 We learned some more details over the weekend about the more personal consequences of the sun splashing a photo of Matt Hancock snogging his aide. Part of that is that Hancock, as well as leaving his job, has left his family. The Sunday Times report that Hancock told his wife he was leaving her on Thursday evening immediately after he learned his affair was about to be exposed. He even woke up their youngest child, aged eight, to break the news. Martha Hancock had had no idea her husband was cheating on her with his university friend and had considered their marriage happy and stable. Now Matt Hancock left his wife to be with his now former aide who also left her husband over the weekend. Both parties had three children. Now sources quoted in the papers all agree that this is now a serious relationship between Matt Hancock and Gina Collodangelo. Her friend is quoted in the mail on Sunday describing them as a, quote, love match. However, there are conflicting accounts as to how long they've been together. So according to the Sunday Times, insiders believe the affair had been going on for months by the time the COVA video was recorded on May the 6th. That has been contradicted in the mail on Sunday. They quoted friends who said they'd only been seeing each other for six weeks. Now the timing here matters not just for the sake of, you know, it's interesting how long have they been together. How long has the affair been going on? But it also has some quite serious political ramifications because if they've been together for a long time, then it's quite possible that when Matt Hancock appointed Collodangelo to be an executive, a non-executive director of the Department of Health, they were already in a relationship. If they've only been together for six weeks, then obviously, you know, that wouldn't be the case. They were already close friends. In any case, it probably should have been declared, but it's obviously clearly more serious if they are in a romantic relationship and it was not declared. I mean, it's going to be difficult for us here and now to decide which one is true. You might think, though, that if you have left your wife and kids in the case of Matt Hancock or left your husband and kids in the case of Collodangelo, that would be a surprising thing to do if you've only been together for six weeks. So it's potentially more plausible that they have been together for a long time, which would raise the question of were they in a relationship when she was appointed to this well-paid and very significant role. Worth also saying that in any case, the simple fact Matt Hancock has left his wife to set up a life of his former aide has apparently annoyed local conservatives so much that insiders believe he could get deselected by West Suffolk members before the next general election that was in the times. To be honest, I'll believe that when I see it. Ash, I want your take on this, because some people might think, oh, you guys, you're dabbling in gossip. Why are you talking about Matt Hancock leaving his family on many levels, though, the relationship between Matt Hancock and Collodangelo and how serious it was, how long it has lasted does have some serious political ramifications, doesn't it? Well, yeah, it does. And the first thing I want to say is that people's personal lives are messy. None of us would like it if you went digging through decisions we've made and late night texts we've sent, something embarrassing would be in there. People are disgusting. That's just the way of the world. And so this isn't coming from a perspective of saying having an affair alone should disqualify you from high office, because I don't think that. What I do think is the really critical thing here is, did the nature of their relationship mean that there wasn't the correct oversight in hiring her in the first place? Because she had her parliamentary pass, not through Matt Hancock, but through Lord Bethel, through somebody else. There was no record of her appointment back in March. And then also you've got this question of what her role was as a non-executive board member at the Department of Health. It was to monitor and to scrutinize what was going on in the department. And that includes Matt Hancock himself. So one, that means that at any point, them having an affair means that she cannot be trusted to do the job that she has paid with taxpayers money to do. And two, if the affair was going on before she was hired and also before she had her role as an unpaid advisor to the Department of Health, well, then it means that there was deceit, that there was attempts to conceal the true nature of the hiring and why it might have been that Matt Hancock would have wanted her around. And also it would have concealed the fact that she cannot do, cannot be trusted to do the jobs that she's brought in specifically to do. And then you've also got this business of, you know, charmocracy, or as I just like to call it, corruption more generally, that you can get these lucrative contracts if you've simply got the mobile phone number of Matt Hancock or if you used to like run a pub that he liked to go to Gina Collard Angelo's case. It's well, maybe he fancied me since university. And here I am. I'm a director at what's it, Luther Pendragon. Is that the lobbying firm who represent amongst their clients, British Airways and Accenture, both who won contracts with the Department of Health during the pandemic? You know, it is this again, somebody who's got the right kind of relationship who's in the personal good books of the health secretary, getting unfettered and improper access in order to essentially squeeze a government department of taxpayer money so it can be funneled away to private interests. Right. And that's why the affair matters. It's not just about, you know, whether or not you consider somebody has an affair beyond the pale. It's actually about what is concealed within that whole tawdry cloud. In terms of what Luther Pendragon do, the Guardian in their description say they specialize in crisis and reputation management. So presumably she'll have a lot of work to do over the next couple of days.