QUENTIN LETTS: In six hours of Matt Hancock’s evidence at the Covid Inquiry all we really found out was that he loathes the The Man He Would Not Name… Dominic Cummings

Just as actors will not say ‘Macbeth’ for fear it will bring a hex upon their heads, Matt Hancock would not utter the name ‘Dominic Cummings’. Lip curling like a brandy snap, he spoke of ‘that witness’ or ‘some people’ or ‘an adviser’ but never once resorted to the C word. Salty-tongued Mr Cummings could never have managed such self-discipline.

During Mr Hancock’s six hours at the Covid Inquiry witness table, not a single rude word was said, though a few were implied. The former health secretary was combative, quick, competent, on top of the detail, and an easy match for the inquiry’s lead counsel and matinee idol manqué, Hugo Keith KC.

The sole linguistic sensation was when Mr Hancock said ‘there’s so many questions’ and Judge Hallett butted in to correct his grammar with ‘there were’. Hancock paused just enough of a nanosecond to indicate that he considered her captious.

Old goose Hallett was less puddingy than normal. Stung by certain recent criticisms, perhaps. Yet there was no escaping that this inquiry again felt interminable, pettily political and over-lawyered. You could see them milling around, mining their ear wax, smirking with neighbours, a great hornets’ nest of scratchy scriveners; and so many of them bright young things. With supermarkets crying out for shelf-stackers, it seems a waste.

Just as actors will not say ‘Macbeth’ for fear it will bring a hex upon their heads, Matt Hancock would not utter the name ‘Dominic Cummings’

Lip curling like a brandy snap, he spoke of ‘that witness’ or ‘some people’ or ‘an adviser’ but never once resorted to the C word

When Messrs Hancock and Keith arrived in the inquiry room at ten o’clock it became apparent we had a fashion clash. Both were wearing pink ties. Mr Hancock’s was one we saw often when he was a cabinet minister. 

Alongside handsome Hugo’s, it looked a little Tie Rack, or at best Marks & Sparks. Pukka Mr Keith KC is one of life’s charcoal-double-breasted New & Lingwood men and his neckwear was altogether more gorgeous, a richer coral, a heavier momme.

READ MORE: Matt Hancock tells Covid Inquiry his ‘single greatest regret’ was to not overrule scientists who said virus couldn’t be spread by those without symptoms… and says he should have followed his ‘hunch’

He had come to sneer at little Hancock and was soon pooh-poohing some Covid memoirs (imprecisely entitled ‘diaries’) that Mr Hancock published. Sir Patrick Vallance, in his own diary, criticised Mr Hancock. 

Mr Hancock retorted that Sir Patrick’s diary was partly composed months after the event. ‘It was made more contemporaneously than your diary,’ drawled Keith KC.

But Mr Hancock is a tough little scrapper. He has been through the mincer of politics and knows how to fight for himself. He got his own back. At one point the KC started to repeat an old argument that he had already lost. 

‘You’ve made that mistake twice,’ said Mr Hancock briskly. The judge this time took his side, telling her counsel, ‘I think we’re going round in circles’.

Indeed we were: once again the inquiry was pushing the lazy line that lockdown came too late and that the politicians were useless buffoons. Actually, they have been rather more impressive so far than the aides and civil servants.

Mr Keith tried to spear Hancock on the date he urged Boris Johnson to do lockdown. After the break for elevenses, Mr Hancock produced an exact hour for the very telephone call in which he claimed to have put this case. Mr Keith clearly doubted his honesty and made a couple of sarcastic digs about it.

During Mr Hancock’s six hours at the Covid Inquiry witness table, not a single rude word was said, though a few were implied

The former health secretary was combative, quick, competent, on top of the detail, and an easy match for the inquiry’s lead counsel and matinee idol manqué, Hugo Keith KC

But there were no flies on Hancock and he came back from the lunch break with another detailed piece of evidence, this time to rebut a Twitter claim from Mr Cummings that he was lying.

Mr Keith, serving, kept talking about theories being ‘promulgated’. Mr Hancock, not to be outdone, returned with the word ‘contradistinction’. Mr Keith tried to match the volley by saying ‘disinterested’ but he meant ‘uninterested’, which is something different. You’d expect a KC to know that. Advantage Mr Hancock.

What did we learn? Little. Save that Mr Hancock loathed The Man He Would Not Name. Mr Cummings was ‘a malign influence’ who had tried to seize executive decisions out of the hands of our elected PM. The proper systems had been ‘actively circumvented’ in ‘a power grab’.

In a way, we were back to the Thane of Cawdor.

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