also deleted an Instagram post from last night where he said he ‘works with some brilliant women’.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said it was an ‘entirely personal’ matter for his cabinet colleague.  He told LBC radio: ‘I have seen the photo but, as ever with private matters, I always try to avoid commenting on other people’s personal lives and I think I’ll stick with that tradition here.’

Asked whether the Health Secretary should have been ‘ignoring social distancing’, Mr Shapps replied: ‘I’m quite sure that whatever the rules were at the time were followed. You’ll recall that there was a point at which social distancing rules were changed but, as I say, I don’t want to comment on somebody else’s private life – that is for them.’

The Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said he would not be commenting on an ‘entirely personal’ matter after pictures were published allegedly depicting his married Cabinet colleague Matt Hancock in an embrace with his closest aide.

Mr Shapps told Sky News that former lobbyist Gina Coladangelo – who the Health Secretary met at university – would have gone through an ‘incredibly rigorous’ process to get the job.

Asked about the rules around appointing friends to Government positions, Mr Shapps said: ‘First of all, I think the actual issue is entirely personal for Matt Hancock. 

‘In terms of rules, anyone who has been appointed has to go through an incredibly rigorous process in Government, so whatever the rules are, the rules will have to be followed.

‘There are no short cuts to that, as anyone who has had anything to do with the appointments system in the Civil Service knows.

‘There are very strict rules in place.’

Labour said the Government needs to answer whether the Health Secretary had broken any rules or there had been ‘conflicts of interest’ in the appointment of his closest adviser. 

It follows reports that Matt Hancock has been having a relationship with a senior aide whom he first met when they were at Oxford University.

An Opposition party spokesman said: ‘Ministers, like everyone, are entitled to a private life.

‘However, when taxpayers’ money is involved or jobs are being offered to close friends who are in a personal relationship with a minister, then that needs to be looked into.

‘The Government needs to be open and transparent about whether there are any conflicts of interests or rules that have been broken’.

Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said he has ‘every confidence’ in the Health Secretary.

Speaking after a vaccine summit in London, Mr Zahawi told reporters: ‘I have every confidence in Matt Hancock.’

Asked if he was disappointed in Mr Hancock’s behaviour, he said: ‘I’ve said everything I’m going to say on it. He’s apologised. He’s focusing on making sure that we get this (vaccine) sprint, this big sprint up to the 19th of July.’

Asked if it makes it harder for the public to follow the rules: ‘The Secretary of State has apologised and has said everything he needs to say and the Prime Minister has full confidence in his Secretary of State and considers the matter closed.’

But Tim Montgomerie, a former Tory spad and ex-editor of the Conservative Home website, told Channel 4 News that Mr Hancock ‘definitely should resign’.

He also tweeted earlier: ‘For goodness’ sake will any Conservative minister resign after they’ve done the wrong thing? Ever? Will anyone set an example?’

It comes after photographs appearing to show Mr Hancock kissing Mrs Coladangelo were published in the paper.

In the pictures, which appear to be from CCTV footage, Mr Hancock also appears to have his hand on the woman’s backside.

Meanwhile, a source told the Sun that it was ‘shocking that Mr Hancock was having an affair in the middle of a pandemic’.

According to paper, the incident took place around 3pm on May 6, on the day of the local elections. 

But the whistleblower told the Sun that they have been caught having ‘regular clinches together’.

The source told the paper: ‘It has also shocked people because he put her in such an important, publicly-funded role and this is what they get up to in office hours when everyone else is working hard.’

Mrs Coladangelo, who is a director and shareholder at lobbying firm Luther Pendragon, was appointed to the Department of Health as an unpaid adviser in March last year.

Mrs Coladangelo was appointed as a non-executive director at the department in September, meaning she is a member of the board.

She can claim up to £15,000 in taxpayers’ money in the role, though there is no public record of her appointment.

Mrs Coladangelo has had a parliamentary pass, which gives her access to Westminster, since April. Some claimed she started work in March 2020, but her LinkedIn says it was in September last year.

Mr Hancock was due to visit a vaccination centre yesterday in his constituency but pulled out at the last minute because of the sleaze scandal engulfing him.

He cancelled plans to visit the Pharmacy2U centre at Newmarket Racecourse in Suffolk after a photograph emerged of the married politician kissing and embracing aide Gina Coladangelo.

A photographer employed by Pharmacy2U turned up to the racecourse yesterday morning to take photos of the event but said he had been informed that Hancock would not be turning up.

And asked if his no-show was a disappointment, one vaccination worker said: ‘Nope, it’s not the first time he has cancelled on us.’

However, when pressed a manger for Pharmacy2U refused to comment but denied that the Health Secretary had pulled out on previous visits.

The reports of the alleged affair come just weeks after Hancock was pictured enjoying lunch out with wife Martha – the granddaughter of Frederick Millar, 1st Baron Inchyra – in London.

The pair were seen waiting for a taxi after eating at Exmouth market in the capital. 

They were last seen together in public at the England vs Scotland Euro 2020 match at Wembley a week ago. 

Earlier this year, the father-of-three, who has two son and a daughter, was seen playing rugby in the park with his boys. 

Matt Hancock met Gina when they worked on the Oxford University student radio station together in the 1990s.

Hancock was a minority sports reporter on Oxygen FM while studying for a philosophy, politics and economics degree.

Gina who was on the same course and also worked at the radio station where they became close friends. 

They would have studied together, volunteered together on the radio station and socialised together while at Exeter College, Oxford.

She was described as Hancock’s ‘closest friend’ from university when he appointed her as an unpaid adviser last year.

Hancock has spoken fondly of his days working alongside Coladangelo on the now defunct radio station. 

As newly appointed Minister for Digital and Culture in 2016 he said: ‘I think I somehow knew, when as a student I worked as minority sports correspondent for Oxygen 107.9 FM, that one day I’d become Minister for radio.’

The Sky Sports presenter David Garrido worked at the student radio station at about the same time as the couple.

The affair claims come just a day after the Queen expressed her sympathy for the under fire Health Secretary, referring to  him as ‘poor man’. 

The Monarch, 96, made the comment as she welcomed Boris Johnson back to Buckingham Palace for her first in-person weekly audience with the Prime Minister since March last year. 

The monarch told Mr Johnson it was ‘very nice to see you again’ and the premier replied: ‘Lovely to see you again. It has been 15 months…’

The Queen then said: ‘Has it really? It is most extraordinary, isn’t it? I have just been talking to your Secretary of State for Health, poor man, he came to the privy council. He is full of…’

Mr Johnson interrupted and suggested ‘full of beans’ as the Queen then continued: ‘He thinks that things are getting better.’

Mr Johnson replied: ‘Well, they are…’

The expression of sympathy from the monarch comes after Mr Hancock found himself at the centre of a political firestorm after Dominic Cummings published text messages from the PM in which Mr Johnson referred to the Cabinet minister as ‘totally f****** hopeless’.  

The Health Secretary dismissed the significance of the bombshell messages from Mr Johnson.

Mr Hancock said the communications, sent during the height of the coronavirus crisis last year, represented ‘ancient history’.

He said that ‘at times of stress people say all sorts of things in private’ but ‘what matters most is how well you work together’.

The Cabinet Minister also said he is not embarrassed by Mr Johnson’s apparent assessment of his performance.

Mr Cummings, the PM’s former chief aide, stepped up his war with Number 10 last week when he published a number of messages sent to him by Mr Johnson.

In one exchange from March 27 last year, Mr Cummings criticised the Health Secretary over the failure to ramp up testing, with Mr Johnson replying: ‘Totally f****** hopeless.’

Another from the same day saw Mr Cummings complain that the Department of Health had been turning down ventilators because ‘the price has been marked up’. Mr Johnson said: ‘It’s Hancock. He has been hopeless.’ 

On April 27, Mr Johnson apparently messaged Mr Cummings to say that PPE procurement was a ‘disaster’, suggesting that responsibility should be taken away from the Health Secretary.

‘I can’t think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on,’ the PM said.

Mr Hancock was asked last week, during an interview with the BBC Breakfast programme, how he felt about the PM describing him as ‘hopeless’.

He said: ‘Honestly? It feels like ancient history, right? The vaccine programme is a huge success.

‘At times of stress people say all sorts of things in private. What matters is how well you work together.

‘You are referring to comments apparently from the Prime Minister. I work with the Prime Minister every single day. 

‘We work very strongly together, firstly to protect life and secondly to get the country out of this. That is what matters.’

Told that it must be embarrassing for him to know Mr Johnson had said such things, Mr Hancock replied: ‘No, it isn’t really because of all the things we have delivered together.’

‘We are here talking about the success of the vaccine programme, right? That is something that I very much led from the department, working with the Prime Minister. 

‘He has been a massive supporter of it throughout. Of course we have had obstacles and we have had people that we have had to deal with on the way.

‘But what I can tell you is that the delivery of that programme has been absolutely fantastic.’

Mr Johnson said last week that he has ‘complete confidence’ in Mr Hancock and ‘all of the Government who have been dealing with Covid-19 during the pandemic’.

Meanwhile, last night, Mr Hancock, prior to the publication of the Sun exclusive, posted an Instagram story appealing for more women to ‘get involved in politics’.

In the post, Mr Hancock says he works ‘alongside some brilliant women’.

The post adds: ‘If you’re a woman who wants to get involved in politics swipe up.’

Swiping up takes a person to a link to the Conservative Party page, calling for ‘more Conservative women at every level of the Party and Government’.

Oxford-educated Hancock first became involved in politics working as a Tory campaigner in Guildford, before becoming an economic advisor to then shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.

He was elected as an MP for West Suffolk in 2010 and has held several ministerial jobs, including his most recent and high profile role as Health Secretary, a position he was given in 2018 under then Prime Minister Theresa May.

Matt Hancock’s farmhouse in sleepy Suffolk was closed up yesterday as the Health Secretary became mired in a sleaze scandal.

There was no answer this afternoon at the property in the West Suffolk village, where locals hit out at the hypocrisy of married Hancock being caught in a steamy clinch with aide Gina Coladangelo. 

One woman said: ‘He was quick to criticise Professor Neil Ferguson when it emerged that he had been seeing a mistress during lockdown.

‘More than anything, though, I feel sorry for his wife.

‘This is going to lose him a lot of trust and it couldn’t have come at a worse time – so soon after details emerged of him being branded ‘hopeless’ by Boris Johnson.

‘I really think his job is now very much under threat.’

Another villager added: ‘He has acted hypocritically, there is no social distancing going on in that photo of him with his aide and he’s been quick to warn everyone else to keep apart.

‘Everyone can get themselves in a pickle at one time or other but I can’t believe someone as high-profile as Matt Hancock wasn’t aware that he could be found out.

‘He’s been very much in the limelight over the last year and a half and so how was he expecting this not to come out at some stage?

‘I’ve seen very little with him in the village. He’s mainly in London and his children don’t go to school in the area.

Matt Hancock’s glamorous mother-of-three ‘lover’ Gina Coladangelo, 43, is married to the millionaire behind Oliver Bonas and boasts a string of celebrity friends

The woman Matt Hancock has been allegedly having an affair with is married to the millionaire founder of fashion firm Oliver Bonas and has worked as its communications director for the past seven years. 

Gina Coladangelo, 43, knows the Health Secretary from Oxford University, where they both worked on the student radio station and studied politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) – and where he also met his wife Martha, 44. 

Mrs Coladangelo remains Facebook friends with Mr Hancock’s osteopath wife – with whom the Conservative politician has two sons and a daughter – after they both graduated from the university at around the same time. 

And they all reside in London, with Mrs Coladangelo living with her multi-millionaire fashion tycoon husband Oliver Tress and their three children in Wandsworth, while the Hancocks live in Queen’s Park with their children.    

Mr Hancock, 42, hired Mrs Coladangelo as a non-executive director at the Department of Health and Social Care last September, and the CCTV images of them kissing in the departmental building were allegedly taken on May 6.

The mother of three is a major shareholder – as well as director – of the lobbying firm Luther Pendragon, where she worked from October 2002 to June 2014. She studied PPE at Oxford between 1995 and 1998, like Mr Hancock.  

Mr Hancock met Mrs Coladangelo when they worked on Oxford student radio together in the 1990s. Mr Hancock was a minority sports reporter on Oxygen FM and they would have socialised together at Exeter College, Oxford.

She was described as Mr Hancock’s ‘closest friend’ from university when he appointed her as an unpaid adviser last year. Mr Hancock has spoken fondly of his days working alongside her on the now-defunct radio station.

As newly appointed Minister for Digital and Culture in 2016, he said: ‘I think I somehow knew, when as a student I worked as minority sports correspondent for Oxygen 107.9 FM, that one day I’d become Minister for radio.’ 

But Mrs Coladangelo went on to marry Mr Tress, 53, who is founder of fashion chain Oliver Bonas, named after his ex-girlfriend Anna who is cousin of Prince Harry’s former partner Cressida Bonas.

It is not known exactly when Mrs Coladangelo and Mr Tress wed, although they were listed on the electoral roll together with her maiden name as recently as 2008, and then her married name of Gina Tress by 2011.

Mr Tress founded Oliver Bonas in London in 1993 with handbags and jewellery he had brought from Hong Kong where his parents lived, and his wife began working there in June 2014 after 11 years at Luther Pendragon. 

They live together in a five-bedroom detached property believed to be worth around £4million in Wandsworth, South West London, on a quiet tree-lined street with residents-only parking bays that is popular with families.

Many of the cars parked in the street – which is a 20-minute drive away from Central London – are top-of-the range BMW 4x4s and Volvos. Neighbours of Mrs Coladangelo remained tight lipped and refused to comment.

But one visiting workman who left a neighbouring home was unimpressed by Mr Hancock. He said: ‘The guy had been caught bang to rights on film. He will have to do some smart talking to get out of that one with the wife.’

Mrs Coladangelo has been spotted leaving Downing Street with the Health Secretary on a number of occasions.  A source told the Sunday Times last year: ‘Before Matt does anything big, he’ll speak to Gina. She knows everything.’

But her new role was not made public despite her getting access to £15,000 from the taxpayer.

She was an unpaid adviser for Mr Hancock but claims of ‘chumocracy’ emerged in November when it was revealed she was attending confidential meetings.

Mrs Coladangelo was made a non-executive director at the Department for Health in September. She shows off the role on her LinkedIn page and has to ‘oversee and monitor performance’.

She says: ‘I have over twenty years’ experience in business management and marketing and communications, with a focus on retail, healthcare, the third sector and energy.

‘Marketing expertise across media relations, consumer campaigns, social media, digital strategy, strategic collaborations, internal communications, issues management and public affairs.’

But her new role was not made public despite her getting access to £15,000 from the taxpayer. 

While working as Head of Marketing at Oliver Bonas, Mrs Coladangelo contributed to a post on International Women’s Day.

She wrote: ‘You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. Decide what you want and don’t want – and stick to it. It is up to you to live a life you love.’

Mrs Coladangelo has access to the Houses of Parliament due to gaining a pass in April and is also said to be bound by the Official Secrets Act.

The pass reportedly has her husband’s surname on it, but she does not use it for her work. House of Lords peer Lord Bethell sponsored her for the pass.

Away from work, Mrs Coladangelo has three children. In 2012 she told the Daily Mail how she had returned to work while being a mother.

She paid for a live-in nanny at their home in south-west London and worked flexible hours.

Mrs Coladangelo said: ‘I don’t worry about my children being closer to their nanny, because I spend as much time as I can with them.

‘I would never dream of telling other mothers what to do with their lives. Every woman has to make her own choice.

‘But I feel very fortunate in my education and believe those years shouldn’t be wasted. I want to work to give something back.’  

Her husband Oliver gave an interview to the Financial Times in November 2015 and spoke about their house. He said: ‘Our indulgence was moving to a bigger home in Wandsworth in September (2015). 

‘We barely had a garden in Clapham, but the new house has a bigger garden and more space downstairs.

‘We might be able to build an extension. The mortgage will still be pretty considerable, as retail businesses are not necessarily throwing up a lot of cash. I am not a tycoon.’ 

Mr Bonas opened his first store on London’s Fulham Road in 1993 with handbags and jewellery he had brought from Hong Kong where his parents lived. 

Speaking to the Independent in September 2015, he said: ‘I’d been bringing presents back for friends and they were really popular so I thought, ‘I wonder if I can make a go of this?’ And to my amazement it just worked.’ 

Bonas was the surname of his then girlfriend Anna Bonas, who is the cousin of Prince Harry’s former girlfriend Cressida Bonas, and he told how ‘she very kindly hasn’t demanded that I changed it’.

Oliver Bonas is an independent chain of lifestyle stores that started out with one shop on Fulham Road in 1993. Initially, Mr Tress mainly stocked products that he had found in trade shows.

The retailer now has 80 stores across the UK, offering products from contemporary jewellery, gifts, homeware and furniture.

Top sellers include items like candles, washbags and delicate jewellery. Celebrities such as Holly Willoughby and Christine Lampard have also been spotted in colourful outfits by the brand.

It’s renowned for its vibrant pieces, which often come in bold prints. Based in Chessington, Surrey, the company employs more than 500 people and turnover was £70 in 2017.

Last year the retailer secured £3.5million in funding from HSBC to help support the company post-lockdown. 

The funding is part of the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) and aims to ease the financial strain on the store after the pandemic. 

Mr Tress attended Marlborough College in Wiltshire – where other alumni include Kate Middleton – while Mr Hancock went to the King’s School Chester. 

Mrs Coladangelo’s father Rino Coladangelo, 70, is a millionaire businessman and chief executive of an international pharmaceutical company.

Her mother Heather, 69, a former florist, has held the position of secretary in her husband’s business which has interests in China, India and the US.

The couple lives in a 16th century listed former farmhouse in the village of Steeple Morden, on the Hertfordshire-Cambridgeshire border.

Mr Coladangelo is listed in Companies House as Italian but he was educated at University College London and has lived and worked in the UK most of his life.

He is currently chief executive of Rephine Ltd, a Stevenage-based pharmaceutical company which specialises in compliance and regulatory affairs.

According to Linkedin he was a member of the Royal College of Physicians in London and a managing director of an NHS hospital. He speaks English, Italian and French.

Her mother was a director of the Willow Foundation which her daughter was also a director until she resigned in 2018.

The charity, whose life president is former Arsenal goalkeeper and TV presenter Bob Wilson, aims to give ‘uplifting and special days’ to seriously-ill young adults.  

Remember this, Matt? How Health Secretary condemned ‘Professor Lockdown’ Neil Ferguson and said it ‘would not be possible’ for him to keep his job after breaking Covid rules to see lover… a year before HIS affair was exposed

Matt Hancock has been accused of double standards over an interview in which he condemned ‘Professor Lockdown’ for breaking Covid rules to meet his mistress – as the Health Secretary faces questions over his own alleged affair a year on.  

The video, which has popped up across social media in light of Mr Hancock’s alleged infidelity with millionaire communications director Gina Coladangelo, 43, was broadcast on Sky News on May 6, 2020.

In the clip, the Health Secretary condemns the actions of ‘Professor Lockdown’ Neil Ferguson, who broke Covid restrictions to meet his married mistress Antonia Staats, 38 last summer.  

He admits Ferguson’s actions are ‘extraordinary’ as he struggles to comprehend the hypocritical message the ex-SAGE scientist sent to the public before his resignation in May 2020.

It emerged that Hancock had been allegedly caught on CCTV kissing his aide Mrs Coldagangelo on May 6 – less than a fortnight before the Government relaxed safety rules including giving permission to hug. 

And he goes further to say it ‘would not be possible’ for Mr Ferguson, 53, to have kept his job in the wake of flouting the strict coronavirus social distancing rules he helped draw up to have secret trysts with his married lover. 

Ferguson was brandished an ‘arrogant hypocrite’ in the wake of his actions, but in a controversial twist, stunning CCTV pictures showed Mr Hancock and his closest aide in a passionate embrace outside his Whitehall office last month. 

While the Health Secretary praised Ferguson’s decision to resign, he himself has been caught on camera kissing millionaire lobbyist Gina Coladangelo, 43, who was brought in as a taxpayer-funded advisor in March last year.

Mr Hancock is said to have checked the corridor was clear before closing the door, leaning on it to stop it opening before launching into their passionate embrace at around 3pm on May 6 this year – less than a fortnight before the Government relaxed safety rules including giving permission to hug.

In a live interview with Sky presenter Kay Burley last summer, the Health Secretary referenced the ‘extraordinary’ circumstances surrounding Professor Ferguson’s resignation.

He said: ‘It’s extraordinary. I don’t understand… Prof Ferguson is a very, very eminent and impressive scientist.

‘The science he has done has been an important part of what we have listened to.

‘I think he did the right decision, to resign that is.’ 

Kay Burley asks: ‘You wouldn’t have thought to keep him?’

Mr Hancock replied: ‘That’s just not possible in these circumstances.’ 

Professor Ferguson, 53, asked his mistress Antonia Staats, 38, to travel across London to his home at least twice last summer – despite lecturing 66million in Britain on the need to stay apart to stop the spread of Covid-19.

Lockdown restrictions were at their peak at the time Mr Ferguson broke the rules, with no social contact allowed between separate households. 

In a resignation statement, the academic, who is married with a son but is believed to be separated from his wife, admitted he had ‘made an error of judgement’ but claimed he thought he was ‘immune’ to the illness.

Several outspoken critics slammed ‘Professor Lockdown’ as an ‘arrogant hypocrite’ and accused him of ‘undermining’ the Government’s message on lockdown.

Mr Hancock is facing a barrage of questions as his job hangs in the balance in the wake of his alleged affair. 

The Health Secretary, 42, has been caught on camera in a passionate clinch with his hand rubbing the back and bottom of millionaire lobbyist Gina Coladangelo, 43, who was brought in as a taxpayer-funded advisor in March last year. 

Mr Hancock has been married for 15 years to wife Martha, 44, and the couple have three children together. 

Mrs Hancock reportedly looked sad and upset as she left the couple’s home in north London yesterday morning, but didn’t speak to reporters about her husband’s alleged infidelity. 

‘We went MONTHS without hugging our families!’: Furious Britons rage at Matt Hancock as CCTV exposes him kissing his ‘lover’ aide… while telling to UK to stick to social distancing rules

Furious Britons took to social media yesterday to rage at Matt Hancock after CCTV exposed him kissing an aide – while telling the UK to stick to social distancing rules.

The Health Secretary, 42, was caught on camera in a passionate clinch with his hand rubbing the back and bottom of millionaire lobbyist Gina Coladangelo, 43, who was brought in as a taxpayer-funded advisor in March last year.

The incident is alleged to have taken place in the Department for Health’s headquarters in central London at around 3pm on May 6 this year – the day of the UK local elections and a week after his first coronavirus jab. 

The kiss was also 13 days before the Government relaxed safety regulations including giving permission to hug.

In response, hundreds of people took to Twitter to give their views on the scandal, with many accusing the minister of hypocrisy, while others revealed the heartbreaking sacrifices they’ve made in order to stick to the rules. 

One wrote: ‘There are people that genuinely went months and months without hugging their families after following the advice of Matt Hancock… quite sad really!’

Another added: ‘To be crystal clear, this picture was taken with 2m social distancing rules still in place at workplaces. The issue here is not Matt Hancock’s infidelity – it’s his world-beating hypocrisy. Write the rules. Tell the little people to obey. Then break them with impunity.’

A third tweeted: ‘On 8th May, I didn’t hug my aunt when I found out my dad had terminal cancer. Meanwhile on 6th May, Matt Hancock (the man who told me it was unsafe to hug) was all over his mistress in a Government building. So many times the COVID story has jumped the shark, but now enough.’  

Piers Morgan also highlighted the fact it was ‘at the time he was ordering the British people not to hug anyone from other households’.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage wrote: ‘I had wanted to go to my daughter’s school prize-giving next week but can only do so online. Yet thousands of Football Officials can come to the UK without quarantine and Matt Hancock can completely ignore social distancing rules.’

As Downing Street begins to deal with the fallout, the Health Secretary ran for cover and cancelled a public appearance yesterday as he fought for his job.

In a statement, Mr Hancock said: ‘I accept that I breached the social distancing guidance in these circumstances.

‘I have let people down and am very sorry.

‘I remain focused on working to get the country out of this pandemic, and would be grateful for privacy for my family on this personal matter.’

At the time the image was captured, Mr Hancock is said to have checked the corridor is clear before closing the door, leaning on it to stop it opening before launching into their passionate embrace. 

The Sun claims they have been having an affair that has been the talk of the department – but it is not known if they remain in a relationship that was a secret until yesterday.

Mr Hancock has been married for 15 years to wife Martha, 44, and the couple have three children together. 

Mrs Hancock looked sad and upset as she left the couple’s home in north London yesterday morning but didn’t speak to reporters about her husband’s alleged infidelity. 

Her husband was nowhere to be seen, however, she was still wearing her wedding ring. 

They were last seen together in public at the England vs Scotland Euro 2020 match at Wembley a week ago.

Communications director and lobbyist Mrs Coladangelo is a mother-of-three, whose husband Oliver Tress is the founder of clothing shop Oliver Bonas. 

The shutters were closed at their £4.5million South London home. She has been working as an advisor for Mr Hancock with one source saying: ‘Before Matt does anything big, he’ll speak to Gina’. 

Mrs Coladangelo is friends with Matt Hancock’s wife on Facebook and they have spent time together socially.

MailOnline has contacted representatives for the Health Secretary. A friend of Mr Hancock’s reportedly told The Sun they had ‘no comment’ on the matter, but that ‘no rules’ had been breached. 

Other sources claimed that Mr Hancock hopes to survive – but No 10 is yet to comment.

But a Whitehall whistleblower who leaked the footage and reportedly no longer works for the department, told the newspaper it was ‘shocking that Mr Hancock was having an affair in the middle of a pandemic with an adviser and friend he used public money to hire’.

The alleged affair piles even more pressure on Mr Hancock, who was already reportedly battling for his job over his handling of the pandemic Dominic Cummings released WhatsApp messages from the PM that showed Mr Johnson branded him ‘f***ing useless’.

Aside from the serious allegations of an affair, there will also be questions to answer about kissing someone outside his bubble during the pandemic and whether this breaches any of the Covid rules he has helped create. 

Mr Hancock, who is yet to comment, cancelled an event in his West Suffolk constituency yesterday morning where he would have faced questions over the affair and whether he can keep his job. 

He also deleted an Instagram post from last night where he said he ‘works with some brilliant women’.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said it was an ‘entirely personal’ matter for his cabinet colleague. 

He told LBC radio: ‘I have seen the photo but, as ever with private matters, I always try to avoid commenting on other people’s personal lives and I think I’ll stick with that tradition here.’

Asked whether the Health Secretary should have been ‘ignoring social distancing’, Mr Shapps replied: ‘I’m quite sure that whatever the rules were at the time were followed.’You’ll recall that there was a point at which social distancing rules were changed but, as I say, I don’t want to comment on somebody else’s private life – that is for them.’

 

Tory MP Mr Baker, who was elected in 2019, told his local newspaper the Eastern Daily Press: ‘In my view people in high public office and great positions of responsibility should act with the appropriate morals and ethics that come with that role.

‘Matt Hancock, on a number of measures, has fallen short of that. As an MP who is a devoted family man, married for 12 years with a wonderful wife and children, standards and integrity matter to me.

‘I will not in any shape condone this behaviour and I have in the strongest possible terms told the Government what I think.’

Ms McVey told GB News on the issue: ‘If it had been me, I would have resigned myself.

‘I am hoping Matt Hancock is thinking the same thing, that he doesn’t have to have to have it pushed upon him.

‘It will be viewed far more favourably if he comes forward and says: ‘reassessing it’, and that’s what I’d like to see.’

Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope told Radio 4’s PM programme that his local party association ‘felt that he was in breach of the ministerial code; that he was in breach of the lockdown regulations; that he is the person who has been passing the laws, signing off the regulations, requiring people to comply with restrictions upon their freedom – many of which people don’t agree with – but they’ve complied with out of respect for the rule of law.

‘And they’re absolutely seething now, that having made sacrifices themselves, including not seeing loved ones and all the rest of it, they find that the person who was in charge of all this feels free to not comply with his own regulations and I think that’s the essence of it really.’

He added: ‘I agree with that. I think that his position is untenable. For that reason, the sooner he does the honourable thing and announces his resignation, the better – because otherwise it is not going to go away.

‘This is going to run and run, and it will impact adversely upon all of those of us who are involved in public life who are trying to set an example.’ 

Mr Hancock had put Mrs Coladangelo, a friend from university, on the public payroll only last year. He made no comment on claims he was having an affair with the 43-year-old in his apology yesterday, but added: ‘I have let people down and am very sorry.’

Astonishingly, however, he refused to resign and, after crisis talks in No 10, the Prime Minister personally backed him to stay on and said he ‘considered the matter closed’. 

Last night, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick backed the PM’s stance, adding that the public should allow Hancock to ‘get on with the job’.

He told BBC Radio’s 4 Any Questions: ‘There’s a task to be done, Matt is on the job doing that, and I think we should allow him to get on with the job.’

He added: ‘The rules have been hard. It is everybody’s duty to follow the rules, but equally I’ve not been somebody who has criticised and condemned people when they’ve made mistakes.’

The decision not to fire Mr Hancock prompted fury last night across the political spectrum, among members of the public and even from business leaders enraged by the Health Secretary’s hypocrisy. 

Tory whips were bombarded with complaints from their MPs. 

Support for the 42-year-old was ebbing even in Downing Street, with one senior figure saying his conduct was ‘gross’ and describing the apology he offered yesterday as ‘pathetic’.

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said: ‘It will all be down to public opinion – it’s the only thing No 10 cares about. They’re polling, focus-grouping all the time and if that starts showing the public want him out then he could be gone by Monday.’ 

Another Conservative MP said: ‘It’s getting like Animal Farm: all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.’

Sayeeda Warsi, a former Conservative Party chairman, attacked the failure to sack Mr Hancock, saying: ‘It’s a bad decision by Matt and a bad decision by the PM.

‘He’s got a huge amount of questions to answer in relation to Covid contracts, access to parliament, giving out jobs. Is there anything anybody could do any more which would make them resign?’ 

Hannah Brady, of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: ‘Hancock has treated bereaved families with contempt. He’s got to go.’ In a letter to Mr Johnson the campaign group said that Mr Hancock’s continuing presence in the Cabinet was ‘an embarrassment to the Government’.

Labour also called for the Health Secretary to go and branded the Prime Minister ‘spineless’ for failing to sack him.

Party chairman Anneliese Dodds said: ‘The charge sheet against Matt Hancock includes wasting taxpayers’ money, leaving care homes exposed and now being accused of breaking his own Covid rules. His position is hopelessly untenable. Boris Johnson should sack him.’ 

It comes as newly emerged footage appears to show Mr Hancock checking the corridor is clear before closing the door, leaning on it to stop it opening before the pair launch into their passionate embrace.

And speaking to MailOnline tonight, the aide’s millionaire businessman father Rino Coladangelo, 70, refused to comment other than to say: ‘My daughter is a wonderful woman.’

There was no on-camera apology to the public from the Health Secretary yesterday despite questions over whether he had lost his focus on the pandemic.

When Neil Ferguson, a key government adviser, resigned for breaching lockdown rules last year, Mr Hancock said he was right to go and the police should investigate.

Last September Mr Hancock told people not to start romantic relationships because of the risk it could spread Covid.

And on May 16, ten days after his clinch with Mrs Coladangelo, he said people should be ‘careful’ about the new freedom to hug – and suggested they should do so only outside with people who had been fully vaccinated. Liberal Democrat health spokesman Munira Wilson said: ‘Matt Hancock is a terrible Health Secretary and should have been sacked a long time ago for his failures.

‘This latest episode of hypocrisy will break the trust with the British public. He was telling families not to hug loved ones, while doing whatever he liked in the workplace.

‘Rules for them and rules for us is no way to run a country.’

Mystery surrounds the recruitment of Mrs Coladangelo, who met Mr Hancock while volunteering at the student radio station at Oxford University in the 1990s. She worked on Mr Hancock’s failed Tory leadership campaign in 2019 and was secretly taken on as an unpaid adviser at the Department of Health last year before being made a non-executive director on a £15,000 contract.

A Tory source said the pair had become inseparable, adding: ‘They always appeared to be incredibly close. Her status was always slightly mysterious but she went everywhere with him. She was in every meeting.’

The Health Secretary was grilled about his conduct by senior figures from the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team before Mr Johnson decided he would stand by him. The Prime Minister, who was sacked by Michael Howard for lying about an extramarital affair, is said to have been reluctant to hand the media a scalp.

Downing Street refused to comment yesterday on whether Mr Hancock had offered his resignation at any point.

The episode echoes the infamous lockdown-busting trip to Durham made by Mr Cummings last year.

Paul Charles, founder of The PC Agency, a travel consultancy, said: ‘Most people in the country will be asking themselves why they should listen to advice on travel and social distancing when the Health Secretary isn’t even following the rules. The sector has been so badly hit, it’s even more galling now to see ministers in such positions.

‘Most people will be questioning whether Matt Hancock has any position of authority.’

In its letter to the Prime Minister, Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said: ‘If Matt Hancock is unable to find the decency to do the right thing and resign his position it is paramount that you relieve him from it.’

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of anti-lockdown protesters marched through central London on Saturday demanding the ‘arrest’ of Matt Hancock after he was caught breaching Covid rules by kissing his married aide while preaching the restrictions to the rest of the UK.

Anti-lockdown protesters were seen marching along through central London before descending on Downing Street on Saturday as they called for ‘freedom’ and the end to all Covid lockdown regulations after Freedom Day was delayed from June 21. 

As well as demanding the end to lockdown, protesters brandished placards that demanded police ‘arrest Matt Hancock’ after he was caught breaching Covid safety regulations by kissing his married aide – despite asking the rest of the country to follow the strict restrictions. 

As Downing Street made its first comments it confirmed suspicions that Boris Johnson would not sack his Health Secretary given his own chequered love life, especially after his own alleged four-year affair with American pole-dancing businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri, who he employed as an advisor while Mayor of London. 

Mr Hancock’s kiss with Mrs Coladangelo, a mother-of-three whose husband Oliver Tress is the founder of clothing shop Oliver Bonas, is alleged to have taken place in the Department for Health’s headquarters in central London at around 3pm on May 6 this year – the day of the UK local elections and a week after his first coronavirus jab.  

Mr Hancock is said to have checked the corridor is clear before closing the door, leaning on it to stop it opening before launching into their passionate embrace. The Sun claims they have been having an affair that has been the talk of the department – but it is not known if they remain in a relationship that was a secret until yesterday.  

He married Martha, 44, in 2006 and the couple have three children together. Mrs Hancock looked sad and upset as she left the couple’s home but didn’t speak to reporters about her husband’s alleged infidelity.  Her husband was nowhere to be seen, however, she was still wearing her wedding ring.    

The shutters were closed at the £4.5million South London home Mrs Coladangelo shares with Oliver Tress and their three children yesterday. They are also believed to have a country home near the West Sussex coast. She has been working as an advisor for Mr Hancock since last year, with one source saying: ‘Before Matt does anything big, he’ll speak to Gina’.

But they first met at Oxford University 25 years ago at their college’s radio station and Mrs Coladangelo is friends with Matt Hancock’s wife on Facebook and they have spent time together socially.  

Earlier on Friday, Downing Street said the Prime Minister has accepted Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s apology for breaching social distancing guidelines and ‘considers the matter closed’.

‘You’ve seen the Health Secretary’s statement, so I would point you to that,’ a spokesman for the Prime Minister said after being asked by reporters why Mr Hancock remained in post.

‘I don’t really have anything further to add.

‘The Health Secretary set out that he accepted he had breached the social distancing guidelines and he has apologised for that.

‘The Prime Minister has accepted the Health Secretary’s apology and considers the matter closed.’

Asked whether Boris Johnson had ‘full confidence’ in Mr Hancock, the spokesman replied: ‘Yes.’

Downing Street repeatedly refused to comment on whether Health Secretary Matt Hancock had broken the law after he was pictured kissing a close aide in his Whitehall department.

A Downing Street spokesman told a Westminster briefing: ‘I would point you to his statement. He says ‘I accept I breached the social distancing guidance in these circumstances’.

‘He sets out that he apologises for that and as I say, the Prime Minister has accepted that apology.’

Responding to the PM’s spox claiming the Matt Hancock affair is ‘closed’, a Labour Party spokeswoman said: ‘This matter is definitely not closed, despite the Government’s attempts to cover it up.

‘Matt Hancock appears to have been caught breaking the laws he created while having a secret relationship with an aide he appointed to a taxpayer-funded job. The Prime Minister recently described him as ‘useless’ – the fact that even now he still can’t sack him shows how spineless he is’.

England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty has declined to comment on Matt Hancock’s actions.

Asked outside the Department of Health, in central London, on Friday afternoon if he had anything to say about the Health Secretary’s apology, Prof Whitty replied: ‘Nothing.’

Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has said there are ‘legitimate public interest questions to be answered’ after images were published appearing to show Health Secretary Matt Hancock in an embrace with his aide.

When asked about the matter during a press conference, Mr Drakeford said: ‘I think there is a legitimate distinction to be drawn between what people do in their private lives and what they do in their public lives.

‘I’m not trying to make points about what people do as entirely private matters, but in the case of Mr Hancock it does seem to me that there are some issues that are of genuine public interest.

‘I do think there are questions that need to be answered about whether those rules were broken, the social distancing rules.

‘Mr Hancock himself was very quick to condemn a senior academic from Imperial College when he was found breaching those rules, so I think there are questions, legitimate public interest questions, to answer there.

‘I think there are legitimate public interest questions to be answered about how individuals are appointed if they turn out to be in a different sort of relationship with the minister who was responsible for their appointment.

‘Certainly here in Wales, I always expect the whole of our ministerial team to observe the rules that we expect other people to observe.

‘You can’t make laws for other people and then not be willing to abide by them yourself.’

Mr Hancock was meant to be at Newmarket Racecourse to visit the vaccination centre but a spokesman revealed he cancelled at the last minute ‘early this morning’. 

A Department of Health probe into how the footage from outside Mr Hancock’s office was leaked is expected, with the whistleblower described as a former civil servant who was angry about his ‘brazen’ affair, adding: ‘They have tried to keep it a secret but everyone knows what goes on inside a building like that’.  

The kiss was also 11 days before the Government relaxed safety rules including giving permission for the public to hug at a time where Mr Hancock told people: ‘Always stay two metres away from people you don’t live with’ and using the mantra: ‘Hands, face and space’.

Labour Party chair, Anneliese Dodds, commenting on revelations about Matt Hancock, said: ‘If Matt Hancock has been secretly having a relationship with an adviser in his office – who he personally appointed to a taxpayer-funded role – it is a blatant abuse of power and a clear conflict of interest.

‘The charge sheet against Matt Hancock includes wasting taxpayers’ money, leaving care homes exposed and now being accused of breaking his own Covid rules.

‘His position is hopelessly untenable. Boris Johnson should sack him.’ 

Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Health and Social Care Munira Wilson MP said: ‘Matt Hancock is a terrible Health Secretary and should have been sacked a long time ago for his failures.

‘This latest episode of hypocrisy will break the trust with the British public. He was telling families not to hug loved ones, while doing whatever he liked in the workplace.

‘It’s clear that he does not share the public’s values. Rules for them and rules for us is no way to run a country.

‘From the PPE scandal, the crisis in our care service and the unbelievably poor test and trace system, he has utterly failed. It is time for the Health Secretary to go.’

A Whitehall whistleblower who leaked the footage and reportedly no longer works for the department, told The Sun it was ‘shocking that Mr Hancock was having an affair in the middle of a pandemic with an adviser and friend he used public money to hire’.

The alleged affair piles even more pressure on Mr Hancock, who was already reportedly battling for his job over his handling of the pandemic Dominic Cummings released WhatsApp messages from the PM that showed Mr Johnson branded him ‘f***ing useless’.

Aside from the serious allegations of an affair, there will also be questions to answer about kissing someone outside his bubble during the pandemic and whether this breaches any of the Covid rules he has helped create. 

Mr Hancock, who is yet to comment, cancelled an event in his West Suffolk constituency yesterday morning where he would have faced questions over the affair and whether he can keep his job. He also deleted an Instagram post from last night where he said he ‘works with some brilliant women’.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said it was an ‘entirely personal’ matter for his cabinet colleague.  He told LBC radio: ‘I have seen the photo but, as ever with private matters, I always try to avoid commenting on other people’s personal lives and I think I’ll stick with that tradition here.’

Asked whether the Health Secretary should have been ‘ignoring social distancing’, Mr Shapps replied: ‘I’m quite sure that whatever the rules were at the time were followed. You’ll recall that there was a point at which social distancing rules were changed but, as I say, I don’t want to comment on somebody else’s private life – that is for them.’

The Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said he would not be commenting on an ‘entirely personal’ matter after pictures were published allegedly depicting his married Cabinet colleague Matt Hancock in an embrace with his closest aide.

Mr Shapps told Sky News that former lobbyist Gina Coladangelo – who the Health Secretary met at university – would have gone through an ‘incredibly rigorous’ process to get the job.

Asked about the rules around appointing friends to Government positions, Mr Shapps said: ‘First of all, I think the actual issue is entirely personal for Matt Hancock. 

‘In terms of rules, anyone who has been appointed has to go through an incredibly rigorous process in Government, so whatever the rules are, the rules will have to be followed.

‘There are no short cuts to that, as anyone who has had anything to do with the appointments system in the Civil Service knows.

‘There are very strict rules in place.’

Labour said the Government needs to answer whether the Health Secretary had broken any rules or there had been ‘conflicts of interest’ in the appointment of his closest adviser. 

It follows reports that Matt Hancock has been having a relationship with a senior aide whom he first met when they were at Oxford University.

An Opposition party spokesman said: ‘Ministers, like everyone, are entitled to a private life.

‘However, when taxpayers’ money is involved or jobs are being offered to close friends who are in a personal relationship with a minister, then that needs to be looked into.

‘The Government needs to be open and transparent about whether there are any conflicts of interests or rules that have been broken’.

Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said he has ‘every confidence’ in the Health Secretary.

Speaking after a vaccine summit in London, Mr Zahawi told reporters: ‘I have every confidence in Matt Hancock.’

Asked if he was disappointed in Mr Hancock’s behaviour, he said: ‘I’ve said everything I’m going to say on it. He’s apologised. He’s focusing on making sure that we get this (vaccine) sprint, this big sprint up to the 19th of July.’

Asked if it makes it harder for the public to follow the rules: ‘The Secretary of State has apologised and has said everything he needs to say and the Prime Minister has full confidence in his Secretary of State and considers the matter closed.’

But Tim Montgomerie, a former Tory spad and ex-editor of the Conservative Home website, told Channel 4 News that Mr Hancock ‘definitely should resign’.

He also tweeted earlier: ‘For goodness’ sake will any Conservative minister resign after they’ve done the wrong thing? Ever? Will anyone set an example?’

It comes after photographs appearing to show Mr Hancock kissing Mrs Coladangelo were published in the paper.

In the pictures, which appear to be from CCTV footage, Mr Hancock also appears to have his hand on the woman’s backside.

Meanwhile, a source told the Sun that it was ‘shocking that Mr Hancock was having an affair in the middle of a pandemic’.

According to paper, the incident took place around 3pm on May 6, on the day of the local elections. 

But the whistleblower told the Sun that they have been caught having ‘regular clinches together’.

The source told the paper: ‘It has also shocked people because he put her in such an important, publicly-funded role and this is what they get up to in office hours when everyone else is working hard.’

Mrs Coladangelo, who is a director and shareholder at lobbying firm Luther Pendragon, was appointed to the Department of Health as an unpaid adviser in March last year.

Mrs Coladangelo was appointed as a non-executive director at the department in September, meaning she is a member of the board.

She can claim up to £15,000 in taxpayers’ money in the role, though there is no public record of her appointment.

Mrs Coladangelo has had a parliamentary pass, which gives her access to Westminster, since April. Some claimed she started work in March 2020, but her LinkedIn says it was in September last year.

Mr Hancock was due to visit a vaccination centre yesterday in his constituency but pulled out at the last minute because of the sleaze scandal engulfing him.

He cancelled plans to visit the Pharmacy2U centre at Newmarket Racecourse in Suffolk after a photograph emerged of the married politician kissing and embracing aide Gina Coladangelo.

A photographer employed by Pharmacy2U turned up to the racecourse yesterday morning to take photos of the event but said he had been informed that Hancock would not be turning up.

And asked if his no-show was a disappointment, one vaccination worker said: ‘Nope, it’s not the first time he has cancelled on us.’

However, when pressed a manger for Pharmacy2U refused to comment but denied that the Health Secretary had pulled out on previous visits.

The reports of the alleged affair come just weeks after Hancock was pictured enjoying lunch out with wife Martha – the granddaughter of Frederick Millar, 1st Baron Inchyra – in London.

The pair were seen waiting for a taxi after eating at Exmouth market in the capital. 

They were last seen together in public at the England vs Scotland Euro 2020 match at Wembley a week ago. 

Earlier this year, the father-of-three, who has two son and a daughter, was seen playing rugby in the park with his boys. 

Matt Hancock met Gina when they worked on the Oxford University student radio station together in the 1990s.

Hancock was a minority sports reporter on Oxygen FM while studying for a philosophy, politics and economics degree.

Gina who was on the same course and also worked at the radio station where they became close friends. 

They would have studied together, volunteered together on the radio station and socialised together while at Exeter College, Oxford.

She was described as Hancock’s ‘closest friend’ from university when he appointed her as an unpaid adviser last year.

Hancock has spoken fondly of his days working alongside Coladangelo on the now defunct radio station. 

As newly appointed Minister for Digital and Culture in 2016 he said: ‘I think I somehow knew, when as a student I worked as minority sports correspondent for Oxygen 107.9 FM, that one day I’d become Minister for radio.’

The Sky Sports presenter David Garrido worked at the student radio station at about the same time as the couple.

The affair claims come just a day after the Queen expressed her sympathy for the under fire Health Secretary, referring to  him as ‘poor man’. 

The Monarch, 96, made the comment as she welcomed Boris Johnson back to Buckingham Palace for her first in-person weekly audience with the Prime Minister since March last year. 

The monarch told Mr Johnson it was ‘very nice to see you again’ and the premier replied: ‘Lovely to see you again. It has been 15 months…’

The Queen then said: ‘Has it really? It is most extraordinary, isn’t it? I have just been talking to your Secretary of State for Health, poor man, he came to the privy council. He is full of…’

Mr Johnson interrupted and suggested ‘full of beans’ as the Queen then continued: ‘He thinks that things are getting better.’

Mr Johnson replied: ‘Well, they are…’

The expression of sympathy from the monarch comes after Mr Hancock found himself at the centre of a political firestorm after Dominic Cummings published text messages from the PM in which Mr Johnson referred to the Cabinet minister as ‘totally f****** hopeless’.  

The Health Secretary dismissed the significance of the bombshell messages from Mr Johnson.

Mr Hancock said the communications, sent during the height of the coronavirus crisis last year, represented ‘ancient history’.

He said that ‘at times of stress people say all sorts of things in private’ but ‘what matters most is how well you work together’.

The Cabinet Minister also said he is not embarrassed by Mr Johnson’s apparent assessment of his performance.

Mr Cummings, the PM’s former chief aide, stepped up his war with Number 10 last week when he published a number of messages sent to him by Mr Johnson.

In one exchange from March 27 last year, Mr Cummings criticised the Health Secretary over the failure to ramp up testing, with Mr Johnson replying: ‘Totally f****** hopeless.’

Another from the same day saw Mr Cummings complain that the Department of Health had been turning down ventilators because ‘the price has been marked up’. Mr Johnson said: ‘It’s Hancock. He has been hopeless.’ 

On April 27, Mr Johnson apparently messaged Mr Cummings to say that PPE procurement was a ‘disaster’, suggesting that responsibility should be taken away from the Health Secretary.

‘I can’t think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on,’ the PM said.

Mr Hancock was asked last week, during an interview with the BBC Breakfast programme, how he felt about the PM describing him as ‘hopeless’.

He said: ‘Honestly? It feels like ancient history, right? The vaccine programme is a huge success.

‘At times of stress people say all sorts of things in private. What matters is how well you work together.

‘You are referring to comments apparently from the Prime Minister. I work with the Prime Minister every single day. 

‘We work very strongly together, firstly to protect life and secondly to get the country out of this. That is what matters.’

Told that it must be embarrassing for him to know Mr Johnson had said such things, Mr Hancock replied: ‘No, it isn’t really because of all the things we have delivered together.’

‘We are here talking about the success of the vaccine programme, right? That is something that I very much led from the department, working with the Prime Minister. 

‘He has been a massive supporter of it throughout. Of course we have had obstacles and we have had people that we have had to deal with on the way.

‘But what I can tell you is that the delivery of that programme has been absolutely fantastic.’

Mr Johnson said last week that he has ‘complete confidence’ in Mr Hancock and ‘all of the Government who have been dealing with Covid-19 during the pandemic’.

Meanwhile, last night, Mr Hancock, prior to the publication of the Sun exclusive, posted an Instagram story appealing for more women to ‘get involved in politics’.

In the post, Mr Hancock says he works ‘alongside some brilliant women’.

The post adds: ‘If you’re a woman who wants to get involved in politics swipe up.’

Swiping up takes a person to a link to the Conservative Party page, calling for ‘more Conservative women at every level of the Party and Government’.

Oxford-educated Hancock first became involved in politics working as a Tory campaigner in Guildford, before becoming an economic advisor to then shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.

He was elected as an MP for West Suffolk in 2010 and has held several ministerial jobs, including his most recent and high profile role as Health Secretary, a position he was given in 2018 under then Prime Minister Theresa May.

Matt Hancock’s farmhouse in sleepy Suffolk was closed up yesterday as the Health Secretary became mired in a sleaze scandal.

There was no answer this afternoon at the property in the West Suffolk village, where locals hit out at the hypocrisy of married Hancock being caught in a steamy clinch with aide Gina Coladangelo. 

One woman said: ‘He was quick to criticise Professor Neil Ferguson when it emerged that he had been seeing a mistress during lockdown.

‘More than anything, though, I feel sorry for his wife.

‘This is going to lose him a lot of trust and it couldn’t have come at a worse time – so soon after details emerged of him being branded ‘hopeless’ by Boris Johnson.

‘I really think his job is now very much under threat.’

Another villager added: ‘He has acted hypocritically, there is no social distancing going on in that photo of him with his aide and he’s been quick to warn everyone else to keep apart.

‘Everyone can get themselves in a pickle at one time or other but I can’t believe someone as high-profile as Matt Hancock wasn’t aware that he could be found out.

‘He’s been very much in the limelight over the last year and a half and so how was he expecting this not to come out at some stage?

‘I’ve seen very little with him in the village. He’s mainly in London and his children don’t go to school in the area.

Matt Hancock’s glamorous mother-of-three ‘lover’ Gina Coladangelo, 43, is married to the millionaire behind Oliver Bonas and boasts a string of celebrity friends

The woman Matt Hancock has been allegedly having an affair with is married to the millionaire founder of fashion firm Oliver Bonas and has worked as its communications director for the past seven years. 

Gina Coladangelo, 43, knows the Health Secretary from Oxford University, where they both worked on the student radio station and studied politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) – and where he also met his wife Martha, 44. 

Mrs Coladangelo remains Facebook friends with Mr Hancock’s osteopath wife – with whom the Conservative politician has two sons and a daughter – after they both graduated from the university at around the same time. 

And they all reside in London, with Mrs Coladangelo living with her multi-millionaire fashion tycoon husband Oliver Tress and their three children in Wandsworth, while the Hancocks live in Queen’s Park with their children.    

Mr Hancock, 42, hired Mrs Coladangelo as a non-executive director at the Department of Health and Social Care last September, and the CCTV images of them kissing in the departmental building were allegedly taken on May 6.

The mother of three is a major shareholder – as well as director – of the lobbying firm Luther Pendragon, where she worked from October 2002 to June 2014. She studied PPE at Oxford between 1995 and 1998, like Mr Hancock.  

Mr Hancock met Mrs Coladangelo when they worked on Oxford student radio together in the 1990s. Mr Hancock was a minority sports reporter on Oxygen FM and they would have socialised together at Exeter College, Oxford.

She was described as Mr Hancock’s ‘closest friend’ from university when he appointed her as an unpaid adviser last year. Mr Hancock has spoken fondly of his days working alongside her on the now-defunct radio station.

As newly appointed Minister for Digital and Culture in 2016, he said: ‘I think I somehow knew, when as a student I worked as minority sports correspondent for Oxygen 107.9 FM, that one day I’d become Minister for radio.’ 

But Mrs Coladangelo went on to marry Mr Tress, 53, who is founder of fashion chain Oliver Bonas, named after his ex-girlfriend Anna who is cousin of Prince Harry’s former partner Cressida Bonas.

It is not known exactly when Mrs Coladangelo and Mr Tress wed, although they were listed on the electoral roll together with her maiden name as recently as 2008, and then her married name of Gina Tress by 2011.

Mr Tress founded Oliver Bonas in London in 1993 with handbags and jewellery he had brought from Hong Kong where his parents lived, and his wife began working there in June 2014 after 11 years at Luther Pendragon. 

They live together in a five-bedroom detached property believed to be worth around £4million in Wandsworth, South West London, on a quiet tree-lined street with residents-only parking bays that is popular with families.

Many of the cars parked in the street – which is a 20-minute drive away from Central London – are top-of-the range BMW 4x4s and Volvos. Neighbours of Mrs Coladangelo remained tight lipped and refused to comment.

But one visiting workman who left a neighbouring home was unimpressed by Mr Hancock. He said: ‘The guy had been caught bang to rights on film. He will have to do some smart talking to get out of that one with the wife.’

Mrs Coladangelo has been spotted leaving Downing Street with the Health Secretary on a number of occasions.  A source told the Sunday Times last year: ‘Before Matt does anything big, he’ll speak to Gina. She knows everything.’

But her new role was not made public despite her getting access to £15,000 from the taxpayer.

She was an unpaid adviser for Mr Hancock but claims of ‘chumocracy’ emerged in November when it was revealed she was attending confidential meetings.

Mrs Coladangelo was made a non-executive director at the Department for Health in September. She shows off the role on her LinkedIn page and has to ‘oversee and monitor performance’.

She says: ‘I have over twenty years’ experience in business management and marketing and communications, with a focus on retail, healthcare, the third sector and energy.

‘Marketing expertise across media relations, consumer campaigns, social media, digital strategy, strategic collaborations, internal communications, issues management and public affairs.’

But her new role was not made public despite her getting access to £15,000 from the taxpayer. 

While working as Head of Marketing at Oliver Bonas, Mrs Coladangelo contributed to a post on International Women’s Day.

She wrote: ‘You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. Decide what you want and don’t want – and stick to it. It is up to you to live a life you love.’

Mrs Coladangelo has access to the Houses of Parliament due to gaining a pass in April and is also said to be bound by the Official Secrets Act.

The pass reportedly has her husband’s surname on it, but she does not use it for her work. House of Lords peer Lord Bethell sponsored her for the pass.

Away from work, Mrs Coladangelo has three children. In 2012 she told the Daily Mail how she had returned to work while being a mother.

She paid for a live-in nanny at their home in south-west London and worked flexible hours.

Mrs Coladangelo said: ‘I don’t worry about my children being closer to their nanny, because I spend as much time as I can with them.

‘I would never dream of telling other mothers what to do with their lives. Every woman has to make her own choice.

‘But I feel very fortunate in my education and believe those years shouldn’t be wasted. I want to work to give something back.’  

Her husband Oliver gave an interview to the Financial Times in November 2015 and spoke about their house. He said: ‘Our indulgence was moving to a bigger home in Wandsworth in September (2015). 

‘We barely had a garden in Clapham, but the new house has a bigger garden and more space downstairs.

‘We might be able to build an extension. The mortgage will still be pretty considerable, as retail businesses are not necessarily throwing up a lot of cash. I am not a tycoon.’ 

Mr Bonas opened his first store on London’s Fulham Road in 1993 with handbags and jewellery he had brought from Hong Kong where his parents lived. 

Speaking to the Independent in September 2015, he said: ‘I’d been bringing presents back for friends and they were really popular so I thought, ‘I wonder if I can make a go of this?’ And to my amazement it just worked.’ 

Bonas was the surname of his then girlfriend Anna Bonas, who is the cousin of Prince Harry’s former girlfriend Cressida Bonas, and he told how ‘she very kindly hasn’t demanded that I changed it’.

Oliver Bonas is an independent chain of lifestyle stores that started out with one shop on Fulham Road in 1993. Initially, Mr Tress mainly stocked products that he had found in trade shows.

The retailer now has 80 stores across the UK, offering products from contemporary jewellery, gifts, homeware and furniture.

Top sellers include items like candles, washbags and delicate jewellery. Celebrities such as Holly Willoughby and Christine Lampard have also been spotted in colourful outfits by the brand.

It’s renowned for its vibrant pieces, which often come in bold prints. Based in Chessington, Surrey, the company employs more than 500 people and turnover was £70 in 2017.

Last year the retailer secured £3.5million in funding from HSBC to help support the company post-lockdown. 

The funding is part of the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) and aims to ease the financial strain on the store after the pandemic. 

Mr Tress attended Marlborough College in Wiltshire – where other alumni include Kate Middleton – while Mr Hancock went to the King’s School Chester. 

Mrs Coladangelo’s father Rino Coladangelo, 70, is a millionaire businessman and chief executive of an international pharmaceutical company.

Her mother Heather, 69, a former florist, has held the position of secretary in her husband’s business which has interests in China, India and the US.

The couple lives in a 16th century listed former farmhouse in the village of Steeple Morden, on the Hertfordshire-Cambridgeshire border.

Mr Coladangelo is listed in Companies House as Italian but he was educated at University College London and has lived and worked in the UK most of his life.

He is currently chief executive of Rephine Ltd, a Stevenage-based pharmaceutical company which specialises in compliance and regulatory affairs.

According to Linkedin he was a member of the Royal College of Physicians in London and a managing director of an NHS hospital. He speaks English, Italian and French.

Her mother was a director of the Willow Foundation which her daughter was also a director until she resigned in 2018.

The charity, whose life president is former Arsenal goalkeeper and TV presenter Bob Wilson, aims to give ‘uplifting and special days’ to seriously-ill young adults.  

Remember this, Matt? How Health Secretary condemned ‘Professor Lockdown’ Neil Ferguson and said it ‘would not be possible’ for him to keep his job after breaking Covid rules to see lover… a year before HIS affair was exposed

Matt Hancock has been accused of double standards over an interview in which he condemned ‘Professor Lockdown’ for breaking Covid rules to meet his mistress – as the Health Secretary faces questions over his own alleged affair a year on.  

The video, which has popped up across social media in light of Mr Hancock’s alleged infidelity with millionaire communications director Gina Coladangelo, 43, was broadcast on Sky News on May 6, 2020.

In the clip, the Health Secretary condemns the actions of ‘Professor Lockdown’ Neil Ferguson, who broke Covid restrictions to meet his married mistress Antonia Staats, 38 last summer.  

He admits Ferguson’s actions are ‘extraordinary’ as he struggles to comprehend the hypocritical message the ex-SAGE scientist sent to the public before his resignation in May 2020.

It emerged that Hancock had been allegedly caught on CCTV kissing his aide Mrs Coldagangelo on May 6 – less than a fortnight before the Government relaxed safety rules including giving permission to hug. 

And he goes further to say it ‘would not be possible’ for Mr Ferguson, 53, to have kept his job in the wake of flouting the strict coronavirus social distancing rules he helped draw up to have secret trysts with his married lover. 

Ferguson was brandished an ‘arrogant hypocrite’ in the wake of his actions, but in a controversial twist, stunning CCTV pictures showed Mr Hancock and his closest aide in a passionate embrace outside his Whitehall office last month. 

While the Health Secretary praised Ferguson’s decision to resign, he himself has been caught on camera kissing millionaire lobbyist Gina Coladangelo, 43, who was brought in as a taxpayer-funded advisor in March last year.

Mr Hancock is said to have checked the corridor was clear before closing the door, leaning on it to stop it opening before launching into their passionate embrace at around 3pm on May 6 this year – less than a fortnight before the Government relaxed safety rules including giving permission to hug.

In a live interview with Sky presenter Kay Burley last summer, the Health Secretary referenced the ‘extraordinary’ circumstances surrounding Professor Ferguson’s resignation.

He said: ‘It’s extraordinary. I don’t understand… Prof Ferguson is a very, very eminent and impressive scientist.

‘The science he has done has been an important part of what we have listened to.

‘I think he did the right decision, to resign that is.’ 

Kay Burley asks: ‘You wouldn’t have thought to keep him?’

Mr Hancock replied: ‘That’s just not possible in these circumstances.’ 

Professor Ferguson, 53, asked his mistress Antonia Staats, 38, to travel across London to his home at least twice last summer – despite lecturing 66million in Britain on the need to stay apart to stop the spread of Covid-19.

Lockdown restrictions were at their peak at the time Mr Ferguson broke the rules, with no social contact allowed between separate households. 

In a resignation statement, the academic, who is married with a son but is believed to be separated from his wife, admitted he had ‘made an error of judgement’ but claimed he thought he was ‘immune’ to the illness.

Several outspoken critics slammed ‘Professor Lockdown’ as an ‘arrogant hypocrite’ and accused him of ‘undermining’ the Government’s message on lockdown.

Mr Hancock is facing a barrage of questions as his job hangs in the balance in the wake of his alleged affair. 

The Health Secretary, 42, has been caught on camera in a passionate clinch with his hand rubbing the back and bottom of millionaire lobbyist Gina Coladangelo, 43, who was brought in as a taxpayer-funded advisor in March last year. 

Mr Hancock has been married for 15 years to wife Martha, 44, and the couple have three children together. 

Mrs Hancock reportedly looked sad and upset as she left the couple’s home in north London yesterday morning, but didn’t speak to reporters about her husband’s alleged infidelity. 

‘We went MONTHS without hugging our families!’: Furious Britons rage at Matt Hancock as CCTV exposes him kissing his ‘lover’ aide… while telling to UK to stick to social distancing rules

Furious Britons took to social media yesterday to rage at Matt Hancock after CCTV exposed him kissing an aide – while telling the UK to stick to social distancing rules.

The Health Secretary, 42, was caught on camera in a passionate clinch with his hand rubbing the back and bottom of millionaire lobbyist Gina Coladangelo, 43, who was brought in as a taxpayer-funded advisor in March last year.

The incident is alleged to have taken place in the Department for Health’s headquarters in central London at around 3pm on May 6 this year – the day of the UK local elections and a week after his first coronavirus jab. 

The kiss was also 13 days before the Government relaxed safety regulations including giving permission to hug.

In response, hundreds of people took to Twitter to give their views on the scandal, with many accusing the minister of hypocrisy, while others revealed the heartbreaking sacrifices they’ve made in order to stick to the rules. 

One wrote: ‘There are people that genuinely went months and months without hugging their families after following the advice of Matt Hancock… quite sad really!’

Another added: ‘To be crystal clear, this picture was taken with 2m social distancing rules still in place at workplaces. The issue here is not Matt Hancock’s infidelity – it’s his world-beating hypocrisy. Write the rules. Tell the little people to obey. Then break them with impunity.’

A third tweeted: ‘On 8th May, I didn’t hug my aunt when I found out my dad had terminal cancer. Meanwhile on 6th May, Matt Hancock (the man who told me it was unsafe to hug) was all over his mistress in a Government building. So many times the COVID story has jumped the shark, but now enough.’  

Piers Morgan also highlighted the fact it was ‘at the time he was ordering the British people not to hug anyone from other households’.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage wrote: ‘I had wanted to go to my daughter’s school prize-giving next week but can only do so online. Yet thousands of Football Officials can come to the UK without quarantine and Matt Hancock can completely ignore social distancing rules.’

As Downing Street begins to deal with the fallout, the Health Secretary ran for cover and cancelled a public appearance yesterday as he fought for his job.

In a statement, Mr Hancock said: ‘I accept that I breached the social distancing guidance in these circumstances.

‘I have let people down and am very sorry.

‘I remain focused on working to get the country out of this pandemic, and would be grateful for privacy for my family on this personal matter.’

At the time the image was captured, Mr Hancock is said to have checked the corridor is clear before closing the door, leaning on it to stop it opening before launching into their passionate embrace. 

The Sun claims they have been having an affair that has been the talk of the department – but it is not known if they remain in a relationship that was a secret until yesterday.

Mr Hancock has been married for 15 years to wife Martha, 44, and the couple have three children together. 

Mrs Hancock looked sad and upset as she left the couple’s home in north London yesterday morning but didn’t speak to reporters about her husband’s alleged infidelity. 

Her husband was nowhere to be seen, however, she was still wearing her wedding ring. 

They were last seen together in public at the England vs Scotland Euro 2020 match at Wembley a week ago.

Communications director and lobbyist Mrs Coladangelo is a mother-of-three, whose husband Oliver Tress is the founder of clothing shop Oliver Bonas. 

The shutters were closed at their £4.5million South London home. She has been working as an advisor for Mr Hancock with one source saying: ‘Before Matt does anything big, he’ll speak to Gina’. 

Mrs Coladangelo is friends with Matt Hancock’s wife on Facebook and they have spent time together socially.

MailOnline has contacted representatives for the Health Secretary. A friend of Mr Hancock’s reportedly told The Sun they had ‘no comment’ on the matter, but that ‘no rules’ had been breached. 

Other sources claimed that Mr Hancock hopes to survive – but No 10 is yet to comment.

But a Whitehall whistleblower who leaked the footage and reportedly no longer works for the department, told the newspaper it was ‘shocking that Mr Hancock was having an affair in the middle of a pandemic with an adviser and friend he used public money to hire’.

The alleged affair piles even more pressure on Mr Hancock, who was already reportedly battling for his job over his handling of the pandemic Dominic Cummings released WhatsApp messages from the PM that showed Mr Johnson branded him ‘f***ing useless’.

Aside from the serious allegations of an affair, there will also be questions to answer about kissing someone outside his bubble during the pandemic and whether this breaches any of the Covid rules he has helped create. 

Mr Hancock, who is yet to comment, cancelled an event in his West Suffolk constituency yesterday morning where he would have faced questions over the affair and whether he can keep his job. 

He also deleted an Instagram post from last night where he said he ‘works with some brilliant women’.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said it was an ‘entirely personal’ matter for his cabinet colleague. 

He told LBC radio: ‘I have seen the photo but, as ever with private matters, I always try to avoid commenting on other people’s personal lives and I think I’ll stick with that tradition here.’

Asked whether the Health Secretary should have been ‘ignoring social distancing’, Mr Shapps replied: ‘I’m quite sure that whatever the rules were at the time were followed. 

‘You’ll recall that there was a point at which social distancing rules were changed but, as I say, I don’t want to comment on somebody else’s private life – that is for them.’